The continuum argument is invalid - John Broome
Seminar
Speaker: John Broome Derek Parfit argues by means of something he calls a ‘continuum argument’ that a particular appealing premise in population axiology implies a conclusion that he and many other people find repugnant. He treats this as a paradox, and takes up the…
The Unity of Dreams - Cecily Whiteley
Seminar
Speaker: Cecily Whiteley When we are asleep, we are not uniformly unconscious — rather, our sleep is interspersed with bursts of conscious mental activity. This activity takes different forms throughout the night: some experiences are complex, bizarre, and emotionally vivid simulations which…
Justifying Thresholds
Seminar
Speaker: Caleb Perl You shouldn’t scapegoat someone innocent to prevent five killings. But maybe you should scapegoat someone innocent when the numbers get large enough – if, say, scapegoating would save a million, or a billion. That is, there might be thresholds where the numbers start to…
Pandemic lottery preparedness: Preparing to ethically, fairly, and systematically allocate scarce resources in response to future infectious disease outbreaks
Seminar
Speaker: Gerard Vong Using the recent COVID-19 and MPox international outbreaks as examples, Dr Vong argues that when distributing a public health resource that is too scarce (or logistically challenging) to allocate to all of a group of equally-worthy potential beneficiaries (even when/if…
Speech Acts on Social Media: Algorithms, Amplifiers, and Affordances
Seminar
Speaker: Michael Randall Barnes A great amount of communication now occurs on social media platforms. And sometimes these communicative acts cause and/or constitute harmful acts. The harms of social media raise a number of questions concerning the processes and aims of content moderation—the…
Mitochondrial Donation in Australia: A philosophical report - Catherine Mills
Seminar
Speaker: Catherine Mills In March 2022, the Australian Parliament passed a bill allowing for a clinical trial of the assisted reproductive technology, [[mitochondrial donation]], to be undertaken. This makes Australia the second country in the world to legislate to allow this…
The Puzzle of Musical Repetition - Jenny Judge
Seminar
Speaker: Jenny Judge Take any piece of music, from any genre you like: pop, classical, jazz, bluegrass, shoegaze, grunge, death metal. Odds are, that piece will be saturated with repetition at every level, from the micro to the macro. Melodies are often stated only to be immediately…