Speaker: Sameer Bajaj

Title: 'Protesting Injustice: Fairness, Sacrifice and Civility'

Abstract:

Recent democratic movements worldwide have put pressure on traditional views of the permissible ways of protesting injustice in democratic societies. These movements raise the following questions: Must principled disobedience of the law be civil as opposed to uncivil? Is rioting ever a permissible method of protesting injustice? What is the proper place of anger in protest movements? Can counterproductive forms of protest - forms of protest that predictably lead political majorities to respond with greater injustices - ever be justified? In this session, we will discuss these and related questions.

Work placement year, internships and volunteering

Speaker: Emily Bassett

Title: 'Responsibility for Sexual Desire'

ABSTRACT

Sexual desire is a rich topic dominated by conflicting intuitions - the uncontrollable nature of sexual desire and the indisputable existence of sexual repression often go hand in hand in literary works from the Aeneid to Anna Karenina. Questions of responsibility for sexual desire in particular are muddied by these warring opinions on the nature of sexual desire.

In this paper, I will draw on one account of sexual desire offered by Shaffer. Shaffer rejects what he calls 'propositional theories' of sexual desire - which appear more amenable to questions of responsibility - in favour of an account of sexual desire that is emotion-like, which I begin by outlining. Following this, I move to Shaffer's argument that his account is not parallel to emotions in one key way: sexual desires, unlike emotions, are not appropriately subject to reasons. In exploring whether this argument holds, I touch upon correlative concerns about opening sexual desires up to questions of responsibility, and draw to the conclusion that it is at least intuitively possible to talk about responsibility for sexual desire. However, I also hold this conclusion would be best served with a clear delineation of what it means for something to appropriately be subject to reasons.