Fall 2018
December 6 – Jessica Gordon-Roth, assistant professor of philosophy, University of Minnesota
“Recovering Early Modern Women Writers: Some Tensions”
Feminist work in the history of philosophy has been going on for several decades. Some scholars have focused on the ways philosophical concepts are themselves gendered. Others have recovered women writers who were well known in their own time but forgotten in ours, while still others have firmly placed into a philosophical context the works of women writers long celebrated within other disciplines in the humanities. The recovery of women writers has challenged the myth that there are no women in the history of philosophy, but it has not eradicated it. What, we may ask, is impeding our progress? In this talk, I argue that so often we treat early modern women philosophers’ texts in ways that are different from, or inconsistent with, the explicit commitments of analytic philosophy, and in so doing, we may be setting up our audiences to reject these women as philosophers, and their texts as philosophical. Moreover, this is the case despite our intention to achieve precisely the opposite effect.
September 20 – Erin Tarver, associate professor, Oxford College of Emory University
“The Moral Equivalent of Football”
There are ample reasons to be morally concerned about football. Yet from a pragmatic perspective, the declaration that football is morally indefensible is less than helpful. If we want to actually do something about it, we need a different ethical approach. In this paper, I argue that the problem Americans currently face with football is comparable to the problem that the pragmatist William James faced when attempting to advance the cause of pacifism against the intractable problem of war—and that we have much to learn from James’s response. James was prudent, I argue, to search for a “moral equivalent of war”: an alternative venue through which the virtues people associate with war can be cultivated without bloodshed. Yet, the sexism inherent in James’s specific approach to that “moral equivalent” was precisely what gave rise to football culture in America in the first place. If we are to find a moral equivalent of football, I will argue, we must remain open to the possibility that its virtues might be different in kind than the ones advocated by James or by his football-enthusiast contemporaries.
October 25 – Sonia Sikka, professor of philosophy, University of Ottawa
“Heidegger and the Question of Moral Relativism”
Heidegger’s affirmation of the historically situated character of all human thought, combined with his apparent rejection of universal or objective values, has occasioned the charge that his philosophy inevitably leads to moral relativism, offering no sure guidelines for ethical judgement and action. Such a charge is naturally made more urgent by Heidegger’s support for Nazism in the early 1930’s. I examine Heidegger’s position on this topic as a way of exploring the idea of “moral relativism” and the universalist alternatives against which it is usually defined. Agreeing with the interpretations of Julian Young and Frank Schalow, I argue that Heidegger is actually a kind of moral realist (for lack of a better term) who rejects the fact/value distinction, and I suggest that he offers a promising model for pursuing moral truth in a historically flexible and open-ended manner. Against defenders of moral universalism, moreover, I propose that no good purpose is served by insisting on timeless principles. I offer as an example the Kantian notion of persons as ends in themselves.
November 15 – Sara Protasi, assistant professor, University of Puget Sounda
“Class Envy or Righteous Indignation? Emotional Responses to Socioeconomic Inequality”
The accusation of being motivated by “class envy” is often hurled at defenders of egalitarian ideals, in both everyday politics and academic discussions. Yet, envy is still a neglected topic in political philosophy, notwithstanding the contemporary revival of political emotions. In this talk, I review the historical debate between egalitarians and conservatives: conservatives accuse egalitarians of being motivated by envy, while egalitarians deny the charge and further argue that their principles of justice can be justified on independent grounds. Both sides seem to agree that being motivated by envy is bad, and that envy can never be rationally or morally appropriate. Some recent contributions have advanced more nuanced views, such as that envy can play a legitimate motivating role to fight inequality, or can even be rationally appropriate in contexts of systemic injustice. While on the right track, these approaches rely mostly on philosophical sources and frameworks. An empirically-informed moral psychology can shed light on the nature of envy as a political emotion: I argue that certain varieties of envy can be productive and ethical reactions to inequality, but I also show that other emotions, such as resentment, indignation and admiration, might be more appropriate political tools in certain situations.
December 6 – Jessica Gordon-Roth, University of Minnesota