Intuitively, it’s clear that ‘wrong’ entails ‘ought not’; and the term ‘right’ seems simply to be the contradictory of ‘wrong’ (after all, ‘It’s not right’ seems at first glance to entail ‘It’s wrong’, and obviously nothing can be both right and wrong). But then it […] Read More
The UT-Austin philosophy department is pleased to announce a week-long graduate student workshop on philosophical methodology, August 12 – August 16. Possible workshop subtopics include (but are not limited to) intuition, conceptual analysis, reflective equilibrium, reduction, and ontological commitment. Already confirmed speakers include Julia Driver […] Read More
As I understand it, an obligation dilemma exists where an agent faces a choice situation in which two (or more) of her available act alternatives are morally obligatory and yet it is impossible for her to perform both of those two act alternatives. Does anyone […] Read More
Rumor has it that there’s a presidential election scheduled in the U.S. this fall, which raises the perennial ethical question: Is there a duty to vote? Harry Brighouse provides some excellent arguments for there not being such a duty, but here I’ll lay out a […] Read More
THICK CONCEPTS: University of Kent, Canterbury, UK 3rd-5th July, 2009.
Geoff Sayre-McCord chatting about free will, metaethics, and stuff HERE.
When teaching ethics courses, I often spend some time with students going over some of the relevant social psychological literature. Studies like the Milgram experimients, the Asch conformity experiments, and Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison Experiment are nice ways to show students, well, just how mean and […] Read More
Below the fold is the call for papers for this year’s Western Canadian Philosophical Association meetings. I thought it might be of some interest to the Soupers.
Why is Setiya’s principle vulnerable to the problems that I listed in my previous post? What exactly is the diagnosis? I suggest that the diagnosis is that there are in fact two sorts of reasons. These two sorts of reasons do not always coincide; and […] Read More