WMA Graduate Research Seminar, 2023/2024
In preparation for MindGrad we will dedicate the first 3 sessions to 3 papers by Matt Soteriou and the following 3 session to background reading for Lea Salje's talk.
Week 4: Matt Soteriou, ‘Determining the Future’ [pdf]
Week 5: Matt Soteriou, ‘The past made present: Mental time travel in episodic recollection’ [pdf]
Week 6: Matt Soteriou, ‘Waking Up and Being Conscious' [link]
Week 7: Eli Alshanetsky, Articulating a Thought, Introduction [link] and Chapter 2 'A Puzzle' [link]
Week 8: TBA
Week 9: Alex Byrne, TBA
PG Work in Progress Seminar
Title: "Moral supervenience and non-naturalism: assessing Jackson’s challenge"
Thursday 16th February 2023
5pm in S2.77 and on TeamsLink opens in a new window.
Everyone welcome!
Abstract:
Frank Jackson has argued that, given that every moral predicate is necessarily coextensive with a natural one, moral properties are identical to natural ones. Against this, Jussi Suikkanen has responded with an appeal to Leibniz’s Law, which states that any two identical entities share all of their properties. If moral properties were just natural properties, then moral properties would share all of their higher-order properties with natural ones. A moral non-naturalist – someone who thinks moral properties are not identical with natural properties – can then argue for distinctive higher-order properties that set the moral realm apart. Classically, non-naturalist moral epistemology has asserted that moral knowledge is obtained in a unique way: by reflection, rather than empirical investigation. The non-naturalist can then argue that moral properties have distinctive epistemic properties of their own. I will argue that this cannot be used as a reply against Jackson.