Patricia Marino
Associate Professor
(Associate Chair and Graduate Officer)

PhD, University of California, Irvine
MS, Tulane University
MA, New York State University, Buffalo
BA, Wesleyan University

Office: HH 332
Extension: 32779
Email: pmarino@uwaterloo.ca
Webpage: http://www.arts.uwaterloo.ca/~pmarino/

Areas of Interest
Ethics (esp. Metaethics), Philosophy of Sex, Philosophy of Mathematics, and Theories of Truth

Academic Biography
I began my intellectual life with an interest in mathematics.  I was working on a PhD in set theory when I encountered the philosophical puzzle of mathematical truth and undecidability:  what should we say about the truth of statements of set theory that cannot be proved or disproved from the standard axioms?

Wondering about this, I turned my full attention to philosophy, and my interest in mathematical truth grew into a general interest in the nature of truth.  In particular, I wonder about the possibility of truth (and objectivity) for sentences, like those of mathematics and ethics, for which "correspondence to mind-independent reality" doesn't seem possible or even relevant.  Much of my current research, on truth, in metaethics, and in the philosophy of mathematics, is related to this fundamental topic. 

I am also interested in the philosophy of sex and love, thinking about sexual desire and the ethics of sexual objectification.

Selected Publications
(A complete list of publications and links to them is available on my webpage http://www.arts.uwaterloo.ca/~pmarino/)

"Moral Dilemmas, Collective Responsibility, and Moral Progress," Philosophical Studies, 104 (2001), 203-225.
"Expressivism, Deflationism, and Correspondence," The Journal of Moral Philosophy, 2.2 (2005), 171-191.
"What Should a Correspondence Theory Be and Do?" Philosophical Studies, 127 (2006), 415-457.
"Expressivism, Logic, Consistency, and Moral Dilemmas," Ethical Theory and Moral Practice, 9 (2006), 517-533.
"Seeking Desire:  Reflections on Blackburn's Lust," Social Philosophy Today 22 (2007), 219-230.
"Toward a Modest Correspondence Theory of Truth:  Predicates and Properties," Dialogue: the Canadian Philosophical Review (forthcoming).

Selected Grants, Fellowships & Awards
University of California, Irvine, Humanities Pre-Doctoral Fellowship 1997-2002.
Stanford Humanities Fellow, 2002-2004.

Current Research
My current research falls into three categories.  In metaethics, I am working on the relationship between coherence, consistency, truth, and justification.  In the philosophy of mathematics, I am investigating recent attempts to establish set theoretic categoricity -- and thus to rule out "undecidable" statements -- by invoking alternative logics and other assumptions.  In the philosophy of sex, I am developing and defending an account on which the ethics sexual objectification is grounded in autonomy.

Recent Graduate Supervision and Teaching
Graduate Theses and Research Papers:
"Sentimentalism, Affective Response, and the Justification of Normative Moral Judgments"
"Owing to Each Other:  Scanlon's Contractualist Theory"
"The Self-Concept in Moral Theory and Animal Ethics"

Courses, Seminars, and Areas:
Ethics and Reason
Moral Truth
Objectivity
Animal Ethics
Metaethics
Theories of Truth