Past CEPPA Talks

2026 – 2027, Semester 1 Talks:

Week 0 (FRIDAY 11 Sep) – Alec Walen (Rutgers – New Brunswick), Punishment, Penalty, and Incapacitation
Week 1 (17 Sep) – Eilidh Beaton (Aberdeen), Paying Attention to Global Politics
Week 2 (24 Sep) – General meeting
Week 3 (1 Oct) – CEPPA FILM CLUB
Week 4 (8 Oct) – Matti Wilks (Edinburgh), Who is morally expansive?
Week 5 (15 Oct) – Scottish Aesthetics Forum x CEPPA – Alex Fisher (Leeds), QAnon, Crosswords, and Videogames: The Aesthetics and Ethics of Inquiry
Week 7 (29 Oct) – CEPPA FILM CLUB
Week 8 (5th Nov) – Danielle Bromwich (Leeds) and Joseph Millum (St Andrews)
Book panel on The Ethics of Consent
Week 8 (12 Nov) – Luca Stroppa (Turin), TBD
Week 9 (19 Nov) – Nick Wiltsher (St Andrews), Changing the Subject of Empathy
Week 10 (26 Nov) – Bradley Hillier-Smith (St Andrews), Artificial Intelligence, Basic Income, and Migration
Week 11 (3rd Dec) – CEPPA FILM CLUB

2025 – 2026, Semester 2 Talks:

Week 1 (29 Jan) – Miguel de la Cal Moreno, ‘Manufactured Disorientation and Climate Change’, Mario Bison, ‘How to think about empathy, and why’
Week 2 (5 Feb) – Viviane Fairbank, ‘The Responsible-Inquiry Model of Journalism’, Jacob Librizzi, ‘Why Metanormative Constitutivists Should be Voluntarists About Reasons’
Week 3 (12 Feb) – Enrico Galvagni (Edinburgh), ‘Hume’s One and Only Definition of Virtue’
Week 4 (19 Feb) – Yoshinari Hattori, ‘Why We Must Believe in Free Will and Moral Responsibility: Reconsidering Their Foundations’, Ida Miczke, ‘When love met morality: anonymity, irreplaceability, and partial self-effacement’
Week 5 (26 Feb) – Hector Omar Ruiz Rivera, ‘Moral Skill’
Week 6 (12 Mar) – Katie McShane (Colorado State University),‘Relational Value: Problems and Prospects’
Week 7 (19 Mar), afternoon – Book workshop with Remy Debes (University of Memphis), featuring Adam Etinson, Michael Cholbi (Edinburgh), and Emma Gordon (Glasgow)
Week 8 (26 Mar) – FILM CLUB: Office Space (1999) with Ben Sachs-Cobbe
Week 9 (2 Apr) – Kal Kalewold (Leeds), ‘Going First: Integration with Compensation as a Duty of Justice.’
Week 11 (16 Apr) – Matthew Vermaire (St Andrews), “Conflated Questions in the Ethics of Belief.”
Week 12 (23 Apr) – Jiewuh Song (Seoul National University), ‘The Right to a Healthy Environment and the Case of Climate Change.’
Week 13 (30 Apr), 4.30pm, FILM CLUB: Twister (1996) with Simon Lee (Earth & Environmental Sciences)
Week 15 (14 May, followed by seminar on 15 May) – Knox Lecture: Tommie Shelby (Harvard University)
Week 16 (21 May), 4.30pm – FILM CLUB: Tár (2022) with Ida Miczke
Week 17 (28 May), Richard Arneson (UC San Diego) – ‘Democratic Instrumentalism and the Threat of Authoritarianism’

2025 – 2026, Semester 1 Talks:

Week 1 (18 Sep), 4pm – Ben Colburn (Glasgow), ‘Moral Blackmail’
Week 2 (25 Sep), 4.30 pm – Film Club: Portrait of a Lady on Fire
Week 3 (2 Oct), 4pm- Federico Luzzi (Aberdeen), ‘Against Excellence as the Norm of Ambition’
Week 4 (9 Oct), 4pm – Michael Otsuka (Rutgers), ‘How nonexistence is worse for us’
Week 5 (16 Oct), 4.30pm – Film Club: The Witch
Week 7 (30th Oct), 4pm – Alice Murphy (St Andrews), ‘”Invasive” Species and the Aesthetics of Nature.’
Week 8 (Wed 5 Nov), 3.30pm – Climate Ethics, Extra event co-hosted with COASt and GRC – Andreas Malm and Wim Carton (Lund) on Overshoot
Week 8 (Thu 6 Nov), 4pm – Kian Mintz-Woo (Cork), ‘What do normative philosophers have to contribute to society?’
Week 9 (13 Nov), 4pm (online) – Ami Harbin (Oakland), ‘Co-forming feelings in therapy’
Week 10 (20 Nov), 4pm – Climate Ethics, Matthew Brander (Edinburgh)
Week 11 (27 Nov), 4.30pm – Film Club: His Girl Friday

2024 – 2025, Semester 2 Talks:

Week 2 (6 Feb) – in person and online – Philip Ebert (University of Stirling), ‘Philosophical Challenges in Risk Communication of Rare and Severe Events’
Week 3 (13 Feb) – John Henderson lecture room in Castlecliffe – Simon Lee (Earth & Environmental Sciences) and Viviane Fairbank (Philosophy), PhiCliSci: ‘Climate Modelling and Climate Communication’
Week 4 (20 Feb) – in person and online – Petronella Randell (St Andrews), ‘Resisting the unexperienced’
Week 5 (27 Feb) – in person and online – Katharina Bernhard (St Andrews), ‘Multiple Aims of Science and the New Demarcation Problem’
Week 6 (13 Mar) – in person and online – Daniela Dover (UCLA), ‘The Democratic Soul in Plato and Whitman’
Week 7 (20 Mar) – in person and online – Tom Sinclair (Oxford), ‘Hypocrisy as Evasion’
Week 8 (27 Mar) – Climate Ethics – Katherine Snow (Princeton), ‘Revisiting the Spinoza Controversy in an age of Environmental Crisis’
Week 9 (3 Apr) – online but live-streamed from Edgecliffe G03 – Christine Korsgaard (Harvard University), ‘The Incomparable Value of the Individual’
Week 11 (17 Apr) – in person and online – Lucy O’Brien (UCL), ‘Autonomy and control over one’s social self-consciousness’
Week 12 (24 Apr) – location TBA, Knox Lecture by David Enoch
Week 13 (1 May) – Carla Bagnoli (University of Modena and Reggio Emilia), ‘The powers of shared agency: a Kantian account of evil and hope’
Week 14 (8 May) Climate Ethics – Clotilde Torregrossa (St Andrews), ‘The (Aesthetic) Value of Environmental Activism’
Week 15 (15 May) – Vid Simoniti (University of Liverpool), ‘Merely Imagined Moralities: on the political (in)significance of perspectival worldmaking’

2024 – 2025, Semester 1 Talks:

Week 1 (19 Sep) – online but live-streamed from Edgecliffe G03 – Koshka Duff (Nottingham), ‘Strip-searching as Abjectification: Racism and Sexual Violence in British Policing’
Week 2 (26 Sep) Climate Ethics – in person and online – Derek Ball (St Andrews) & Caroline Touburg (Umeå University), ‘Philosophical Foundations of Green-House Gas Accounting’
Week 3 (3 Oct) – in person and online – Barry Maguire (Edinburgh), ‘Two Moralities of Recognition’
Week 4 (10 Oct) – in person and online – Adrian Walsh (University of New England), ‘Internal Validity, External Validity and the Evaluation of Thought Experiments in Applied Ethics and Political Philosophy’
Week 5 (17 Oct) – online but live-streamed from Edgecliffe G03 – Valerie Tiberius (Minnesota), ‘Happy Immoralists and Satisfied Loners: A Pragmatic Perspective on Disagreement about Well-being’
Week 7 (31 Oct) Climate Ethics – in person and online – Katharina Bernhard (St Andrews) and Graeme MacGilchrist (St Andrews), PhiCliSci: ‘Uncertainty’
Week 8 (7 Nov) – in person and online – Patrick Tomlin (Warwick University), ‘Killing vs Headaches: Wide Proportionality and Limited Aggregation’
Week 9 (14 Nov) – online but live-streamed from Edgecliffe G03 – John Barugahare (Makerere University), ‘Global Health Equity through Decolonizing Health Research Ethics in Africa: Leveraging Kwame Nkrumah’s Analysis of Neocolonialism.’
Week 10 (21 Nov) Climate Ethics – James Hutton (Delft): ‘Rebooting Environmental Ethics with Emotions: Wonder as a Sense of Nature’s Value’
Week 11 – in person and online – Katrin Flikschuh (LSE), ‘The Idea of Ancestry in African Philosophy’

2023 – 2024, Semester 2 Talks:

Week 1 (18 Jan) – online and streamed from Edgecliffe G03 – Selim Berker (Harvard), ‘Is there Anti-Fittingness?’
Week 2 (25 Jan) – Edgecliffe G03 – Thom Brooks (Durham), ‘Justice and the Problem of Alienation’
Week 3 (1 Feb) – Edgecliffe G03 – Jonathan Birch (LSE), ‘Debating proportionality at the edge of sentience’
Week 4 (8 Feb) Climate Ethics – Edgecliffe G03 – Mark Rowlands (Miami), ‘World on Fire: Climate, Extinction, Pandemic’
Week 5 (15 Feb) – Edgecliffe G03 – Andreas Mogensen (Oxford), ‘Welfare and Felt Duration’
Week 6 (22 Feb) Climate Ethics – Edgecliffe G03 – Luca Stroppa (St Andrews), ‘The Ranked Range View’
Week 7 (7 Mar) – online and streamed from Edgecliffe G03 – Renee Jorgensen (Michigan), ‘Encroachment and epistemic negligence’
Week 8 (14 Mar) – online and streamed from Edgecliffe G03 – Sergio Tenenbaum (Toronto), ‘Practical Reason and the Satisfaction of Desire’
Week 9 (21 Mar) – Edgecliffe G03 – Elad Uzan (Oxford), ‘Compromises and Lesser-Evil Compromises in Ending Wars’
Week 10 (28 Mar) Climate Ethics – Edgecliffe G03 – Quân Nguyen (Edinburgh), ‘Is despair about climate breakdown rational?’
Week 11 (4 Apr) – Edgecliffe G03 – John Broome (Oxford), ‘The continuum argument is invalid’
Week 12 (11 Apr) – Edgecliffe G03 – Michael Gill (Edinburgh), ‘Humean Existentialism and the Authoritative Ought’
Week 14 (25 Apr) – Edgecliffe G03 – Helen Frowe (Stockholm), ‘The Permissibility of Collective Defence Agreements’
Week 15 (2 May) Climate Ethics – Edgecliffe G03 – Bridget Bradley (St Andrews), “Ethical births, ethical deaths: Climate anxiety in Britain through the life course”.
Week 16 (9 May) – Edgecliffe G03 – Victor Tadros (Warwick) ‘Consent, Intent, and Communication’
Week 17 (16 May) – Edgecliffe G03 – Neil Sinhababu (Singapore), ‘Pleasure Fundamentalism’
Week 20 (6 June) – Edgecliffe G03 – Sophie Grace Chapell (Open University), Book talk on ‘Trans Figured’

Other CEPPA events

17-19 April – Global Priorities Institute (Oxford) visits CEPPA
16 May – Book workshop for Dan Muñoz (UNC Chapel Hill), on his forthcoming book What We Owe Ourselves (OUP).
21-22 May – Knox Lecture and Seminar – Elizabeth Anderson (Michigan)
29-30 May – Climate Justice workshop
5 June – CEPPAFest (programme TBA)

2023 – 2024, Semester 1 Talks:

Week 1 (14 Sep) – online but live-streamed from Edgecliffe G03 – Frances Kamm (Rutgers), ‘Supererogation’
Week 2 (21 Sep) Climate Ethics – in person – Simon Hope (Stirling) – ‘Climate Change as a Philosophical Problem’, Commentator: Quân Nguyen (Edinburgh)
Week 3 (28 Sep) – Edgecliffe G03 – Carl Mildenberger (Zurich), ‘The Quest for Additionality’
Week 4 (5 Oct) – online and streamed from Edgecliffe G03 – Paulina Sliwa (Vienna) and Tom McClelland (Cambridge), ‘On seeing women as objects: objectification and affordance perception’
Week 5 (12 Oct) – Edgecliffe G03 – Joel Joseph (St Andrews), ‘Eliminative Harming without Intentions’
Week 7 (26 Oct) Climate Ethics – Edgecliffe G03 – Alex Douglas (St Andrews) – ‘Positive interest rates block green transitions, and there is no compelling reason not to fix the interest rate at zero’, Commentator: Carl Mildenberger (Zurich)
Week 8 (2 Nov) – online and streamed from Edgecliffe G03 – Orri Stefánsson (Stockholm), ‘Chance Prioritarianism’
Week 9 (9 Nov) – online and streamed from Edgecliffe G03, Lara Buchak (Princeton), ‘Faith, Authority, and Epistemic Communities’
Week 10 (16 Nov) Climate Ethics – Edgecliffe G03 – Cristina Richie (Edinburgh), ‘Green Bioethics: Environmental Sustainability and Health Care’, Commentator: Joseph Millum (St Andrews)
Week 11 (23 Nov) – Edgecliffe G03 – Oskari Sivula (University of Turku), ‘Is the Future a Utility Monster?’
Week 14 (14 Dec) – online – Matthew Liao (NYU), ‘Threshold Deontology’

2019 – 2020, Semester 2 Talks:

Wednesday 5th February, 2019 – Gordon Graham (Princeton) from 11am – 12:30pm in Edgecliffe G03 – Democracy, Authority, and God
Wednesday 19th February, 2020 – Cécile Fabre (Oxford) from 11am – 12:30pm in Edgecliffe G03 – Military Intervention in Inter-State Conflicts

2019 – 2020, Semester 1 Talks:

Thursday 12th September, 2019 – Daniel Munoz (Monash) from 2pm to 3:30pm in Edgecliffe 104 – Three Paradoxes of Supererogation
Wednesday 18th September, 2019 – Hud Hudson (Western Washington University) from 11am – 12:30pm in Edgecliffe G03 – Iblis, Abraham, and Teleological Suspensions
Monday 23th September 2019 – Krister Bykvist (Stockholm) 11am – 12:30pm Edgecliffe 104 – Taking Values Seriously
Wednesday 25th September, 2019 – Kristoffer Ahlstrom‐Vij (Birkbeck College, University of London) from 11am – 12:30pm in Edgecliffe G03 – Did the 2016 Referendum Reflect the ‘Will of the People’?
Wednesday 2nd October, 2019 – Andrew Mason (Warwick) from 11am – 12:30pm in Edgecliffe G03 – When are Appearance Norms Unjust?
Wednesday 9th October, 2019 – Tommy Curry (Edinburgh) from 11am to 12:30pm in Edgecliffe G03 – Ad Limen Homini: Caricatures of Man within the Schema of Racial Disposability
Wednesday 16th October, 2019 – Vanessa Wills (George Washington University) from 11am – 12:30pm in Edgecliffe G03 – Black Woman Marxists on Race, Gender, and Class
Wednesday 6th November, 2019 – Serena Parekh (Northeastern) – from 11am to 12:30 pm in Edgecliffe G03 – Global Refugee Crisis as a Structural Injustice
Friday 8th November, Joe Horton (UCL) from 14:00 – 15:30 in Edgecliffe G03 – Existential Complaints
Wednesday 13th November 2019 – Thomas Schmidt (Humboldt University, Berlin) from 11am – 12:30pm in Edgecliffe G03 – Moral Obligation, Moral Reasons, and Supererogation
Wednesday 20th November 2019 – Brad Hooker (Reading) from 11am – 12:30pm in Edgecliffe G03 – Are Deep Personal Relationships Elements of Well-Being?
Thursday 5th December, 2019 – Tom Simpson (Oxford) Political leadership, trust, and the Overton window from 2pm – 3:30pm in Edgecliffe G03 – Political Leadership, Trust, and the Overton Window

2018 – 2019, Semester 2 Talks:

Friday 8th February – Sunday, 10th February, 2019 – 2nd CEPPA Graduate Conference in Moral and Political Philosophy in Edgecliffe 104
Wednesday 13th February, 2019 – Jeffrey Howard (UCL) from 11am -12:30pm in Edgecliffe 104 – The Deep Morality of Free Speech
Thursday 7th March, 2019 – Helen Frowe (Stockholm) 4.30pm-6pm in Edgecliffe 104 – Rhodes Must Fall: Obligations to Remove Cultural Artefacts
Wednesday 13th March, 2019 – Hilary Greaves (Oxford) – from 11am to 12.30pm, in Edgecliffe 104 – The Case for Longtermism
Tuesday 16th April, 2019 – Remy Debes (Memphis) 4.15-5.45pm Edgecliffe 104 – As You See It: Human Dignity and Agential Perspective
Wednesday 17th April 2019 – Michael Otsuka (LSE) 10.15am to 11.45am in Edgecliffe 104 – Does the valuation of USS rest on a ‘large and demonstrable mistake’?: an informal discussion
Monday 22nd April 2019 – Jeff McMahan (Oxford) 5pm to 6.30pm in Edgecliffe 104 – Against Collective Responsibility
Wednesday 24th April, 2019 – Roger Crisp (Oxford) from 11.30am to 1pm in Edgecliffe 104 – Pessimism about the Future
Monday, 29th April, 2019 – Edwin Curley (Michigan) from 7pm to 9pm in the Brockway Room of Conway Hall in London (further details here) – Spinoza, the Enlightenment, and Religious Liberty
Wednesday 15th May, 2019 – Julia Nefsky (Toronto) 11am to 12.30pm in Edgecliffe 104 – Climate Change and Inefficacy: A Dilemma for the Expected Utility Approach, and the Need for an Imperfect View
Tuesday 21st May, 2019 – Knox Lecture – Susan Wolf (UNC) – from 5.15pm to 6.45pm in School III – Criticizing Blame
Wednesday 22nd May, 2019 – Knox Seminar – Susan Wolf (UNC) – from 11am to 12.30pm in Edgecliffe 104 – Criticizing Blame
Friday 24th May, 2019 – Paul Weithman (Notre Dame) – from 2pm to 3.30pm in Edgecliffe 104 – An Inconsistency in Political Realism?
Friday 31st May, 2019 – Johann Frick (Princeton) – from 3pm to 4.30pm in Edgecliffe 104 – Moral Dilemmas, Moral Outcome Luck, and the Two Faces of Morality
Thursday 6th June, 2019 – JS Mill Cup

2018 – 2019 Semester 1 Talks:

Wednesday 26 September, 2018- Cheshire Calhoun (Arizona) – 4.30 – 6pm in Edgecliffe 104
Wednesday 3rd October 2018 – Mette High (Social Anthropology, St Andrews) 11am-12.30pm in Edgecliffe 104
Wednesday 10th October, 2018 – Jonathan Coffey (BBC) 11am to 12.30pm in Edgecliffe 104
Wednesday 7 November, 2018 – Rowan Cruft (Stirling) from 11am to 12.30pm in Edgecliffe 104
Wednesday 14th Nov, 2018 – Elizabeth Cripps (Edinburgh) from 4:30pm to 6pm in Edgecliffe 104

2017-18 Semester 2 Talks:

Week 2: Larry Temkin (Rutgers): (Philosophy Society Talk) Monday 5 Feb, 8-9:30pm in Arts Lecture Theatre and (CEPPA Talk) Tuesday 6 Feb, 4.30pm-6pm in Edgecliffe 104
Week 3: Saturday and Sunday 17-18 Feb CEPPA Graduate Conference (Edgecliffe 104)
Week 4: Sophie Grace Chappell (Open): Wednesday 21 Feb, 11am-12:30pm in Edgecliffe 104
Week 8: Alexander Prescott-Couch (Oxford): Monday 2 April, 4-5:30pm in Edgecliffe 104 and Sam Rickless (UCSD): Thursday 5 April, 5-6:30pm in Edgecliffe 104
Week 8: Panel discussion at the Edinburgh Science Festival Thursday 5 April, 5:30pm Main Hall, Summerhall, Edinburgh
Week 9: Teresa Bejan (Oxford): Tuesday 10 April, 5.30pm to 7pm in Edgecliffe 104
Week 10: CEPPA/Philosophy Society Talk by Daniel Weinstock (McGill) Monday 16 April, 4:30pm to 6pm at the Quaker Meeting House on 2 Howard Place
Week 12: Paton Colloquium, Wednesday 2 May, in St Mary’s Quadrangle, South Street (talks begin at 10am)
Week 13: Dhananjay Jagannathan (Columbia): Tuesday 8 May, 4-6pm in Edgecliffe G03 and Human Rights Conference (International Relations): Thursday and Friday 10-11 May (from 10.15 Thurs and 9.30am Fri) in the Byre Theatre Studio
Week 15 2018 Knox Lecture: Melissa Lane (Princeton): Monday 21 May 5:15-6:45pm in School III
Week 16 Jason Raibley (CSU Long Beach) 28 May 4-5:30pm Arts Lecture Theatre
Week 17 Jonathan Coffey (BBC) 4 Jun 12:30-2pm Parliament Hall
Week 17 JS Mill Cup: Wednesday 6 June, 12 noon to 7pm in Schools I through VI
Week 18 Geoff Sayre-McCord (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) 12 Jun 2-3:30pm Edgecliffe 104
Week 20 Andrew Cullison (The Janet Prindle Institute for Ethics at DePauw University) 29th June 4:15 – 5:45pm Edgecliffe 104
Week 23 Leif Wenar (King’s College London) 20th July 1.30pm – 3pm in Edgecliffe 104

For details of past events, please see Conferences and Symposia, Knox Lectures, Philosophy and Policy Lectures, Paton Lectures & Colloquia, and Cook Lectures.

2017-18 Semester 1 Talks:

Victor Tadros (Warwick) – (with comments by Joe Horton of UCL) 24 Oct 2017, 4-6pm Edgecliffe 104
Carlos Fraenkel (McGill) – 2nd Nov 2017, 4:30-6pm Edgecliffe G03
Elinor Mason (Edinburgh) – 15 Nov 2017, 11-1pm Edgecliffe 104
Fiona Woollard (Southampton) – 22 Nov 2017, 4:30-6pm Edgecliffe 104 and (Philosophy Society Talk) 23rd Nov 2017 1-2pm Arts Lecture Theatre
Tim Mulgan (Auckland/St Andrews) – 29 Nov 2017, 11-12.30pm, Edgecliffe 104
Tom Simpson (Oxford) – 4 Dec 2017, 4:30-6pm Edgecliffe 104

Past Talks:

Geoff Sayre-McCord (UNC)
- ‘On a Theory of a Better Morality and a Better Theory of Morality’, CEPPA Talk on Tuesday, 4 Oct 2016 from 6:05pm to 7:35pm in Edgecliffe 104.
Jeff McMahan (Oxford)
- ‘Doing Good and Doing the Best’, Philosophy Society Talk on Thursday, 3 Nov 2016 from 7:45pm to 9:30pm (with comments by Theron Pummer) in School III, St Salvator’s Quad.
- ‘Could Our Eating Animals Be Good For Them?’, CEPPA Talk on Friday, 4 Nov 2016 from 4:15pm to 5:45pm in Edgecliffe 104 (followed by reception).
Caspar Hare (MIT)
- ‘The Paradox of Infinite Distrust’, Philosophy Society Talk on Monday, 23 Jan 2017 from 8pm to 9:30pm in the Arts Lecture Theatre.
- ‘Rational Gifts’, CEPPA Talk on Tuesday, 24 Jan 2017 from 4:15pm to 5:45pm in Edgecliffe G03.
Paulina Sliwa (Cambridge)
- ‘Into the Frying Pan: The Power of Excuses’, CEPPA Talk on Tuesday, 28 March 2017 from 4:15pm to 5:45 pm in the Arts Lecture Theatre.
David Brink (UCSD)
- ‘Partial Responsibility’, Philosophy Society Talk on Thursday, 13 April from 7:30pm to 9pm in the Auditorium at the Byre Theatre.
- ‘Special Concern, Prudence, and Personal Identity’, CEPPA Talk on Friday, 14 April 2017 from 4:15pm to 5:45pm in Edgecliffe G03 (followed by reception).
Peter Singer (Princeton)
- ‘Living Ethically in the 21st Century’, 2017 Knox Lecture, 24 May 2017 from 5.15pm to 6.45pm in the Buchanan Lecture Theatre.

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