Location: Edgecliffe G03 and Teams Title: What’s wrong with teaching our children to be good citizens? Abstract: Character education is a common part of schooling in the U.S. and U.K., and one popular argument in favour of character education is that it is conducive to producing citizens who have the virtues that make someone a ... Read more
Location: Edgecliffe G03 Title: "The Mind that Matters: Degrees of Sentience and Moral Status". Abstract: It is often argued that the capacity for conscious experience is necessary for a creature to morally matter for its own sake and thus have moral status. Entities that lack the capacity for consciousness, such as chairs, philosophical zombies, or anencephalic infants, ... Read more
Location: Edgecliffe G03 Title: Values as Vectors Abstract: Often, two things seem tied in value, though slightly improving one would not break the tie. How can we model such 'insensitivity to sweetening'? A leading answer is that overall values, rather than being like precise numbers, must be imprecise, giving rise to a special nontransitive value ... Read more
Location: Edgecliffe G03 Title: Scientism and Humanities Education Abstract: In this talk I discuss a pedagogical implication of scientism. Because scientism elevates science and derogates what is deemed non-scientific, the arts and humanities become, on such a view, less valuable parts of university curricula. I survey some of the current data on declining study of ... Read more
Location: School III in-person and Teams online (for online attendees, headphones should be worn to prevent a feedback loop from occurring) Title: Social Reproduction and the Politics of Care Abstract: For decades, socialist feminists have insisted that an adequate approach to any economy, and especially to capitalism, must involve attention to social reproduction, i.e., to “the activities ... Read more
The CEPPA Fest is a two-day conference featuring the work of seven prominent moral and political philosophers.
Panel on Climate Ethics at the Energy Ethics 2023 Conference.
Location: Edgecliffe 104 Title: Should hate speech be against the law? Abstract: Hate speech has become increasingly prevalent, fuelled by social media, political polarization, and the rise of extremist groups. It can have a profoundly negative impact on individuals and communities, causing harm, inciting violence, and perpetuating discrimination. However, hate speech is notoriously difficult to ... Read more
Title: Chance Prioritarianism Location: Teams (online only), and streamed from Edgecliffe G03 Abstract: I will defend what we could call survival chance prioritarianism, according to which the moral value of improving someone’s chance of surviving (some period) is greater the more likely the person was to die before the improvement. I motivate this view by ... Read more
Title: Compromises and Lesser-Evil Compromises in Ending Wars. Abstract: Contemporary conflicts often lack a clear end-state, posing challenges to the traditional notion of victory in just wars. This ambiguity calls for a revaluation of war’s objectives, suggesting that wars should end without a clear victory. In this paper, I will explore various moral and non-moral ... Read more