Title: “Some people and the people” Abstract: When is an action, or a choice, or a desire, an action or choice or desire of the people, as opposed to being an action, or choice, or desire of some people? In this talk I consider eight possible answers to this question. I focus in particular on the idea that the ... Read more
Online Workshop Schedule Please email Matthew Vermaire <[email protected]> if you'd like the Zoom link. Friday April 9th: Justin Snedegar (University of St Andrews) / "Dismissing Blame" Abstract: When someone blames you, you might accept the blame or you might reject it, challenging the blamer’s interpretation of the facts, or providing a justification or excuse. Either ... Read more
Title: Distributing Commemorative Attention Abstract: Some of us get a lot of attention and some of us very little. This continues after we die. Some of our commemorative decisions are private but some of our commemorative attention is public: we are directed by monuments, commemorative plaques and scheduled occasions towards those we should commemorate. Much ... Read more
Title: On Photographic Wrongs Abstract: While ethicists have had little to say on the subject, people often feel wronged by the creation and dissemination of their photographic image. After describing several cases in which people have felt wronged by a photograph, I’ll go on to offer a taxonomy for thinking about these cases. Many of ... Read more
Title: Discrimination at the Border Abstract: In selecting among prospective immigrants, it is widely accepted that states are morally permitted to differentiate on the basis of skill. By contrast, differentiating among prospective immigrants on the basis of (perceived) traits such as race, ethnicity, or religion is widely held to amount to wrongful discrimination. I argue ... Read more
Title: 'Should Responsibility Affect Who Gets a Kidney?' Abstract: About 98,000 people in the US are waiting for a kidney transplant, but only around 20,000 kidneys become available each year. As a result, doctors sometimes have to decide who gets a kidney. Many people (though few medical providers) hold that, when two patients need the ... Read more
Title: 'Challenging the Pursuit of Novelty' Abstract: Novelty—understood as the value of saying something new—appears to be a good-making feature of a philosophical contribution. Beyond this, however, novelty functions as a marker of philosophical success: contributions that say something new are considered successful, while contributions that do not say something new are considered unsuccessful. When ... Read more