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CEPPA Talk (in-person) – Yoshinari Hattori and Ida Miczske (58吃瓜 and Stirling)

February 19 @ 4:00 pm - 5:30 pm

Yoshinari Hattori – Why We Must Believe in Free Will and Moral Responsibility: Reconsidering Their Foundations

Abstract: This presentation argues that the practice of blaming wrongdoers鈥攅specially directing resentment or indignation towards them鈥攊s rationally indispensable for us. Pereboom contends that directing resentment or indignation at others is a form of harming them and is unjustified. As an alternative, he proposes that when morally wrong actions are performed, we should respond with disappointment or sadness. Against this proposal, I argue that there are social functions that cannot be achieved by disappointment or sadness but are fulfilled only by directing resentment or indignation. The fact that we have strong reason to secure the fulfilment of these functions makes the practice of directing resentment or indignation rationally indispensable for us. In particular, I argue that responding with disappointment or sadness fails, first, to treat others as moral agents and, second, to exercise the normative force required to compel them to stand in a space of answerability.

Ida Miczske – When love met morality: anonymity, irreplaceability, and partial self-effacement

Abstract: Most of us value relationships such as friendship and love. Surprisingly, it is not so easy to reconcile the demands they pose on us with living a moral life. In this presentation I want to identify one source of this tension and, if time allows, propose a solution based on partial self-effacement.

I argue that the tension emerges because certain relationships require de re motivation grounded in the identity of an irreplaceable object, while moral justification abstracts from particular identities. I propose to explicate the latter claim in terms of the requirement of justification anonymity, and show that it conflicts with de re motivation.
A common response to the conflict between relationships and morality has been to introduce self-effacement. However, as full self-effacement is problematic, I propose that moral theories should instead be partially self-effacing. Drawing on that, I argue that partial self-effacement allows us to reconcile de re motivation with moral justification.

Location: Edgecliffe G03 and online on teams

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  • Date: February 19
  • Time:
    4:00 pm - 5:30 pm
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