Published on
April 15, 2011 in
Events.
Title: Love, Properties, and Agency
Speaker: Ginger Clausen (University of Arizona)
Date, Time: 19/04/11, 5:15pm
Location: Theatrette 1, Arts West Building (Formerly Economics & Commerce Building). Click here for a map.
Abstract: I will critique two recent accounts of the nature of love and propose an alternative, which incorporates insights from each. The first is advanced by David Velleman in “Love as a Moral Emotion,” and the second by Simon Keller in “How Do I Love Thee? Let Me Count The Properties.” Velleman argues that parties to the best sort of love are appreciated not for their distinguishing characteristics, but for their bare personhood, that quality Kantians like Velleman believe puts us all “beyond price.” Keller defends an alternative account, which he calls “the properties view,” and according to which we are indeed loved for our distinguishing characteristics. He proposes a number of conditions on what kinds of properties appropriately ground the best kind of love, and defends these conditions against Velleman’s objections to the very idea of a properties view. I will argue that there are serious problems with both accounts, and propose a different kind of property view that is not vulnerable to these problems, is plausible in its own right, and allows for a better response to Velleman’s objections than Keller is ultimately able to provide.
Published on
April 10, 2011 in
Events.
Title: Wealth, justice, and practical reason; some lessons from Adam Smith
Speaker: Ben Kearns (University of Arizona)
Date, Time: 12/04/11, 5:15pm
Location: Theatrette 1, Arts West Building (Formerly Economics & Commerce Building). Click here for a map.
Abstract: The motive to acquire wealth plays an uneasy, almost Janus-faced role in Adam Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments. On the one hand, the individual’s motive to wealth acquisition is in practical tension with her compliance with the rules of justice, because those rules radically constrain the ways in which she might acquire wealth. Initially, Smith seems to offer a straightforward resolution to this problem: he argues it is practically irrational for individuals to pursue wealth; or at least wealth in excess of even the most ordinary income. But Smith also claims a near universal motive to accumulate wealth plays a crucial moral role, as it is a necessary condition for securing the material prosperity of any society. I use Smith’s analysis as an avenue to explore the relationship between wealth acquisition, justice, and practical reason. Specifically, I argue that Smith’s analysis casts into doubt the possibility that we might ever realize one of the central projects of modern political philosophy: showing compliance with the rules of justice is consistent with practical reason.
Published on
April 4, 2011 in
Events.
Title: The Bitch that Growls and Snaps at her Master: Plato’s Attack on Poets in The Republic
Speaker: Desma Kearney
Date, Time: 5/04/11, 5:15pm
Location: Theatrette 1, Arts West Building (Formerly Economics & Commerce Building). Click here for a map.
Abstract: It is well known that Plato enacts a particularly harsh judgement on poetry and poets in The Republic, and insists that there is an ancient quarrel with philosophy. I present a reading of The Republic that takes the quarrel with poetry as central to its philosophical purpose by examining the substance of the arguments Plato raises against poetry and his reasons for doing so, and by showing that the quarrel with poetry is not confined to the passages where it is made explicit, but informs the whole dialogue. I contend that the quarrel with poetry is vital to Plato’s aim of establishing philosophy as the discourse of knowledge and the dialectical labour as its method. As such I argue that even given his hesitancy, his minimal preservation of poetry in the ideal state, his allusion to certain conditions under which its re-admittance may be considered, Plato’s attack on poets is uncompromising; their banishment unmitigated, and there is less inconsistency between the substance of the attack and the ways in which it appears to be tempered than is often supposed.