2023- 2024
Fall and Winter
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September 8, 2023 What Do We Owe Each Other? |
In a duly famous article, "Famine, Affluence, and Morality,"Utilitarian philosopher Peter Singer defends the following principle:"if it is in our power to prevent something very bad from happening, without thereby sacrificing anything of comparable moral significance, we ought to do it." While seemingly uncontroversial, the principle has far-reaching consequences. Many of us can forgo luxuries without losing anything of moral significance, thus we should be giving those resources to those who live in poverty. In this presentation, O'Hagan will outline Singer's argument and then invite the audience to participate in small group discussions., followed by the usual Q&A. The discussion will help us develop our own thinking on the broader question, 'what do we owe each other?' "For those interested, Singer’s paper can be found here: |
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October 13, 2023 Musical Ontology: Works, Versions, and Lineages
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Musical works, such as Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5 in C minor, are philosophically puzzling entities. The main reason for this is the phenomenon of musical multiplicity, the fact that there can be multiple performances of a given musical work, none of which can be individually identified with it. Moreover, simple attempts to accommodate multiplicity by identifying works with structural types or kinds run afoul of musical flexibility, the fact that there can be structurally different performances of any given work. Finally, whatever relation between works and performances one endorses, an adequate account of musical works also needs to explain musical audibility, the fact that one can hear a work by means of listening to performances which are distinct from it. In this talk, a number of common theories of musical works are shown to run into insuperable difficulties and an alternative which avoids these problems is defended. |
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November 10th, 2023 Understanding and Resisting Epistemic Injustice |
Epistemic injustices are wrongs incurred on individuals in their capacity as knowers in society. This talk will draw upon Miranda Fricker’s Epistemic Injustice: Power and the Ethics of Knowing to briefly explain the two sorts of injustices outlined in this book: testimonial injustice, where an individual's testimony is not adequately valued due to their social position, and hermeneutical injustice, where a gap in society's shared conceptual resources prevents one from being understood. The second part of the talk aims to demonstrate that certain cases of religious offense give rise to situations that should be classified as instances of epistemic injustice. |
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November 24th, 2023 Adorno’s Hamlet Problem: Modelling the Reflective Individual |
Adorno’s work testifies to a career-long interest for what he, along many others, termed the ‘Hamlet problem’. In short, the Hamlet problem refers in a very basic sense to Prince Hamlet’s hesitation to avenge the murder of this father. Needless to say, interpretations of this issue abound. Adorno, for his part, proposes a surprising and characteristically paradoxical interpretation of this problem. Indeed, he refers to Hamlet, the character, as the prototype of the reflective individual and claims that Hamlet, the play, “is as much the protohistory of the individual in its subjective reflection as it is the drama of the individual who, in the course of their action, is paralyzed by that reflection.” In this paper, I will argue that to make sense of this complex and somewhat mysterious claim, one needs to read the play as a kind of modelling of one constitutive feature of the modern individual, namely reflectivity. |
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December 8, 2023 What exactly is the ethics of care? |
Care ethics is widely understood as concerned with determining which care practices and values will best allow us to maintain and reproduce ourselves and our worlds. This talk challenges this conceptualization of care ethics, and instead contends that the ethics of care is better conceived of as a commitment to an iterative process of decentring the self to know the other. I discuss epistemic resources that help us with this decentring – our bodies, imagination, and humility – and show that it is through this difficult work that we come to revise and enrich our understandings of care (as both value and practice) in an ongoing way. |
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January 12, 2023 Why Should We Trust Scientists? |
Science and scientists have been subjected to increasing public distrust in recent years, worryingly so for many of us during the recent COVID-19 pandemic. Reflecting on whether, when and why we should trust scientists thus seems more important than ever. Drawing on the work of philosopher of science Helen Longino, in this talk I explore why even though scientists individually are just as worthy of distrust as non-scientists, we can locate the real objectivity of science in its social nature and structure. This shows us why trusting science makes sense and why it is a mistake to view scientific disagreement as a ground for distrust. |
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February 9, 2023 Free Will and Mad Scientists |
Do humans have free will, or are humans determined to act as they do? Compatibilists say both; humans are determined to act as they do, but they are still free because they want to act as they do, and are guided by reasons they endorse. The manipulation argument against compatibilism introduces a mad scientist who tweaks our brains such that we not only act as the scientist wishes, but he also makes us want to act this way, and be guided by reasons we endorse. 'Surely we cannot still be free in this case?', or so says the manipulation argument. In this talk I consider, and ultimately reject, various compatibilist responses to the manipulation argument. |
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March 8, 2023 What Is the Anthropocene? Philosophical Perspectives |
In a scientific note published in 2000, Paul Crutzen and Eugene Stoermer proposed that a new marker be added to the geologic calendar: the Anthropocene. While the post- glacial epoch, the Holocene, was characterized by the relative stability of Earth's systems, they argued that the impact of anthropogenic activity on our planet's systems now warranted the introduction of a new geologic epoch. As we know, their proposal has since sparked intense debates in the Earth science community. But their proposal was also to have a deep impact well beyond the confines of that community. Indeed, the concept of the Anthropocene seems to have acquired a life of its own. It has gained tremendous currency in the public and has been appropriated in a wide array of academic disciplines. So what does this concept actually mean? Should it be viewed as a properly geologic concept? Is the fate of this concept tied to its adoption in geology? What motivates its widespread appropriation? Are there reasons to worry about the bounds of its legitimate use? These are some of the questions I will examine in my talk. |
2022- 2023
Term 2 Only
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What's So Great About Gratitude? |
Many claims are made about the value of gratitude. In this talk, I will briefly outline some characterizations of gratitude in moral life in Western philisophical tradition. Turning to contemporary views, I'll distinguish between two different kinds of gratitude: gratitude to persons (for example, one's loyal friend), and gratitude for the conditions one finds oneself in (for example, for having a warm winter coat on a cold day). Are these different kinds of gratitude related? If not, are they both actually kinds of gratitude? I'll suggest that they are conceptually related, but they play different roles in the development in character and virtue. |
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Can Psychedelics Really Make People Better?
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Scientific evidence of the potential of psychedelic drugs for the treatment of a variety of mental health conditions abounds. Data suggests that psychedelic use is associated with lowered risks of criminality and anti-social behaviors. And there is a long history of the religious and ritual use of these substances around the world. The positive transformative power of psychedelic experience seems well supported by these facts, which further suggests that psychedelics have the capacity to make people better, both in terms of health and morality. In this talk I explore some ways we might account for this and suggest a role that the aesthetic aspects of psychedelic experience might play in its transformtion. |
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Fame, Heroes, Memory, and the Stories We Tell |
The heroes of the past sought fame as a means of securing both personal glory and an enduring place in history. We can understand this quest for narrative immortality as a manifestation of the human existential struggle for permanence of identity against the oblivion of time and memory. It can also be an attempt to assert agency into a future in which one no longer participates. This talk explores some of the motivations for fame and recognition, as well as its futility. |
2021- 2022
Cancelled due to Covid -19
2020- 2021
Cancelled due to Covid -19
2019- 2020
| Sep. 13 | Will Buschert "Affective Computing: The Last Frontier of Privacy?" (Prof, Philosophy) Information technology is threatening our privacy!” By now most of us are familiar with the idea – maybe so much so that we have become numb to it. But when we think of technological threats to privacy what seems to come to mind for most people is threats to data privacy (meaning, roughly, privacy regarding what can be known about our identity, location, or actions). Yet machines are also becoming increasingly good at inferring things about our emotions and dispositions – things that, for most of our history as a species, could at least sometimes be effectively hidden ‘inside our heads’. So-called “affective computing” technologies use facial microexpressions, eye movement, gait, galvanic skin response, and other factors in order to recognize and interpret human emotions. In this talk I argue that these technologies constitute a threat to our emotional (but not only emotional) privacy and that this threat is particularly revealing about why we value privacy in the first place. |
| Oct. 11 | Tate Williams “A Defense of Belief Without Evidence” (MA Student, Philosophy) Do our beliefs need evidence to be rational? I will argue that there is an important subset of knowledge which is rational and not dependent on evidence: trusting in testimony. After defending this position I will explore what it is that makes a person or institution trustworthy and how this information might improve our communities. |
| Nov. 8 | Emer O’Hagan “Buddhist Reflections on Forgiveness” (Prof, Philosophy) The phrase “forgive and forget” suggests that in forgiveness we wipe the slate clean, and let go of anger or resentment concerning a misdeed. Contemporary Western philosophers typically hold that forgiveness is nothing like forgetting on the grounds that forgetting is passive, and compatible with a failure to acknowledge the wrongness of misdeed. Buddhist philosophy, by contrast, has room for an account of forgiveness that is much closer to ‘virtuous forgetting’. Because Buddhist philosophy takes anger to be a dangerous moral emotion, it emphasizes practices for overcoming anger at significant wrongs that challenge Western views. In this talk I will outline the competing views, some problems with these views, and open things up for discussion. |
| Dec. 13 |
Glen Luther “Police Street Checks as a Roadblock to a Free and Inclusive Saskatchewan” (Prof, Law) |
| Jan. 10 | Dwayne Moore "Is The World Getting Better or Worse?" (Prof, Philosophy) Is life getting better or worse for humans? When polled on such questions, Hans Rosling points out that humans usually perform worse than chimpanzees. For example, when polled on whether the proportion of the world’s population living in extreme poverty has increased, decreased or stayed the same over the past thirty years, only ten percent correctly answer that it has decreased. In this talk I outline some data suggesting human life is getting better, as well as considering data suggesting it is getting worse. I then offer some considerations about why we tend to think life is getting worse, when it is actually getting better. |
| Feb. 14 | Pierre-Francois Noppen “What is Socialism? The Past and the Future of an Ideal” (Prof, Philosophy) Whatever happened to socialist ideals? Have they been definitively discredited by failed historical attempts at giving them a consistent form, or by the success of market-based regimes? It now seems that the Great Recession and its aftermath have rekindled an interest for socialism, both in academia and in the public sphere. In this talk, I will examine some recent perspectives on the idea of socialism in light of its history. |
| Mar. 13 |
CANCELLED Sarah Hoffman “Enlightenment and Intoxication” (Prof, Philosophy) Can intoxication be a path to enlightenment? Intoxication is often conceived as a form of impairment or incapacity, a state that actually impedes knowledge. But there are also long traditions in human thought that associate states of intoxication with special knowledge and access to realms of the world not otherwise available. In this talk I will consider intoxication as a concept, and a state, draw out what generates these conflicting views of intoxication's epistemological status, and explore some reasons for thinking that the positive view of intoxication may have something important right. |
2018- 2019
| Sep. 9 | "Is Life Absurd?"
Professor Emer O'Hagan |
| Oct. 14 | "Positivism vs. Realism: Psychology's Struggle for Scientific Status"
Professor Valery Chirkov |
| Nov. 11 | "Magical Thinking, Anger and Forgiveness: Reflections on Nussbaum’s Anger and Forgiveness: Resentment, Generosity, Justice" Erin Delathouwer (College of Education, University of Saskatchewan) Martha Nussbaum urges us to consider how magical thinking fuels anger. She suggests that even when anger is well-grounded, its justification is often rooted in magical thinking, which makes anger irrational. Further, to the extent that anger is irrational, forgiveness too (at least, forgiveness of the transactional sort) is irrational. The common idea here is that both anger and forgiveness are motivated by payback wishes and down-ranking of relative status. Payback wishes are problematic insofar as they result from a belief in a kind of “cosmic balance”. Down-ranking behaviours are similarly grounded in unjustified, irrational, beliefs about the relative status, or unequal value, of persons. Therefore, neither anger nor forgiveness seem fully justifiable. And yet, insofar as forgiveness can propel relationships forward – even begin to heal wounds of oppression – it must be justifiable under at least some circumstances. Might anger, too, be justifiable when it is forward looking – when it is not focused on payback? Nussbaum argues that a very specific kind of anger – Transition Anger – is justifiable. Transition Anger stands apart from our ordinary concept of anger, and describes the kind of anger that propels interactions aimed at greater justice in an unjust world. As compelling as Nussbaum’s view of anger is, I’m left wondering if it is ‘magical thinking’ that leads us astray. Indeed, even Transition Anger, which moves us to possibly successful actions aimed at a more just world, seems to find its justification in some form of magical thinking. In this talk, I will sketch Nussbaum’s argument and articulate some of its formidable strengths, as well as a possible shortcoming. |
| Dec. 9 | "Are We Living in a Post-Truth Society?" Professor Susan Dieleman A series of recent articles in venues like The New York Times and The Economist have either heralded or pushed back against the idea that we are living in a "post-truth society" where the public have neither the time nor the taste for facts and evidence. Brexit and Trump campaigns in particular have been identified as harbingers of a new political era characterized by "misinformation." In this presentation, I examine what commentators mean by "post-truth society," investigate whether there is any merit to the claim that we now live in such a society, and explore whether we should be doing anything about it. |
| Jan. 13 | "Do I Love You Because You’re Beautiful, or Are You Beautiful Because I Love You?" Professor Dwayne Moore This question, from Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella, captures the deep divide in classical theories of love. According to the Erosic model of love, “I love you because you’re beautiful,” or, the lover appraises the value of the beloved. According to the Agapic model, “You’re beautiful because I love you,” or, the lover bestows value onto the beloved. Both models correctly capture certain intuitions about the nature of love, but are also defective in other respects. I will survey the strengths and weaknesses of both theories, and consider the merits of various compromise positions. |
| Feb. 10 | "Women’s Libbers and Radical Mothers: Indigenous Feminism during the Second Wave" Professor Sarah Nickel When did Indigenous women become feminists and what did that look like? What can 20th century Indigenous women’s political organizations tell us about Indigenous feminism and the nature of Indigenous politics? Here, I will explore the ways in which Indigenous women in the 1960s-1980s combatted their unique gendered and racialized political suppression through interactions with mainstream second wave feminism and the male-dominated Indigenous rights movement. |
| Mar. 10 | "Sex Robots: The Good, the Bad, and the Weird"
Professor Will Buschert In this talk I’ll be exploring some of the moral implications of (highly anthropomorphic, socially interactive, possibly artificially intelligent) sex robots. Some experts predict that such robots are a near-future possibility. According David Levy, for instance, by 2050 sex robots will be commonplace and socially accepted. And, at least on Levy’s analysis, this will be a good thing in that they will provide sexual and emotional gratification to millions of people who, for whatever reason, are unable or unwilling to enter into real life intimate relationships. Others are not nearly so optimistic. For instance, Kathleen Richardson and other proponents of the Campaign Against Sex Robots argue that sex robots ought to be outlawed, on the grounds that they will reinforce the objectification of women and children and replicate essentially exploitative client-john relationships. In my view, there may be no easy answers in this domain, but we probably can’t avoid asking the questions. |
2017 - 2018
| Sep. 8 | "Is Chatting Cheating?"
Professor Sarah Hoffman In a much discussed article, John Portmann argues that rather than facilitating a new way to have sex online erotic chat rooms simply allow for a new way to talk about sex. Chatting, according to Portmann is thus not cheating. This raises interesting questions about the nature of sexual and romantic fidelity as well as the metaphysics of sex itself. What are the aspects of sex that make cheating or adultery morally problematic? Even if sex chatting has more in common with flirting than sexual intercourse, are these parallels enough to conclude that sex chatting outside of marriage is really no more morally objectionable than flirting? |
| Oct. 6 | "What’s so great about modesty?"
Professor Emer O'Hagan When we describe someone as "modest" we seem to be paying them a complement, acknowledging a morally admirable character trait. But what is it that makes modesty a virtue, and what exactly is modesty? In this talk I will discuss several competing accounts of modesty, and some objections to them. I will conclude by outlining my own position on modesty, and open things up for discussion. |
| Nov. 10 | "Just Kidding - Philosophical Reflections on Humour"
Professor Peter Alward In this talk, I will consider a number of philosophical issues concerning humour. First, I will discuss the nature of humour and how jokes differ from regular speech. Second, I will consider under what circumstances offensive speech can be excused by pointing out that the speaker was joking. And finally, I will address the question of whether and why it can be appropriate for an insider to make a joke targeting his or her community but inappropriate for an outsider to tell the same joke. |
| Dec. 8 | "Reflections on the nature of psychological autonomy: Is it possible to be free in the unfree world?" Professor Valery Chirkov |
| Jan. 12 | Professor Erika Dyck (Department of History, Canada Research Chair in the History of Medicine, University of Saskatchewan) TBA |
| Feb. 9 | "Prejudice, Stereotypes, and Credibility: Understanding Epistemic Injustice"
Professor Susan Dieleman We tend to think that prejudices and stereotypes are ethically problematic, but recent philosophical work has suggested that they are likely to be epistemologically problematic as well. In this talk, I will introduce the concept of "epistemic injustice," which refers to the phenomenon of being wronged in one's capacity as a knower, and explore its epistemological, ethical, and political implications. |
| Mar. 9 | "Are Emotions Irrational?"
Professor Dwayne Moore Ken is afraid of flying, even though he knows it is safe. Jen is falling for John, even though she knows he isn't right for him. Are emotions irrational? Is there a great chasm between the heart and the head? Or, perhaps emotions are rational? Perhaps the heart has its own reasons? In this talk, I will briefly define 'rational', and then assess whether emotions are rational or not according to this definition. I conclude that emotions bear marks of both rationality and irrationality. |
2016 - 2017
| Sep. 9 | "Is Life Absurd?"
Professor Emer O'Hagan |
| Oct. 14 | "Positivism vs. Realism: Psychology's Struggle for Scientific Status"
Professor Valery Chirkov |
| Nov. 11 | "Magical Thinking, Anger and Forgiveness: Reflections on Nussbaum’s Anger and Forgiveness: Resentment, Generosity, Justice" Erin Delathouwer (College of Education, University of Saskatchewan) Martha Nussbaum urges us to consider how magical thinking fuels anger. She suggests that even when anger is well-grounded, its justification is often rooted in magical thinking, which makes anger irrational. Further, to the extent that anger is irrational, forgiveness too (at least, forgiveness of the transactional sort) is irrational. The common idea here is that both anger and forgiveness are motivated by payback wishes and down-ranking of relative status. Payback wishes are problematic insofar as they result from a belief in a kind of “cosmic balance”. Down-ranking behaviours are similarly grounded in unjustified, irrational, beliefs about the relative status, or unequal value, of persons. Therefore, neither anger nor forgiveness seem fully justifiable. And yet, insofar as forgiveness can propel relationships forward – even begin to heal wounds of oppression – it must be justifiable under at least some circumstances. Might anger, too, be justifiable when it is forward looking – when it is not focused on payback? Nussbaum argues that a very specific kind of anger – Transition Anger – is justifiable. Transition Anger stands apart from our ordinary concept of anger, and describes the kind of anger that propels interactions aimed at greater justice in an unjust world. As compelling as Nussbaum’s view of anger is, I’m left wondering if it is ‘magical thinking’ that leads us astray. Indeed, even Transition Anger, which moves us to possibly successful actions aimed at a more just world, seems to find its justification in some form of magical thinking. In this talk, I will sketch Nussbaum’s argument and articulate some of its formidable strengths, as well as a possible shortcoming. |
| Dec. 9 | "Are We Living in a Post-Truth Society?" Professor Susan Dieleman A series of recent articles in venues like The New York Times and The Economist have either heralded or pushed back against the idea that we are living in a "post-truth society" where the public have neither the time nor the taste for facts and evidence. Brexit and Trump campaigns in particular have been identified as harbingers of a new political era characterized by "misinformation." In this presentation, I examine what commentators mean by "post-truth society," investigate whether there is any merit to the claim that we now live in such a society, and explore whether we should be doing anything about it. |
| Jan. 13 | "Do I Love You Because You’re Beautiful, or Are You Beautiful Because I Love You?" Professor Dwayne Moore This question, from Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella, captures the deep divide in classical theories of love. According to the Erosic model of love, “I love you because you’re beautiful,” or, the lover appraises the value of the beloved. According to the Agapic model, “You’re beautiful because I love you,” or, the lover bestows value onto the beloved. Both models correctly capture certain intuitions about the nature of love, but are also defective in other respects. I will survey the strengths and weaknesses of both theories, and consider the merits of various compromise positions. |
| Feb. 10 | "Women’s Libbers and Radical Mothers: Indigenous Feminism during the Second Wave" Professor Sarah Nickel When did Indigenous women become feminists and what did that look like? What can 20th century Indigenous women’s political organizations tell us about Indigenous feminism and the nature of Indigenous politics? Here, I will explore the ways in which Indigenous women in the 1960s-1980s combatted their unique gendered and racialized political suppression through interactions with mainstream second wave feminism and the male-dominated Indigenous rights movement. |
| Mar. 10 | "Sex Robots: The Good, the Bad, and the Weird"
Professor Will Buschert In this talk I’ll be exploring some of the moral implications of (highly anthropomorphic, socially interactive, possibly artificially intelligent) sex robots. Some experts predict that such robots are a near-future possibility. According David Levy, for instance, by 2050 sex robots will be commonplace and socially accepted. And, at least on Levy’s analysis, this will be a good thing in that they will provide sexual and emotional gratification to millions of people who, for whatever reason, are unable or unwilling to enter into real life intimate relationships. Others are not nearly so optimistic. For instance, Kathleen Richardson and other proponents of the Campaign Against Sex Robots argue that sex robots ought to be outlawed, on the grounds that they will reinforce the objectification of women and children and replicate essentially exploitative client-john relationships. In my view, there may be no easy answers in this domain, but we probably can’t avoid asking the questions. |
2015 - 2016
| Sep. 11 | "Knowledge, Power and Prisons: The Strength and Limitations of Foucault's Critique" Professor Ria Jenkins (Philosophy, St, Thomas More College) What is the connection between knowledge and power? Foucault famously states that knowledge and power "directly imply" one another, and he uses this belief as a basis for his critical analysis of prisons. This talk will explore not just the meaning of this connection for Foucault, but also its strengths and limitations. |
| Oct. 9 | "Is Liberal Democracy Working for You?"
Professor Charles Smith |
| Nov. 13 | "When Should We Protect Free Speech?" Professor Susan Dieleman Philosophers have provided a variety of arguments in favour of protecting free speech. One of these arguments is the epistemological argument, endorsed most famously by John Stuart Mill, who argues that free speech is valuable because it helps us discover the truth. The only time we’re warranted in limiting free speech, he thinks, is when it’s likely to lead to physical harm. In this presentation, I will suggest that the epistemological argument for free speech can actually lead to a different conclusion: if we’re interested in free speech because it helps us find the truth, then we’re warranted in limiting it not only when it is likely to lead to physical harm, but also when it is likely to lead to humiliation |
| Dec. 11 | "Free Willusion?" Professor Dwayne Moore Humans seem to be free, and moral responsibility may require free will. But, neuroscientific evidence suggests behaviour is determined by physical processes. (How) can we be free if our behaviour is determined by unconscious brain processes? After briefly objecting to several proposed answers to this question, I offer a proposal that secures autonomous agency yet remains consistent with microphysical determinism. |
| Jan. 8 | "How Do We Deceive Ourselves?" Professor Leslie Howe We often say that the self-deceiver lies to him or herself, but a liar knows the truth that he or she denies to another. How can one person be both liar and dupe? This apparent paradox has led many to either deny that self-deception is possible or to attempt to resolve the paradox in a way that also ends up eliminating the phenomenon. Yet, self-deception seems a clearly recognisable, and constant, feature of our daily lives. This talk will explore the problem of what self-deception is, how we do it, and why. |
| Feb. 12 | "God and Evil"
Professor Eric Dayton Can the existence of evil be reconciled with the existence of an all-good, omnipotent, all-knowing God? This talk will present the traditional argument known as the problem of evil, and will consider the problem in relation to the nature of belief and rational judgement, and the understanding of morality |
| Mar. 11 | "Rebooting the Enlightenment? "
Professor Pierre-Francois Noppen To many progressive thinking appears to be in a deadlock. Have we exhausted the critical resources of the Enlightenment? Has our nature finally caught up with our aspirations? Or is the world we have created simply out of hand? This talk will examine recent arguments for the rebooting of the Enlightenment. At issue will be the question of Enlightenment’s blind spots and some resources available to progressive thinking. |
2014 - 2015
| Sep. 10 | "Self-Unity, Action and Identity" Professor Emer O'Hagan If a person is not united over time by an essential self, or a soul, then must we give up on thinking of ourselves as selves? Some have argued that selves are united over time by action. When we decide what to do we identify with a reason and create a sense of what we are like that continues into the future. On this view selves are pragmatically real and constructed. I will outline the arguments in favour of this view and then complicate matters by advancing some examples which seem to count as cases of self-constitution and involve identification, but do not involve action. I’ll suggest that the unifying force of identification is also present in cases of accurate self-recognition, when we come to see ourselves from a new perspective. |
| Oct. 08 | "Philosophical Urbanism"
Professor Avi Akkerman Some recent reflections upon the built environment have related urban design with what has been termed Dionysian and Apollonian dispositions of the arts. The Dionysian is an artistic expression that emphasizes time or temporal flows as its medium, and these include poetry and other literary forms, music, or dance. The Apollonian is an artistic expression that emphasizes space, such as painting, sculpture, or architecture. The Dionysian often represents femininity, while the Apollonian often represents masculinity. Where does urban design or urban planning fit? This question is not of a merely scholastic nature. The Philosophical Urbanism of Walter Benjamin has shown almost a hundred years ago that there is linkage between city-form and mind. Benjamin points out that this linkage suggests a psychoanalytic discourse related to foundational gender aspects in the process of urban design. In the contemporary milieu of urban society, policy and politics, such a discourse has its own significance. Its implications upon gender representation in the built environment, i.e. our own city-form, are of particular significance. |
| Nov. 12 | "Multiculturalism, Individuality, and State Neutrality" Devin Ens In a liberal democracy the state does not mandate a conception of the good life for its citizens, but instead leaves individuals to pursue the good as they see fit. This commitment to both individual freedom and state neutrality can lead us to ask whether there can be conflicts between individual rights and group rights. Does multicultural accommodation, for example, allow for discrimination in certain cases? What is a culture, anyway? How is a "culture" to be distinguished from a "subculture"? In this talk I will address some of the philosophical problems behind these issues and promote discussion of them. |
| Dec. 10 | "Robot Ethics: Can Machines Be 'Moral'?
Professor William Buschert Ever since the term “robot” was first introduced by Karel Čapek in 1920 science fiction has been preparing us to believe that robots are capable of morally bad behaviour. Yet while fictional robots are often portrayed as fully-fledged moral agents, capable of self-directed, autonomous action and possessing distinctive moral character, many people continue to believe that, in actuality, robots will never be capable of ‘real’ moral agency. For many years this was an essentially speculative, ‘merely philosophical’ topic. In recent years, however, it has assumed increasing practical significance. In the already-upon-us world of driverless cars, military robots, and automated financial software systems, questions about how (or whether) morality can be programmed into machines are becoming more and more acute. This talk will explore some of those questions, including questions about what the investigation of machine ethics might be able to tell us about the nature of morality generally. |
| Jan. 14 | "Addiction, Autonomy and Authenticity"
Professor Sarah Hoffman Our world is saturated in drugs. From prescribed medications, alcohol, caffeine and nicotine, to stigmatized and criminally controlled substances, it is hard to imagine a life untouched in some way by drugs. The problems caused by drug addiction are impossible to see as anything but gravely serious, even tragic. But are psychoactive drugs always negative and threatening? Might they sometimes enhance autonomy or allow individuals to live more authentically? In this talk I take up this issue and survey the complicated conceptual terrain revealed by reflecting on freedom and compulsion, autonomy and responsibility, and artificiality and authenticity through the lens of drug use and addiction. |
| Feb. 11 | "Free Will and Moral Responsibility: What Does It Mean to Be Free?"
Matthew Dean Am I writing these words of my own free will? I endorse the activity as consistent with my past actions: I am not acting out of character. My actions do not appear externally caused by illness, phobia, intoxication, or threats. My actions feel internally caused and free from coercion. By any common definition of free will, then, my actions count as free. However, hard determinism is one side of a millennia-old debate within philosophy that argues that because I am not an uncaused cause, that all my future behavior is the result of previous causes, free will is an illusion. Said another way, I may will how I act, but I may not will what I will (Schopenhauer). Hard determinism's thesis has unsettling conclusions: the decisions one makes are not a matter of the will, there is no metaphysical "I" and moral responsibility may be impossible. I will present recent arguments for and against the existence of free will, with a particular focus on the consequences of each for moral responsibility, criminal justice, and interpersonal relationships. |
| Mar. 11 | “Vice and Harm Reduction Strategies.”
Professor Sarah Hoffman Behaviours considered vices in many quarters cause a lot of social problems and harms to health. Many arise in part because activities like drug use and sex work are criminalized, and the people involved in them lack information and strategies to protect themselves. Harm reduction approaches assume that people will engage in these risky but pleasurable behaviours despite social ostracization; they seek to prevent avoidable harms and nonjudgementally arm people with protective information whether through safe injection sites, provision of condoms, needle exchanges, workshops on safer sex or drug use or other related things. These approaches have been criticized as encouraging dangerous and socially negative behaviours. In this talk I will consider the arguments in this area, arguing myself that harm reduction strategies are the wise and moral thing to do. |
2013 - 2014
| Oct. 9 |
"Freedom, Responsibility and Morality" Professor Emer O’Hagan If we don’t freely choose our actions, can we reasonably be held responsible for what we do? In this talk I will discuss some of the relations between freedom, responsibility, and morality. I will focus on those theories of freedom that suggest that freedom is nothing more than being moved by one's deepest desires, or deepest self. While such views of freedom have merit, they have been objected to on the grounds that the deepest desires of some persons could be "insane." This leads us to consider whether or not true freedom requires morality, and how we should think about the nature of moral responsibility. |
| Nov. 13 |
"Can We Learn About the World by Just Thinking?" Geordie McComb, PhD Candidate, University of Toronto |
| Dec. 11 |
"The Ethics of Biotechnological Human Enhancement" Professor William Buschert Some athletes take steroids. Some students take drugs to enable them to concentrate better or study longer. Some people undergo elective cosmetic surgery and other procedures in order to look better or younger. Some parents have their embryos genetically tested, or choose gametes from screened donors, in order to have children with qualities that they value. All of these things have been going on for quite some time and, for just as long, ethicists have raised various worries about them. In this talk I will review some of those worries (and dismiss most of them). In recent years, however, some philosophers have argued in favour of some forms of biotechnological human enhancement, specifically cognitive enhancement and “moral enhancement.” My main focus will be on enhancements of this sort. Is it morally permissible for individuals to choose to enhance themselves in these ways? If so, what might the implications be for our understanding of justice? Assuming it is left up to choice, which enhancements will people choose (and which will they reject)? On the other hand, might it be the case, as some theorists have argued, that we have a moral obligation to enhance ourselves so as to become ‘better’ moral agents? If so, what implications might this have for our understanding of human autonomy?
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| Jan 8 |
“Philosophical Inquiry, Educational Standards and Freedom” Professor Erin Delathower The role philosophy plays in education is often unexamined, despite philosophy’s historical and methodological connection to inquiry based learning. Given the importance of education to the community, many philosophers care very deeply about the subject. Plato, Rousseau, and Dewey (to name just a few) each took education to be a fundamentally important philosophical endeavor. That said, it is not just up to philosophers to examine the role of philosophy in education. This is so, in part, because the inquiry process is most effective in social matters when the community of inquiry is widely inclusive. In this talk I will suggest that a potential risk of not examining the role of philosophical inquiry in education is that our standards of education – the expectations we have of ourselves to affect our own lives, for instance – may thereby become compromised. Furthermore, when education is the topic of philosophical inquiry, one benefit is that the inquiry process itself becomes a measure of the degree of freedom a community agrees upon having, resulting in the clarification of that community's educational standards. I support this hypothesis by way of empirical evidence drawn from the experience of teaching Philosophy in Education: Introduction to Philosophy for Children. |
| Feb 12 | "Reasons that Explain, Reasons that Justify" Dr. Alex Beldan |
| Mar. 12 | "Life as Art"
Professor Eric Dayton Granted that there is an art to living well, can (or even should) one make one’s life into a work of art? Attempting to answer this question, I will canvas some views on what could constitute a legitimate aim of living, draw some distinctions, and in the end argue that there is a confusion between the idea that 'life has to be worked at to be good' and 'that life has to become a work of art in order to be good’. |
2012 - 2013
| Sep. 12 | "What, if anything, is Human Nature?"
Professor Emer O’Hagan Assumptions about human nature are prevalent and greatly influence the shape inquiry takes in numerous disciplines. Yet it is not entirely clear what we mean when we use the phrase “human nature”. In this talk I will consider several different views of what “human nature” could mean and possibly be, as well as objections to these views. I will frame my discussion of the concept by posing two questions: If we were to understand human nature, what good would it do us? If we failed to understand human nature, how might we be disadvantaged? |
| Oct. 10 | "Is the Truth Just What it is Useful to Believe?" Professor Eric Dayton When William James writes that the truth is what it is useful to believe, it is easy to find reasons to disagree. But is there a deeper, more subtle point that we are missing in so doing? In this talk we will attempt to take seriously the radical character of James’s commitment to the importance of human needs, aspirations and passions in giving shape to a conception of truth. We will examine his controversial examples from science, ethics and religion in order to understand his rejection of a transcendentally independent realm of truth. |
| Nov. 14 |
"No One Here Gets Out Alive: Death, Survival, and Personal Identity” Professor Peter Alward (Department of Philosophy, University of Lethbridge) A common view is that the death of one's body need not be the end of one's existence, that in some sense one can survive the death of the body. In order to survive bodily death, however, one needs to stand in a relation of personal identity to a person existing some time after the death of one's body. And it is not entirely clear that any defensible account of personal identity is compatible with the survival of bodily death. As a result, it may turn out that survival is not even possible.
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| Dec. 12 |
“Love and Games” Professor Sarah Hoffman Some have argued for the impossibility of romantic sexual love on the grounds that it is conceptually contradictory, or at least includes very deep tensions. In this talk I take up this question, explore how a narrative account of love may help us get around the problem and speculate about the ways pretense, role play and other game-related activities may be essential to romantic, sexual love. |
| Jan. 9 | "Can Evil be Banal?"
Professor Ria Jenkins |
| Feb. 13 | "Occupying Philosophy in Neoliberal Canada"
Professor Len Findlay In this talk I will explore the philosophical underpinnings of the Occupy Movement with three goals in mind:
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| Mar. 13 | "Moral Theory and Judicial Independence" Professor Brian Zamulinski This talk will examine the connections between legal theory, the ethical limits to parliamentary power, and why it is good for a liberal democracy to enforce such limits. |
2011 - 2012
| Sep. 14 | "Equality and Respecting Differences" Professor David Crossley (Emeritus) There seems to be a conflict in our political attitudes. On the one hand, we hold that, in a liberal democracy, each individual should be treated as an equal and enjoy the same rights as others. No one should be at a disadvantage – in seeking a job, for example – because of her religion, gender, or ethnic or cultural background. On the other hand, we think that the demands of certain groups for recognition should be respected. Thus, we believe in respecting cultural differences – to the extent of wondering whether a common school curriculum should be replaced with one that recognizes and accommodates the cultural and other differences of the students. And we have endorsed affirmative action programs that make special provisions for groups thought to have been subject to systemic discrimination. But, are these views in conflict? Does a policy of recognition, demanding that we respect differences among citizens, undermine our attempts to insure that all are treated as equals? These questions are the focus of tonight’s discussion. |
| Oct. 12 | "Authority, Obedience, and Respect for the Law" Professor Mark Capustin The law can secure obedience by various means, including threat of punishment, and (more ideally) by gaining the respect of its subjects. The former of these reasons implies only power, and not all power is legitimately authoritative. The latter raises an obvious question: What kinds of reasons might we have to respect the law? I will argue that authority is not an all or nothing matter; rather, the extent to which it is legitimate varies with the particular situations of those subject to it. |
| Nov. 9 | "Romanticism, Modernism & Genius: the Role of Art and Artists in Society" Professor Mona Holmlund (Department of Art & Art History, U of S) Many of our attitudes regarding artists and what constitutes art are pre-conceptions which go unexamined. This talk will look at some of the historical origins of the idea of artistic genius and try to untangle the sometimes fraught relationship between contemporary art and its audience. |
| Dec. 14 | "How Should We Think About Hate Speech?"
Professor Ken Norman (College of Law, U of S) |
| Jan. 11 | "Atheist Spirituality: An Oxymoron?" Professor Eric Dayton It is a common view that by giving life meaning and direction, religion offers a good that is unavailable to the unbeliever. In this talk I will ask whether this view is true or reasonable, by examining and untangling some of the issues concerning spirituality, religious belief and atheism. I will argue that atheism is no barrier to a spiritual practice. |
| Feb. 8 | "Søren Kierkegaard: Existentialist Critic of the Present Age " Professor Leslie Howe Søren Kierkegaard was the first existentialist philosopher and a trenchant critic of the superficialities and excesses of modernism. His critique of modernity has made him a favourite of postmodernists but he would have given them equally short shrift. This talk will present an overview of Kierkegaard's critique of triviality, bombast, and pusillanimity in philosophy, religion, and society, a critique that remains as pertinent to us as it was to 1840s Europe. |
| Mar. 14 | "The Stoic Art of Living Well" Professor Daniel Regnier (Saint Thomas More College) |
2010 - 2011
| Sept. 8 | "The New Atheists: Threat or Menace?" Professor George Williamson The so-called “New Atheists” have been a media and publishing phenomenon since their appearance in the years following 9/11 and have provoked a considerably hostile reaction, not only among the religious but among other atheists as well. They have been accused of being offensive, dogmatic, intolerant and counter-productive. But what really is ‘new’ about the New Atheists? And what have they done to deserve the hostility directed their way? Why do other atheists attack them? Ultimately, is the New Atheism a positive development or will it just make things worse? |
| Oct. 13 | "Do Animals Have Minds?" Professor Eric Dayton |
| Nov. 10 | "Domestic Bliss?: The Problem of Housework and Alienation" Kristin Rodier, Ph.D. Candidate, University of Alberta Is domestic labour inherently tedious, boring, and unfulfilling or is it just that way because it is underpaid and undervalued in our current capitalist economy? Is paying for domestic labour an adequate response to this devaluation? In order to answer these questions distinctions must be made between the domestic labour that is geared towards maintaining healthy, fed, and refreshed individuals (laundry, cleaning, cooking, maintaining a home) and the caring labour that takes care of dependents (children, the disabled, and the elderly). While these forms of labour have similarities, there do appear to be differences related to whether the person receiving care is unable to do the work herself. These differences will be discussed. |
| Dec. 8 |
"Truth, Fiction and the Value of Literature" Professor Rhonda Anderson |
| Jan. 12 | "Do We Lack Moral Character?" Professor Emer O’Hagan Some social scientists and philosophers have recently argued that experimental evidence indicates that there is no such thing as a robust character trait. They conclude that what a person does on a particular occasion is best understood as arising from the situation, not the person, and so endorse “situationism”. People who we would not think of as cruel, for example, will nonetheless behave cruelly under conditions which promote cruelty. If social psychologists can show that the difference between good and bad conduct resides in the situation, not in the person, then it seems that we should abandon the idea that moral virtues and vices exist, and we should abandon moral theories which rely upon these concepts. In this talk I’ll consider some of the experimental evidence, some of the responses to it, and argue that the evidence from social psychology doesn’t undercut our appeal to character. |
| Feb. 9 |
"Lots of Living to Do, Death at any Moment: Time in Narratives of Cancer and Aging" While cancer may strike at any time, it is primarily an illness of people growing older. Yet, hardly anything is known about the difficulties with which cancer patients struggle as they try to make meaning of their experiences. Particularly as cancer patients grow older, time becomes more of the essence: the uncertain certainties of endings – of lives and cancer narratives – can elicit a new generativity, rebelliousness, and sense of time. Bonds, whether established or newly created, familial or in work, are celebrated and extended into a transcendent, timeless future (“The end is my Beginning”, Terzani 2008). The qualitative study that I will be reporting about is grounded in an interdisciplinary framework of concepts of aging, time, and mortality, using Interpretive Description (Thorne 2008), informed by Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (Smith 2009) and a Therapeutic Psychopoetics (Teucher 2000), to explore interviews with 20 aging cancer patients and advocate for a better understanding of their needs. |
| Mar. 9 | "Skepticism and the Fate of Philosophy" Professor Anthony Jenkins Philosophy has, throughout its past, been profoundly marked out from other fields of study by the peculiar roles skepticism has played within it. From its role in ancient philosophy to the varied roles skepticism has played in early modern philosophy, skepticism has been embraced or exploited as a part of philosophy itself. But it has also been exploited, for both religious and also for more secularly humanist ends, against philosophy. In no other and for no other discipline has scepticism had or could it plausibly have any such roles as these. In this talk, then, we will be examining critically each of these diverse roles skepticism has had in relation to philosophy, as well as the positions philosophers and the critics of philosophy have attempted to provide in opposition to skepticism. We hope that through such an examination we may be better able to understand and appreciate not only what philosophy is and has been but also of what it can still meaningfully be. |
2009 - 2010
| September 9 | “Cooking, Eating, Thinking: Reflections on Philosophy and Food”
Professor Eric Dayton Food, its preparation and consumption, plays a central role in human life. It is both a cultural achievement and a human necessity; it is a central source of pleasure, necessary for health, and undergirds diverse forms of human cultural flowering. It also disappears into the ordinary everydayness of living, blinding us to its significance for living well. I will attempt to bring that significance into view through philosophical illumination. |
| October 14 | "Mytho-Poetic Tightropes: Navigating Religious Language in Fundamentalist Climates"
Professor Heidi Epstein, |
| November 11 | "Why Do We Care About the Fates of Non-Existent People (And Other Puzzles About Fiction)?" Professor Peter Alward |
| December 9 | "The Moral Necessity of Self-Knowledge"
Professor Emer O'Hagan |
| January 13 | “Can Reading Fiction Make Us Morally Better?” Will Robbins |
| February 10 | “How Informed is Informed Consent in Health Care?” Professor Viola Woodhouse In Canada informed consent to treatment is both a legal requirement and professional standard governing clinical encounters between health care professionals and patients. Clinical encounters involve the disclosure of risks, benefits and any alternatives to the proposed test or treatment. In my presentation I will argue that the Breast Cancer Screening Program fails to include the relevant information that would allow women to provide truly informed consent for this test. |
| March 10 | “Olympic Sport: An Oxymoron?” Professor Leslie Howe |
2008 - 2009
| September 10 | “Why be a Vegetarian?”
Professor Emer O’Hagan Do our obligations to animals extend to our not killing and eating them? If so, on what grounds? In this talk I will outline some of the different arguments for vegetarianism, concentrating on the question of what grounds our obligations to animals and how this ground shapes our understanding of their proper (and improper) treatment. |
| October 8 | "What is Liberalism?" Devin Ens From the radical ideology motivating the American and French revolutions of the 18th Century to the dominant Western ideology of the 20th Century, variations of liberalism have meant very different things to different people, including its own proponents. This lecture will examine the historical and philosophical roots of liberalism and consider the criticisms against it made by such disparate groups as socialists and feminists on the "left," and by authoritarians and religious conservatives on the "right." In light of the upcoming election, we will also consider to what degree all Canadian political parties are or are not liberal in their conceptions of the appropriate role of government in the lives of individual citizens. |
| November 12 | “Learn to Spot and Avoid Fallacies or Risk Annihilation!: A Crash Course in Critical Thinking” Derek Postnikoff |
| December 10 | "Technology and Democracy: Who Ought to Direct Technological Development?"
Professor William Buschert |
| January 14 | “Politics and the Philosophy of Democracy” Allan Blakeney Visiting Scholar, College of Law |
| February 11 | "Have I got an F word for you: Feminism, Foucault, and ... Face-lifts?"
Rachel Loewen Walker There are two sides to every story: on the one hand, feminists have fought hard for a woman’s right to control her own body, and on the other hand, they have argued that bodies are policed by embedded norms of femininity and masculinity. Does today’s empowered woman freely choose plastic surgery, or have gender regulations tricked her into a false freedom? |
| March 11 | "Who Needs Academic Freedom?"
Professor Howard Woodhouse The nature of academic freedom is not well understood either within the academy or in society at large. Academic freedom is a necessary condition for the advancement and dissemination of shared knowledge and intimately connected to the public interest. As a form of individual liberty, it also draws upon a tradition of collective freedom, which is particularly important as universities are currently besieged by the "market model of education." Some time will be spent during the presentation critically analyzing the market model. |
2007 - 2008
| September 12 | Meaning, Prejudice and Understanding: What is Hermeneutics? Presenter: Professor Eric Dayton Hermeneutics, the art of interpretation, comes from a Greek word related to Hermes, the messenger of the gods. But how can we understand Hermes' message? How do we interpret and understand others (the unknown speaker, our neighbour, ourselves? |
| October 10 | Is Reality Subjective? Professor David Crossley |
| November 14 | "Hey, buddy! Your karma just ran over my dogma!" Buddhist Views of Truth, Personhood, and Socially Responsible Action Professor James Mullens, Department of Religious Studies |
| December 12 | Problems of the Will: Understanding Freedom Professor Emer O’Hagan |
| January 9 | Is the Self a Fiction? Professor Rhonda Anderson |
| February 13 | Love, Liberty, and Monogamy Professor Sarah Hoffman |
| March 12 | Justice and International Affairs Professor Ria Jenkins |
2006 - 2007
| September 6 | What is Love? Presenter: Professor Sarah Hoffman |
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October 4
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Is Morality Relative? Presenter: Professor David Crossley We spend much of our time making evaluations. We frequently express likes and dislikes about movies and art. We often disapprove of the way people behave. We have opinions about whether our teachers were any good, about whether assisted suicide should be legalized and about how animals should be treated.
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| November 1 |
Can You Believe Whatever You Want?: A Discussion of Responsibility and Belief Presenter: Professor Eric Dayton |
| December 6 | Moral Responsibility, Luck and Blame Presenter: Professor Emer O'Hagan It seems reasonable to hold that people are not morally responsible for what is beyond their control, or what is not their fault. It also seems reasonable to hold that a significant amount of what we do depends upon factors beyond our control: the hero is made only because she happens to walk by the burning building and hears the child cry for help, the lie is told only because the awkward question is posed, the murder is avoided only because the gun misfires. “Moral luck” poses a philosophical problem precisely because it catches us between the seemingly reasonable view that luck shouldn’t make a moral difference (that it should not influence our judgements concerning personal responsibility) and the seeming fact that luck does make a difference to our moral assessments. For example, a drunk driver who kills an innocent pedestrian is judged more harshly than a drunk driver who happens to make it home without incident. In this talk I present the problem posed by moral luck for a coherent account of moral responsibility, consider some of solutions offered by philosophers, challenge the audience to make sense of several different types of luck and their impact on responsibility, and close by offering some reflections on moral blame
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January 3
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What is Existentialism? Presenter: Kristin Rodier Famous existentialist philosophers include Soren Kierkegaard, Friedrich Nietzsche, Jean-Paul Sartre, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and Simone de Beauvoir. The common thread running through their work is the idea that human beings are free to choose how to shape their future. This lecture will deal specifically with Sartre’s existentialism and his depiction of moments of choice and stress in human reality. Sartre focuses on the ways we feel anxiety in the face of realization that we are free. He analyzes self-deception, a tool we utilize in coping with a future that is overwhelmingly filled with various possibilities. I will explore the basic concepts found in his work and show how they apply to everyday situations. |
| February 7 | A Post-Human Future?: Technology, Evolution, and the Future of the Human Species
Presenter: Professor William Buschert |
| March 7 | Why It's Better to See Everything in the Cosmos as Live, Connected Events than as Dead, Mechanical Lumps: An Introduction to Process Philosophy
Presenters: Professors Howard Woodhouse, Mark Flynn, Ed Thompson, Bob Regnier (The University of Saskatchewan Process Philosophy Research Unit)
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| April 4 | Music and Meaning Presenter: Professor Daniel Regnier |
2005 - 2006
| November 1 | What is happiness?
Presenter: Professor Emer O'Hagan
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| December 6 | Health Care, Knowledge, and the Public Presenter: Professor Viola Woodhouse The topic of this presentation is informed consent to medical treatment. The presentation is designed to clarify the concept of informed consent, and to provide a forum for a discussion of some of the ethical issues faced by those who wish to be fully involved in decisions concerning their own health care, and the care of their family members.
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| January 3 |
Creationism vs. Science Presenter: Professor David Crossley In 1925 John Scopes was put on trial for teaching the theory of evolution in a high school in Tennessee. This became known as the “Scopes Monkey Trial”, and it was all the more famous because it pitted the two top lawyers of the day against one another: Clarence Darrow for the defense versus William Jennings Bryan. (The story of this trial was told in the film, Inherit the Wind, with Spencer Tracy playing Clarence Darrow.)
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| February 7 |
Philosophy, Art, and Meaning Presenter: Professor Eric Dayton
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| March 7 |
What is the point of punishment? Presenter: Professor David Crossley We all hope that punishing criminals will deter them, and others, from engaging in further criminal activities. But we also think that this is not the sole point of punishment, for we expect criminals to “get what they deserve” and are outraged when someone is given a light sentence that amounts to a mere “slap on the wrist” for a serious crime. This sort of emotional reaction suggests that desires for revenge, feelings of vengeance, and primitive urges to retaliate against those who harm us, are controlling our thinking about punishment. While these reactions seem natural, some writers think such emotional responses are “below us” and do not reflect the measured impartial attitude we should take to those who go astray. Moreover, many are uncomfortable with harsh punishments, such as long prison terms, and think we need to abandon these and try other methods, such as shaming people (say, by forcing them to have a bumper sticker on their car which says, “I was guilty of drunk driving”) or try other remedies which focus less on blaming people and more on helping restore them to the community. Indeed, given the lack of success of traditional modes of punishment some think we need to ask ourselves this question: “What is the point of punishment?” This talk will discuss various aspects of the problem of punishment and the theories explaining why we punish.
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April 4
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Captain Kirk, Michael Jackson, and Something Better than Death Presenter: Professor Phil Dwyer
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| May 2 | Morality and Traditional Christianity
Presenter: Professor T.Y. Henderson This talk considers a controversy of long standing in Christian theology, namely whether morality is necessarily related to religion, or whether the relationship of morality to religion is merely a historical one. This sort of problem was first noticed by Plato. There are defenders on both sides. I will not take a posistion on either side, but will try to make the opposing views clear and to look at the implications of each. I will do this by examining the relationships among certain concepts, such as omnipotence (infinite power), omnibenevolence (infinite goodness) and logical necessity. The audience will be asked to consider which view is most consistent with a traditional conception of Christianity. No attempt will be made to determine whether the arguments examined would apply to any other religion, or to unusual versions of Christianity, such as those defended by Kierkegaard or Paul Tillich. I will also consider, briefly, whether it would be necessary for a reasonable person to give up a belief that morality is objective if the relationship between morality and religion is not a necessary one. |