“In Ethics: Twelve Lectures on the Philosophy of Morality, David Wiggin surveys the answers most commonly proposed for such questions—gathering insights from Hume, Kant, the utilitarians, and the post-utilitarian thinkers of the twentieth century. The view of morality he then proposes draws on sources as diverse as Aristotle, Simone Weil and present-day thinkers such as Philippa Foot. As need arises, he pursues a variety of related issues and engages additional thinkers—Plato and Bernard Williams on egoism and altruism, Schopenhauer and Aurel Kolnai on evil, Leibniz and Rawls on impartiality, and Montaigne and J. L. Mackie on ‘moral relativism’, among others.”

For the most part, the seminars are planned to take in person, in S2.77, but we move online for some later sessions. All colleagues, including undergraduate and postgraduate students, are very welcome.

Thursday May 4, 3–5pm: Chapter 2: Hume’s genealogy of morals

“In Ethics: Twelve Lectures on the Philosophy of Morality, David Wiggin surveys the answers most commonly proposed for such questions—gathering insights from Hume, Kant, the utilitarians, and the post-utilitarian thinkers of the twentieth century. The view of morality he then proposes draws on sources as diverse as Aristotle, Simone Weil and present-day thinkers such as Philippa Foot. As need arises, he pursues a variety of related issues and engages additional thinkers—Plato and Bernard Williams on egoism and altruism, Schopenhauer and Aurel Kolnai on evil, Leibniz and Rawls on impartiality, and Montaigne and J. L. Mackie on ‘moral relativism’, among others.” For the most part, the seminars are planned to take in person, in S2.77, but we move online for some later sessions.

Thursday May 11, 3–5pm: Chapter 3: Hume’s theory extended

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Guest Speaker: Jifen Li (Renmin University of China)

Title: A New Account of Human Nature in the Xunzi

“In Ethics: Twelve Lectures on the Philosophy of Morality, David Wiggin surveys the answers most commonly proposed for such questions—gathering insights from Hume, Kant, the utilitarians, and the post-utilitarian thinkers of the twentieth century. The view of morality he then proposes draws on sources as diverse as Aristotle, Simone Weil and present-day thinkers such as Philippa Foot. As need arises, he pursues a variety of related issues and engages additional thinkers—Plato and Bernard Williams on egoism and altruism, Schopenhauer and Aurel Kolnai on evil, Leibniz and Rawls on impartiality, and Montaigne and J. L. Mackie on ‘moral relativism’, among others.” For the most part, the seminars are planned to take in person, in S2.77, but we move online for some later sessions.

Thursday May 18, 3–5pm: Chapter 4: From Hume to Kant

“In Ethics: Twelve Lectures on the Philosophy of Morality, David Wiggin surveys the answers most commonly proposed for such questions—gathering insights from Hume, Kant, the utilitarians, and the post-utilitarian thinkers of the twentieth century. The view of morality he then proposes draws on sources as diverse as Aristotle, Simone Weil and present-day thinkers such as Philippa Foot. As need arises, he pursues a variety of related issues and engages additional thinkers—Plato and Bernard Williams on egoism and altruism, Schopenhauer and Aurel Kolnai on evil, Leibniz and Rawls on impartiality, and Montaigne and J. L. Mackie on ‘moral relativism’, among others.” For the most part, the seminars are planned to take in person, in S2.77, but we move online for some later sessions.

Thursday May 25, 3–5pm: Chapter 5: The laws of morality as the laws of freedom and the laws of freedom as the laws of morality

“In Ethics: Twelve Lectures on the Philosophy of Morality, David Wiggin surveys the answers most commonly proposed for such questions—gathering insights from Hume, Kant, the utilitarians, and the post-utilitarian thinkers of the twentieth century. The view of morality he then proposes draws on sources as diverse as Aristotle, Simone Weil and present-day thinkers such as Philippa Foot. As need arises, he pursues a variety of related issues and engages additional thinkers—Plato and Bernard Williams on egoism and altruism, Schopenhauer and Aurel Kolnai on evil, Leibniz and Rawls on impartiality, and Montaigne and J. L. Mackie on ‘moral relativism’, among others.” For the most part, the seminars are planned to take in person, in S2.77, but we move online for some later sessions.

Thursday June 8, 3–5pm: Chapter 6: Classical utilitarianism

“In Ethics: Twelve Lectures on the Philosophy of Morality, David Wiggin surveys the answers most commonly proposed for such questions—gathering insights from Hume, Kant, the utilitarians, and the post-utilitarian thinkers of the twentieth century. The view of morality he then proposes draws on sources as diverse as Aristotle, Simone Weil and present-day thinkers such as Philippa Foot. As need arises, he pursues a variety of related issues and engages additional thinkers—Plato and Bernard Williams on egoism and altruism, Schopenhauer and Aurel Kolnai on evil, Leibniz and Rawls on impartiality, and Montaigne and J. L. Mackie on ‘moral relativism’, among others.” For the most part, the seminars are planned to take in person, in S2.77, but we move online for some later sessions.

 Thursday June 22, 3–5pm (Online): Chapter 8: The consequentialist argument

Ellie Anderson (Pomona) – “The Critical Phenomenological Turn"

Gregory Moss (Hong Kong) – “From Identity to Ground: The Principle of Sufficient Reason in Hegel's Science of Logic"

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Eliza Starbuck Little (Warwick) – "Seeing with the Eyes of Reason, or, Hegelian Conceptual Amelioration"

To join via Teams click here

Timothy Stoll (Warwick) – "Myth and Metaphysics in The Birth of Tragedy“

To join via Teams please click here

Anthony Bruno (Royal Holloway) – book workshop on Facticity and the Fate of Reason After Kant (forthcoming OUP)

Sean D. Kelly (Harvard) " The Proper Dignity of Human Being"

Nicolas de Warren (Penn State) - "Phenomenology of the After-Life"

Chenwei Nie

Title: ‘White Queen Irrationality’.

Toril Moi (Duke - online) - "Simone de Beauvoir and the Experience of Otherness"

Thursday April 25, 2–4pm: Preface + Chapter 1: “Something In Between”: On the Nature of Love

Seminars will take place in R3.25. All colleagues, including undergraduate and postgraduate students, are very welcome.

“Love often seems uncontrollable and irrational, but we just as frequently appear to have reasons for loving the people we do. In Love’s Vision, Troy Jollimore offers a new way of understanding love that accommodates both of these facts, arguing that love is guided by reason even as it resists and sometimes eludes rationality. At the same time, he reconsiders love’s moral status, acknowledging its moral dangers while arguing that it is, at heart, a moral phenomenon—an emotion that demands empathy and calls us away from excessive self-concern. Love is revealed as neither wholly moral nor deeply immoral, neither purely rational nor profoundly irrational. Rather, as Diotima says in Plato’s Symposium, love is “something in between.””

Seminars will take place in R3.25. All colleagues, including undergraduate and postgraduate students, are very welcome.

Thursday May 2, 2–4pm: Chapter 2: Love’s Blindness (1): Love’s Closed Heart.

“Love often seems uncontrollable and irrational, but we just as frequently appear to have reasons for loving the people we do. In Love’s Vision, Troy Jollimore offers a new way of understanding love that accommodates both of these facts, arguing that love is guided by reason even as it resists and sometimes eludes rationality. At the same time, he reconsiders love’s moral status, acknowledging its moral dangers while arguing that it is, at heart, a moral phenomenon—an emotion that demands empathy and calls us away from excessive self-concern. Love is revealed as neither wholly moral nor deeply immoral, neither purely rational nor profoundly irrational. Rather, as Diotima says in Plato’s Symposium, love is “something in between.””