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
Title: 'Normative Expectations' Abstract: In supplementing the familiar ways that our interpersonal relationships are morally fraught, recent work in epistemology on doxastic wronging has highlighted how these relationships can be epistemically fraught as well. However, in focusing predominantly on beliefs— mental states that arguably constitute a small fraction of our mental lives—these theories have their ... Read more
2021 Knox Lecture (online via Teams) Knox Lecturer: Tim Scanlon (Harvard University) Title: Further Reflections on Tolerance and its Difficulty Abstract: The paper revisits the account of tolerance discussed in the author’s paper, “The Difficulty of Tolerance,” with the aim of clarifying (1) the reasons people have to care about the character of their society ... Read more
Title: The Permissibility of Lesser Evil Abstract: Flood: Flood water is headed toward a cave where five innocent people are trapped and will be killed if the water reaches them. The water can be diverted into a mineshaft, but innocent Betty is trapped in the mineshaft and will be killed if the water is redirected. ... Read more
Title: 'Are We Entitled to Be Believed?' Abstract: Discussions in a variety of contexts (including at least epistemic injustice, moral encroachment, epistemic obligations of friendship) sometimes assume that speakers have a right or moral entitlement to be believed when they assert or testify that p: that they are wronged if their audience fails to believe them. It is controversial ... Read more
This will be a one-hour discussion of Scanlon's Knox Lecture, which can be viewed here: https://ceppa.wp.st-andrews.ac.uk/events/2021-knox-lecture-tim-scanlon-harvard-university/
https://millcup.wp.st-andrews.ac.uk/
Moral Philosophy Reading Group Description: This group reads and discusses an article per week, chosen by a different member each time. Day/time: Wednesdays 3pm to 4pm on Teams. Organizer: Theron Pummer (tgp4).
TITLE: ‘Interactional Wrongs and Vices’ ABSTRACT: This paper explores a domain of action that we often regard as a minor moral matter, the domain of ordinary interactions. Yet, ordinary interactions are morally significant for two reasons: they are the primary vehicle through which 1) we show respect and disrespect for each other, and 2) we ... Read more