Luara Ferracioli (Sydney): Moral Parenthood and Moral Commitment
Seminar
Moral Parenthood and Moral Commitment Abstract: In this paper I focus on the following question: what gives a person a moral right to parent a particular child? I first argue that the correct answer to this question must (i) take seriously the interests of both parents and children, (ii) include…
Timothy Williamson (ANU): 'Causation, Determinism, and Decision' (co-authored with Alex Sandgren)
Seminar
Many philosophers believe that Causal Decision Theory (CDT) is the correct normative theory for agents whose choices provide them with evidence about the causal structure of the world. There has been growing pressure to revise this belief. One of the most serious causes of concern is that CDT is…
Brian Hedden: Consequentialism and Collective Action
Seminar
Consequentialism and Collective Action Consequentialists have a standard response to collective action problems like climate change mitigation and voting. You ought to do your part, they say, because (i) all such problems are triggering cases, in which there is a threshold number of people such…
Dirk Baltzly (Tasmania): Female Guardians in Proclus’ Republic Commentary
Seminar
Female Guardians in Proclus’ Republic Commentary Abstract: We have exactly one sustained, ancient treatment of what modern interpreters take to be Plato’s greatest work: the Republic. The pagan Neoplatonist Proclus (d. 485 CE) wrote a series of essays on topics in Plato’s dialogues, including two…
Matt Kopec (ANU): Some strategies for building more inclusive philosophy courses and classrooms
Seminar
In this pedagogy focused PhilSoc meeting, I’ll talk through some strategies I’ve employed in various courses over the past decade or so in an attempt to make my courses and classroom environments more inclusive for women, racial and ethnic minorities, students with learning disabilities and those…
Christian Barry / Garrett Cullity: Offsetting and Risk-Aggregation
Seminar
When well-off individuals do not offset their own personal greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, are they acting morally wrongly? One prominent argument for thinking so is an Argument from Expected Harm. It asserts that the scale and duration of the threats posed by our current climate-affecting…
Natalia Waights Hickman (Oxford): Two Avatars of the Tortoise: Rule-Following and the Novelty Objection to Intellectualism
Seminar
Two Avatars of the Tortoise: Rule-Following and the Novelty Objection to Intellectualism This paper investigates the relationship between the Wittgensteinian rule-following problem and the ‘novelty objection’ to intellectualist views of knowledge-how, offering a different vantage point…