CEPPA Talk (in-person) – Viviane Fairbank (St Andrews and Stirling) & Jacob Librizzi (St Andrews)

Viviante Fairbank – The Responsible-Inquiry Model of Journalism

Abstract: On the traditional, so-called Informational Model of journalism, the primary role of journalism in a functioning democracy is to provide people with true information about a certain range of important topics. Although this model is appealing, I argue that it is unsatisfactory; importantly, it does not allow us to properly criticize those journalists who publish true, relevant, and useful information without proper warrant or ethical backing. After discussing two recent case studies, I argue that journalism is best understood as a distinctive kind of inquiry, and that this understanding of journalism should lead us to reject any simple, factive account of journalistic publication norms. I propose, instead, the Responsible-Inquiry Model of journalism, according to which the primary role of journalism in a functioning democracy is to provide people with responsibly gathered information while, in the process, serving as zetetic models. Good journalists do not only provide useful information; they also conduct (ethically and epistemically) exemplary inquiries into the subject at hand.

Jacob Librizzi – Why Metanormative Constitutivists Should be Voluntarists About Reasons

Abstract: For two decades, constitutivist accounts of reasons (CR) have faced the “Shm” (or Shmagency) challenge. I argue that responses so far have misunderstood this challenge. However, by interpreting CR as a form of voluntarism, we can render the “Shm” challenge question-begging. In doing so, we disarm the challenge once and for all.

Location: Edgecliffe G03 and online on teams