This week we will be discussing the first chapter from Jonathan Birch "The Edge of Sentience" called 'A walk along the edge'. Jonathan will be there as well. Location: Edgecliffe G03 and Teams Contact: [email protected]
Title: Debating proportionality at the edge of sentience Abstract: Can octopuses feel pain and pleasure? What about crabs, shrimps, insects or spiders? How do we tell whether a person unresponsive after severe brain injury might be suffering? When does a fetus in the womb start to have conscious experiences? Could there even be rudimentary feelings ... Read more
This week we will be discussing Byron Williston's article Climate Change and Radical Hope Location: Edgecliffe G03 and Teams Contact: [email protected]
Title: World on Fire: Climate, Extinction, Pandemic Location: Edgecliffe G03
This week, our visiting scholar B.V.E. Hyde (Leeds) will convene a special Work-in-Progress session on the topic of “Ethical Debates on Human Challenge Trials". Hyde will present for around 5 minutes, providing a short explainer on some of the ethical debates surrounding controlled human infection models, which are a type of clinical trial in which patients are directly ... Read more
Title: Welfare and Felt Duration Abtract: How should we understand the duration of a pleasant or unpleasant sensation, insofar as its duration modulates how good or bad the experience is overall? Given that we seem able to distinguish between subjective and objective duration and that how well or badly someone’s life goes is naturally thought ... Read more
This week we will discuss Tyler Cowen's 'What Do We Learn From The Repugnant Conclusion?'. Luca notes that if people find Section 3 hard to read, he is very happy to explain it at the MPRG. Additionally, he mentions that '(1) section 5 is not essential (but it is extremely fun) and (2) it is absolutely unnecessary to ... Read more
This talk is part of our series on Climate Ethics Title: The Ranked Range View Location: Edgecliffe G03 Abstract: The bad effects of climate change will affect, and be affected by, the number of people who will exist, and their quality of life. Thus, when evaluating our climate policies and actions, we need to know ... Read more
this week will have a Work in Progress session discussing Bradley Hillier-Smith's draft paper, 'The Egalitarian Case for Open Borders: Moral Arbitrariness'. Abstract: This paper argues that recent debates on egalitarian objections to immigration restrictions overlook a crucial, powerful normative principle that underpins objections to inequalities: any inequalities between morally equal persons - whether in goods, resources, welfare but also ... Read more
Title: Encroachment and epistemic negligence Abstract: In this talk, I argue that the moral duty of non-negligence is a fruitful way to understand and motivate the claim that moral reasons can ‘encroach’ on epistemic norms. More forcefully: we should readily affirm that on the epistemic norms governing agents like us—that is, who have limited cognitive ... Read more