Summer Seminar:
David Wiggins, Ethics: Twelve Lectures on the Philosophy of Morality

Guy Longworth
G.H.Longworth@warwick.ac.uk

“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.

Seminar schedule

Thursday April 27, 3–5pm: Chapter 1: Glaucon’s and Adeimantus’ interrogation on Socrates

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

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

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

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

Reading week

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

Thursday June 15, 3–5pm: Chapter 7: A fresh argument for utilitarianism

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

Thursday June 29: No seminar

Thursday July 6, 3–5pm (Possibly online): Chapter 9: A first-order ethic of solidarity and reciprocity

Depending on interest, we might then consider carrying on into chapters 10 (Justice) and 11–12 (Metaethics) online.

MEEP Mini-WorkshopLink opens in a new window

The Warwick Mind and Action Research Centre (WMA) is pleased to announce a new mini-workshop as part of our MEEP series. This series explores the intersection of topics typically found under the categories of 'Mind and Epistemology' and 'Ethics and Political Philosophy.' All are welcome!

WMA Graduate Research SeminarLink opens in a new window

Spring Term 2023
Wednesdays, odd weeks, at 14:00-16:00, S0.52.

Week 1: Frege 'On Sense and Reference' [pdf].

Week 3: Frege 'The Thought' [link]

Week 5: Russell 'Knowledge by Acquaintance and Knowledge by Description' [link]

Week 7: Kripke Naming and Necessity, Lecture I [pdf]

Week 9: Kripke Naming and Necessity, Lecture II [pdf]

Afflictions of Mind Reading GroupLink opens in a new window

Spring term 2023
Wednesdays, even weeks, 14:00-15:30, S0.52
Week 2. Imagination
‘Of the power of imagination’ by Montaigne
Week 4: Addiction
‘Responsibility without Blame for Addiction’ by Hanna Pickard
Week 8: Delusion
‘Derationalizing Delusions’ by V. Bell, N. Raihani, and S. Wilkinson
Week 10: Hypnosis
'Hypnosis as an altered state of consciousnessLink opens in a new window' by John F. Kihlstrom

Workshop: Moral ExperienceLink opens in a new window

Thursday 30th and Friday 31st of March 2023

University of Warwick, Coventry, UK

Moral experience remains an underexplored topic in philosophy. Yet experiences of value, of rightness or wrongness, and similar morally relevant experiences are at the core of our moral lives. The nature of such experiences and their connection to moral knowledge and to moral action deserve to be understood better. Our workshop on “Moral Experience” aims to explore questions such as the following:

• Is there a specifically moral kind of experience? If so, then what is the mode of moral experience? Is it a form of perceptual experience? Or is it a form of affective experience? And what is the relation between moral experience and moral intuition?
• What is the cognitive value of experience in the moral domain? How are we to think of the role of experience in the acquisition of these moral epistemic goods? Can we acquire moral knowledge and/or moral understanding directly, or non-inferentially, from experience? Or is there is a mediating process from experience to moral epistemic goods?
• Are moral experiences perspectival? How should we think of the kind of perspective from which one enjoys a moral experience? Do social identities, emerging from race, sex and gender, or class, for example, have a crucial role to play in shaping moral experience?
• What is the relation between moral experience, moral judgment, and moral action? One of the central tasks in moral philosophy is to give an account of moral action and the kind of reasons that justify it. What is the role of experience in this context?

Workshop programme:

Thursday 30th of March

Friday 31^st of March

Organisers:

Fabienne Peter and Daniel Vanello

How to register:

Registration is free, but please register by sending an email to d.vanello.1@warwick.ac.uk.

Refreshments and lunch will be provided on both days. Also, if you want to attend the workshop dinner on Thursday 30th, then please note this in your email. There is an extra charge for the dinner.

Giulia Martin's talk: Smelling Things.

You are warmly invited to attend Giulia Martina’s (University of Tübingen) talk on a paper entitled “Smelling Things”, which was co-written with Matt Nudds.

Time: 4:00pm - 5:45pm, 8th March. Location: S0.17

Giulia is a former Warwick PhD student and currently a post-doc at the University of Tübingen. She recently had a very nice paper on smell accepted in Mind and Language (https://doi.org/10.1111/mila.12440).

Philosophy of Action Mini-Talk SeriesLink opens in a new window

Warwick Mind and Action Research Centre

University of Warwick

“Intentional Action and the Content of Intention”

3^rd and 10^th March 2023

Friday 3^rd of March

Lucy Campbell (Warwick): “The Content of Practical Knowledge and the Content of Intention”

Friday 10^th March

Xavier Castellà (Girona): “The Representation of Action in Intention”

Both talks will be 4 – 5.30 pm, followed by drinks and dinner from 6pm.

Space for external attendees is limited, so please email lucy.campbell@warwick.ac.uk if you would like to come to one or both talks. Sadly we can’t cover attendees’ dinner, but you’re very welcome to join us, so let us know when you sign up if you’d like to book a space.

We will email signed-up attendees with the specific location nearer the time.

Talk by Simon Wimmer (organised by Hemdat)

You are warmly invited to attend Simon Wimmer's (TU Dortmund) talk entitled 'Prichard on Looks' (joint work with Giulia Martina)

Abstract: H.A. Prichard's 1906 article 'Appearances and Reality' resists a version of the argument from illusion by arguing for the conclusion that "there is some identity between what things look and what they are". Prichard's overall argumentative strategy is interesting because it differs from other direct realist strategies for resisting the argument from illusion. But it relies on claims that are seemingly implausible and in tension with each other. Our goal is to clarify his strategy and assess whether its tensions can be resolved.

The talk will take place on Friday, 24th February, 4:00-5:45 pm, in R0.04.

If you would like to join us for dinner after the talk, please let me know.

CRPLA & WMA Seminar:
Paul Smith - Cezanne, perception, autism: (not) putting the pieces together. Response Naomi Eilan
5:30pm - 7pm, Tue, 17 Jan, A0.23 (Soc Sci)

Workshop: Autobiographical Memory and Joint Reminiscing (organized by Daniel)
11am - 5pm, Fri, 17 Feb, Wolfson Research Exchange.

Schedule and Speakers:

11am-12.30pm: Christoph Hoerl and Teresa McCormack: "Remember when?’ Looking for an account of joint reminiscing"

12.30-1.30pm: Lunch break

1.30-3pm: Julian Bacharach: "Is There Such a Thing as Joint Attention to the Past?”

3-3.20pm: Tea and coffee break

3.20-4.50pm: Tony Marcel: “Phenomena raising questions about ‘Autobiographical Memory’ and ‘Episodic Memory’”

Everyone is welcome. After the event, there will be drinks and food at Benugo restaurant and bar in the Warwick Arts Centre.

Warwick-Geneva-Leipzig Interdepartmental collaboration

The first and inaugural event of the Warwick-Geneva-Leipzig Interdepartmental collaboration will be on October 6-7, 2022, at the University of Warwick.

Please contact Daniel Vanello (d.vanello.1 [at] warwick.ac.uk) for more information.

SCHEDULE: (Wolfson Research Exchange)

Thursday 6th of October 2022:

10-10.15am General Introduction

10.15-11.45am Sebastian Rödl (Leipzig)

11.45-12pm Coffee and Tea break

12-1.30pm Agnès Baehni (Geneva): Guilty and Angry? The Schizophrenic Nature of Self-Blame

1.30-2.30pm Lunch

2.30-4pm Oscar North-Concar (Warwick)

4-4.15pm Coffee and Tea break

4.15-5.45pm Fabrice Teroni (Geneva): Emotions and their correctness conditions

Friday 7th of October 2022:

10-11.30am Naomi Eilan (Warwick)

11.30-11.45am Coffee and Tea break

11.45am-1.15pm Jasmin Özel (Leipzig): Delusions as Imaginings

1.15-2.30pm Lunch, general discussion.