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HomeUpcoming EventsBenjamin Kiesewetter (HU-Berlin): Actualism, Possibilism, and Normative Transmission
Benjamin Kiesewetter (HU-Berlin): Actualism, Possibilism, and Normative Transmission

If you ought to perform a certain act, and some other action is a necessary means for you to perform that act, then you ought to perform that other action, too – or so it seems plausible to say. This ‘transmission principle’ is of both practical and theoretical significance. The aim of this paper is to defend this principle against a number of recent objections, which can all be seen as expressing different versions of the same ‘actualist’ challenge: Ought we to take the necessary means to actions we ought to perform even if we will not actually perform these actions or are unlikely to do so? I argue that the actualist assumptions on which the objections rely are untenable, and defend a possibilist treatment of the relevant examples, which preserves the transmission principle. Drawing on the results of the discussion, I finally put forward a positive argument for the transmission principle.

Date & time

  • Tue 15 Apr 2014, 4:00 pm - 6:00 pm

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Coombs Seminar Room B

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Philsoc seminars