Colloquium Series, Winter 2009

There may be one or two additions to this schedule. Abstracts will be posted as available. Note that this is an academic philosophy colloquium series. For the University of Waterloo Public Lecture Series in Philosophy, see here.

If you'd like to be on the mailing list announcing these events, please contact:

vbrett@uwaterloo.ca

See here for past events, colloquia, and speakers.

***Talks are in Hagey Hall 373 at 3:30 unless otherwise noted.***

Friday, January 9, 2009
Culture, Freedom of Movement and Open Borders
Patti Lenard (Harvard)
It is commonplace in the open borders literature to deride communitarians for their commitment to national control of state borders. For communitarians, cultures have a moral status, the importance of which is such that, insofar as this movement threatens to dilute the culture and therefore to damage something of moral value, they demand the right to restrict movement across borders. The standard objections to this communitarian demand are two-fold: 1) it fails to give due weight to the vast economic disparities that separate wealthy from poor countries, and which therefore prompt citizens of poorer countries to (desire to) cross borders in search of bettering their life chances and the life chances of their children, and 2) it illegitimately privileges state-controlled cultural homogeneity, which is necessarily oppressive and marginalizing. If we are to balance the claims of cultural preservation (which, it is implied, are deployed primarily by wealthy countries) against the claims of economic betterment (which, it is implied, are deployed primarily by the very poor), the correct moral ordering will – unambiguously – prioritize the claims of economic betterment, and thus support claims for open borders over closed borders. This paper argues that this standard way of framing the debate ignores the deep connection between cultural claims and freedom of movement. In the near exclusive focus on the relationship between cultural preservation and the alleged importance of closed borders, free movement advocates have lost sight of how frequently culture is used to bolster claims in favor of freedom of movement across borders. This paper, therefore, argues that claims of culture should not be ignored in discussions of free movement. To do so risks failing to give a full account of the reasons we have to favor free movement, oftentimes across borders.
The first section of the paper reviews the standard cultural preservation arguments against free movement across borders, as well as the reasons standardly given to reject the priority that these arguments give to culture. The second section argues that there are several instances in which culture is used to bolster rather than restrict freedom of movement. The third section of the paper observes the considerable suggestive evidence that freedom of movement would not result in the massive migration about which we now worry. The final section briefly argues that it is from within a commitment to cultural preservation that we find a demand for increased redistribution across borders. We need not, of course, choose between open borders and redistribution; yet, my argument lends support to those who argue for prioritizing efforts at increasing redistribution.

Friday, January 16, 2009
Moore's Paradox and Moral Motivation
Michael Cholbi (California State Polytechnic)
Assertions of statements such as 'it's raining, but I don't believe it' are standard examples of what is known as Moore's paradox. Here I consider moral equivalents of such statements, statements wherein individuals affirm moral judgments while also expressing motivational indifference to those judgments (such as 'hurting animals for fun is wrong, but I don't care'). I argue for four main conclusions concerning such statements:
1. Such statements are genuinely paradoxical, even if not contradictory.
2. This paradoxicality can be traced to a form of epistemic self-defeat that also explains the paradoxicality of ordinary Moore-paradoxical statements.
3. Although conceptual internalism about moral judgment and motivation can explain the
paradoxicality of these moral equivalents, a more plausible explanation can be provided that does not rely on conceptual internalism.
4. The paradoxicality of such statements suggests a more credible understanding of the thesis that those who are not motivated by their moral judgments are irrational.

Monday, January 19, 2009
*NOTE: Day, start time, & location - Monday at 3:00 p.m. in Hagey Hall 334
Epistemic Entitlement
Brad Majors (U of Wisconsin - Madison)

Friday, March 13, 2009
The Prospects for Mathematical Pluralism
David DeVidi (University of Waterloo)
Pluralism about x, in the sense under consideration in this talk, is the view that there can be more than one correct x.  The first philosophical challenge faced by any sort of pluralism---scientific, logical, ethical, whatever---is identifying a sense in which it can be both plausible and non-trivial that there is more than one physics or logic or moral theory or whatever.  The talk will begin with a discussion of the shape this challenge takes for mathematical pluralists, and of why the challenge is particularly difficult in this case. After a discussion of some attempts that have been made to defend pluralism about mathematics and their deficiencies, I will offer a rather programmatic account of what approaches I see as offering the best hope for the claim that pluralism might be not only plausible and non-trivial, but true.

Monday, March 23, 2009
*NOTE: Day & location - Monday at 3:30 p.m. in Hagey Hall 334*
What's Wrong with Hypocrisy?
Mathieu Doucet (Queen's University)
Hypocrisy is among the most common vices, and it is among the most widely condemned: no one has anything good to say about hypocrites. But hypocrisy’s universal condemnation is puzzling. It seems to involve a claim to virtue that is largely pretence, motivated by a desire to appear virtuous rather than to actually be virtuous. Yet often, this means that hypocrites take pains to act similar to virtuous agents. So why are we so hard on hypocrites? Most philosophical accounts of hypocrisy argue that it involves a form of deception, and that this explains why it is wrong. In this paper, I offer a different account of hypocrisy, one that dispenses with the emphasis on deception. On my view, hypocrites care too much about their image for having certain values, and this excessive concern for their image leads them, in many different ways, to fail to honour the values that they claim to have. This account forces us to reconsider the moral status of hypocrisy: perhaps it is not as vicious as we make it out to be.

Thursday, March 26, 2009
*NOTE: Day & start time - Thursday at 3:30 p.m. in Hagey Hall 373*
Naturalism, Transcendentalism and Therapy
Penelope Maddy (UC Irvine)
The subject of this talk is a particularly austere form of naturalism called 'second philosophy'.  I begin to characterize the Second Philosopher by considering her response to radical skepticism and by comparing her to the relevant sort of First Philosopher.  I then turn to a compare-and-contrast with transcendental philosophy (represented by Kant) and therapeutic philosophy (including but not starting or ending with Wittgenstein), using skepticism as the diagnostic instrument.  The hope is that this exercise will bring Second Philosophy into sharper focus.

Friday, March 27, 2009
*NOTE: Location & start time - Perimeter Institute, Room 405 at 2:00 p.m.*
Thin Realism
Penelope Maddy (UC Irvine)
Realists in the philosophy of set theory typically insist that independent questions like the Continuum Hypothesis have determinate truth values despite the fact that we're unable to tell which it is on the basis of our current axioms.  This talk explores a form of realism somewhat different from more familiar versions like Goedel's.

Wednesday, April 1, 2009
*NOTE: Day & location - Wednesday at 3:30 p.m. in Hagey Hall 334*
Is Democratic Consensus a Morally Significant Ideal?
Michael Fuerstein (Columbia University)
It has now become a hallmark of much of democratic theory, particularly deliberative democratic theory, to insist on the virtues of agreement as a guiding end of political association.  Criticisms of this trend have focused largely on its utopian impracticality, as well the excessive demands it makes of individuals to suppress their deepest moral convictions.  In this paper, I raise a different kind of worry: I argue that agreement is morally vacuous as a guiding objective of political life, i.e., that it tells us (almost) nothing about what citizens ought to do in striving to participate responsibly in democratic society.  I suggest therefore that the role of deliberation in democracy must be understood primarily in epistemic terms, and I briefly address some of the most significant concerns about a view of that kind.

Thursday, May 7, 2009
*NOTE: Day has changed - at 3:30 p.m. in Hagey Hall 373
The Autonomous Animal Self
Natalie Evans (University of Waterloo)
In this paper, I will address the topic of responsibility towards  non-human animals. Animals obligate us to respond to them in virtue of  having a self, and that this has been largely ignored in the field  of animal ethics thus far.  Human responsibilities towards non-human  animals can be more clearly identified with an understanding of the  characteristics of this self, as the distinction between a human  self and non-human self is not one of kind, but rather of degree.   I will support the following:  First, I will briefly explain the  inadequacies of what I call the standard view in animal ethics, that  focuses on the moral importance of suffering as the determinant of  moral consideration.  Second, I will argue that non-human animals  possess a self that is characterized by self-awareness, phenomenal  consciousness, and self-directedness.  Thirdly, I will outline the  reasons why this animal self morally obligates us.