Edgecliffe 104

Title: Autonomy and control over one’s social self-consciousness Abstract: Humans have the capacity to absorb – to feel – others’ feelings. More particularly we feel others’ feelings about ourselves: at least as long as we are awake, we are subject to being self-consciously affected in our interactions with others. We are capable of social self-consciousness, and ... Read more

Title: The Incomparable Value of the Individual Abstract: Kant believed that every human being should be treated as an end in itself. In the Groundwork, Kant explains many of our duties by arguing that their violation would involve treating a human being as a mere means. But we cannot explain all of our duties that way. Nor ... Read more

Title: Hypocrisy as Evasion Abstract: Hypocrites attract moral condemnation and are widely thought to lack standing to criticise others. This paper argues against attempts to explain this that appeal to moral conditions on blaming and notions of moral authority, proposing instead an account based on a conception of moral interactions as fundamentally dialogical in character. According to ... Read more

Title: The Democratic Soul in Plato and Whitman Abstract: In Books II-IV of the Republic, Plato famously proposes an analogy between the constitution of the Greek city-state and the constitution of the human soul. The methodological assumption that underlies the architecture of the Republic is that philosophical questions about topics that we might today group under the heading ... Read more

Title: Multiple Aims of Science and the New Demarcation Problem Abstract: TBC Location: Edgecliffe G03

Title: Philosophical Challenges in Risk Communication of Rare and Severe Events Abstract: In this talk, I will discusses different philosophical challenges in communicating and dealing with the risk of rare and severe events. As a case study, I use avalanche risk: a form of voluntary risk taking in which the individual is often partly responsible ... Read more

Title: The Idea of Ancestry in African Philosophy Abstract: This paper concerns itself with the rationality of belief in ancestral existence. Although belief in ancestral existence remains widespread globally, I shall focus on a-thinned out version of African forms of this belief. ‘Thinned-out’ in that I am not interested in this or that substantive version of ... Read more

Title: Emotion-Based Environmental Ethics: The Radical Implications of Taking Wonder Seriously Abstract: In environmental ethics, we find many competing theories of environmental value, but little discussion of the epistemological grounds for believing one theory rather than another. Building on the framework of moral empiricism (which I’ve developed elsewhere), I propose an “Emotion-Based” methodology for environmental ethics. The ... Read more

You are warmly invited to the book launch for Bradley Hillier-Smith’s brand-new book The Ethics of State Responses to Refugees (abstract below). The author will be interviewed by Kieran Oberman (LSE), after which we will all be in the opportunity to ask questions and celebrate the new book with some well-deserved drinks. All welcome! Bradley Hillier-Smith: The Ethics of ... Read more

Title: Global Health Equity through Decolonizing Health Research Ethics in Africa: Leveraging Kwame Nkrumah’s Analysis of Neocolonialism. Abstract:Background: The foundational contention of this paper is that, arguably, the ultimate ethical goal of conducting health research among humans is to provide them with better health opportunities. Because of growing perceptions that ongoing international collaborative health research ... Read more