• 1 octobre 2021 @ 10:00 – 12:00

John Hacker-Wright (University of Guelph)

Practical Wisdom as Knowledge of the Human Good

Où: Salle 0035 du Pavillon de l’aménagement (2940 Chem. de la Côte-Sainte-Catherine), Université de Montréal

Abstract: This paper concerns the idea of practical wisdom or phronēsis understood along the lines Aristotle presents it in Nicomachean Ethics Book VI. There he defines phronēsis through examining what is characteristic of the practically wise person, the phronimos: it is someone “able to deliberate correctly … about what sorts of things further living well as a whole (pros to eu zen holos)” (1140a25-27). Some scholars reject the idea that Aristotle advocates phronēsis as general knowledge concerning human life and contend that the knowledge of the phronimos is a contextual, perceptual sensitivity that prompts action. It is the capacity to get things right “occasion by occasion,” as John McDowell puts it. I will not be contesting this view as a reading of Aristotle, but I will argue that some of the philosophical objections to phronēsis as general knowledge can be set aside once we place that putative general knowledge in its proper context. The worry is that such general knowledge postulates phronēsis as a ‘blueprint’ for acting well that seems implausibly intellectual. On the blueprint model, phronēsis is a body of knowledge that is arrived at through an independent exercise of the intellect in which, for example, one takes a set of goods and contrives a manner of living that combines them optimally. A more plausible generalism is conceivable. The most general knowledge possessed by the phronimos is knowledge concerning what it is good to be doing over the most extended period. The progressive infinitive is important because the human good is a rational activity, a praxis meta logou, and one that is sustained throughout the whole of life. Without the emphatic progressive aspect, it is too easy to look at what good we might accomplish through the completion of our actions rather than the good we achieve in actively doing them. Hence, the justification that we have for pursuing one sort of life over another must consist of insight into the good of the activity itself rather than what results from doing it. Part of the knowledge of the phronimos is the thin yet important general knowledge of the best activity to engage in over the course of a lifetime, rather than an elaborate plan arrived at in advance or codified decision procedure that will optimize one’s achievement of the good.

• 20 novembre 2021 @ 9:00 – 17:00 

2021 Workshop of the Canadian Society for Epistemology: How should we (and how did we) choose our logical theories?

Où: Salle C-2059, Carrefour des Arts et Sciences, Pavillon Lionel-Groulx (3150 rue Jean-Brillant), Université de Montréal

Speakers: Ole Hjortland  (University of Bergen), Dirk Schlimm  (McGill University), Mathieu Marion  (Université du Québec à Montréal), Greg Lavers  (Concordia University), Ulf Hlobil  (Concordia University)

• 3 décembre 2021 @ 10:00 – 12:00

Miriam McCormick (University of Richmond)

Où: Salle  C-1017-02, Carrefour des Arts et Sciences, Pavillon Lionel-Groulx (3150 rue Jean-Brillant), Université de Montréal

Résumé/Abstract: In this talk, I argue that in many cases, there are good reasons to engage with people who hold fringe beliefs such as debunked conspiracy theories. I (1) discuss reasons for engaging with fringe beliefs; (2) discuss the conditions that need to be met for engagement to be worthwhile; (3) consider the question of how to engage with such beliefs, and defend what Jeremy Fantl has called “closed-minded engagement “and (4) address worries that such closed-minded engagement involves problematic deception or manipulation. Thinking about how we engage with irrational emotions offers a way of responding to these concerns. Reflection on engagement with fringe beliefs has wider implications for two distinct philosophical discussions. First, it can help illuminate the nature of beliefs, lending support to the view that not all states which are deeply resistant to evidence thereby fail to be beliefs. Second, an implication of the view I put forth is that it need not constitute a lack of respect to adopt what Peter Strawson called “the objective stance” in relationships.

• 28 janvier 2022 @ 10:00 – 12:00

Michael Milona (Ryerson University)

Reasons for Perceptualism about Emotion

Présentation Zoom.

Résumé/Abstract: Perceptualism is the thesis that emotions are perceptual experiences of value. This paper explains how perceptualists should address one of the view’s most important and longstanding difficulties, which I call the normative assessability challenge. According to this challenge, perceptualism fails since while emotions are subject to assessment in terms of reasons and rationality, perceptual experiences are not. My solution comes in two parts. I first distinguish different types of normative assessment and argue that we lack strong grounds for holding that emotions are assessable in a way that paradigm sensory perceptual experiences are not. I next offer an argument for why it is a mistake, even independent of any commitment to perceptualism, to maintain that emotions are normatively assessable in a different way than sensory experiences. It turns out emotions are assessable only in a rather uninteresting way that even non-mental states can be.

• 18 mars 2022 @ 10:00 – 12:00

David Thorstad (Oxford)

The zetetic turn and the procedural turn

Où/Where: Local C-1017-02, Carrefour des arts et des sciences, Université de Montréal, Pavillon Lionel-Groulx (3150, rue Jean-Brillant, Montréal, QC, H3T 1N8)

• 25 mars 2022 @ 13:30 – 15:30

Jack Kwong (Appalachian State University)

Despair and Hopelessness

Où/Where: Local C-1017-02, Carrefour des arts et des sciences, Université de Montréal, Pavillon Lionel-Groulx (3150, rue Jean-Brillant, Montréal, QC, H3T 1N8)

*La conférence sera aussi présentée sur Zoom. /The conference will also be presented on Zoom.

Abstract: It has recently been proposed that hope is polysemous in that it sometimes refers to hoping and other times, to being hopeful. That it has these two distinct senses is reflected in the fact that a person can hope for an outcome without necessarily being hopeful that it will occur. In this talk, I offer a new argument for this distinction. My strategy is to show that accepting it yields a rich account of two distinct ways in which hope can be lost or absent. Roughly, I argue that these two ways map onto the two senses of hope: A person can lose hope either by ceasing to hope for an outcome (hopelessness) or by ceasing to be hopeful that it will obtain (despair). Thinking about these negative attitudes in these two ways, I contend, is explanatorily rich, and fruitfully reveals how they differ in phenomenology, behavioral differences, and the ways in which a person can escape them.

2020-2021

 Ateliers/Workshops GRIN

• 18 décembre 2020 @ 10:00 – 12:00

• 14 – 16 mai 2021

Fittingness conference

Colloque organisé par Chris Howard (McGill) et Richard Rowland (Leeds).
Le colloque est ouvert aux membres du GRIN et du CRÉ, ainsi que leurs postdocs et chercheurs invités.
Pour s’inscrire ou pour plus d’infomations: chris.howard@mcgill.ca.

2019-2020

Ateliers/Workshops GRIN

• 13 septembre 2019, 10h-12h.

Raamy Majeed (Auckland) “Do Recalcitrant Emotions Show that Emotions are Modular?”

Salle/Room: 422, Stone Castle, Université de Montréal (2910 Édouard-Montpetit)

Résumé/Abstract:

The occurrence of recalcitrant emotions, i.e. emotional episodes that are in conflict with our considered judgements, are used as unproblematic means of motivating the view that emotions are modular: roughly, that they are cognitive capacities which are explained by mental components functionally dissociable from other parts of the mind. In this paper, I argue that recalcitrant emotions don’t, by themselves, show that emotions are modular in a non-trivial sense.

• 20 septembre 2019, 10h-12h.

Victoria McGeer (Princeton) “Empathy Internalized: On the scaffolding power of self-directed emotion.”

Salle/Room: Leacock 927, McGill University (855 Rue Sherbrooke Ouest)

Résumé/Abstract:

It is commonly accepted that empathy plays a key role in moral agency.  More deeply, it is often held to play a critical role in (adult) moral development by generating self-castigating emotions of guilt, shame and remorse when we are brought face to face with the wrongs we do to others.  In defense of this commonsense view, I argue the self-castigating emotions can be epistemically valuable so far as they promote insight into our conduct and character that may be necessary for such development.  But more problematically, these emotions can also be motivationally counterproductive for such development.  To overcome this problem, I examine the conditions under which these self-castigating emotions can be managed, contained or metabolized, thereby supporting rather than defeating our self-development.  My claim will be that forging an empathetic connection with our own erring self is an essential part of this developmental process.

• 27 septembre 2019, 10h-12h.

Michael Titelbaum (Winsconsin-Madison) “The Logical Firmament”

Salle/Room: 422, Stone Castle, (2910 Édouard-Montpetit, Université de Montréal)

Résumé/Abstract:

Most work in the epistemology of logic asks how inferential rules are known, and how individual steps in a proof are justified.  But what happens when single steps are composed into a complex derivation?  A new set of facts—“combinational facts”—come into play, which have been undertheorized despite being at the heart of such phenomena as logical non-omniscience.  I will ask how recognition of these facts might alter our epistemology of logic.  And I will make a tentative proposal for how combinational facts come to be known.

• 1er octobre 2019, 15h-17h.

Hille Paakkunainen (Syracuse), invitée à Concordia. “Virtue and Practical Inference” | Concordia Philosophy Speaker Series

In this talk, Dr. Hille Paakkunainen will argue that virtues of character are dispositions of practical inference, and that neo-Humean belief-desire psychology is inadequate to account for them.

• 14-16 novembre : Knowledge in a digital world, Congress of the Canadian Society for Epistemology

KEYNOTE SPEAKERS:
Karen Frost-Arnold (Hobart and William Smith Colleges) J. Adam Carter (University of Glasgow)

The digital age poses new challenges for epistemology. Digital technologies have become central to how we form, revise, and maintain our beliefs. How should we approach this recent development as epistemologists? What is the epistemological significance of our increasing reliance on, e.g., anonymous online sources, social media, personalized news feeds and search engines? What does the widespread use of AI and opaque algorithms mean for our lives as knowers, testifiers, and reasoners? Do new epistemic responsibilities arise in the digital world? How can we, as epistemologists, contribute to making sense of these developments?

• 22 novembre 2019, 10h-16h.

Workshop sur On Being a Believer de David Hunter (Ryerson)

Salle/Room: A-2407, pavillon Maximilien-Caron, Université de Montréal (3101, chemin de la tour, Montréal, Qc.)

Résumé/Abstract: This book is about being a believer, about having a cognitive perspective on the world.

• 10 janvier 2020, 10h-12h.

Kate Nolfi (Vermont) – GRIN/Thème phare éthique féministe

Salle/Room: W-5215,  5e étage Pavillon Thérèse-Casgrain (W), UQAM (455, Boulevard René-Lévesque Est)

• 6 février 2020, 17h – 19h.

5 à 7 du GRIN/CRÉ

Brasserie Saint-Hublon, 5414 Gatineau, Montréal, H3T 1X5

Le GRIN et le CRÉ sont ravis de vous convier à un 5 à 7, à l’occasion duquel Stephanie Leary (McGill), Christopher Howard (McGill) et Jonathan Simon (UdeM) présenteront leurs travaux. Les présentations d’une vingtaine de minutes chacune seront suivies, à tour de rôle, d’une période de discussion d’une même durée.

• 13 février 2020, 15h-17h.

Jesse Prinz & Sarah Arnaud (CUNY) : “Are There Emotions in the Brain?”

Salle/Room: W-5215, Pav. Thérèse Casgrain, UQAM (455 Boulevard René-Lévesque E, Montréal, QC H2L 4Y2)

Résumé/Abstract: Against an emerging tide of “constructionism” about discrete emotions, there are long-stranding research programs that claim to establish physiological correlates. Work on expressive behavior has moved beyond static faces to dynamic expressions, vocal patterns, and posture to find more robust analogues of discrete emotions in the body, and new work using pattern classifiers purports to establish that folk categories map onto the CNS and ANS. These views lobby for the possibility that folk categories can be more neatly reduced to physiology. Thus, the scientific status of discrete emotions remains in limbo. Here we steer a course between constructionism and reductionism, proposing an account of discrete emotions that takes both sides seriously. Work in the constructionist tradition testifies to considerably plasticity and against domain specificity at the level of neural implementation. Work by reductionists suggests that patterns can nevertheless emerge. We argue for a “reconstructionist” view, according to which discrete categories map only multiple bio-culturally constructed patterns.

• 12 mars 2020, 13h30 – 16h.

Ethical Knowledge and Deep Learning, with Preston Werner (Hebrew U, Jerusalem); Jonna Vance (Northern Arizona U); Ana Gantman (Brooklyn College).

MILA, auditorium 1, 6650 Saint-Urbain, 2e étage

• 13 mars 2020.

Journée de travail en philosophie analytique, ULaval

• REPORTÉ À L’AUTOMNE 2020

Responsabilité, normativité et langage – En hommage à Daniel Laurier

Lieu: salle C-1017-11, Carrefour des arts, Pavillon Lionel Groulx, 3150, rue Jean-Brillan,
métro Université de Montréal

Programme:
10:00-10:50 Montminy, Blameworthiness, Foreseeability and Causal Deviance
10:50-11:40 Paul Bernier, Karma et responsabilité morale dans le bouddhisme des origines
Lunch
13:30-14:20 Simon-Pierre Chevarie-Cossette, PAP ssi DIP?
14:20-15:10 Martin Rémi Tison, Intentions de communication et cognition « de bas niveau »
15:20-16:10 Marc-Kevin Daoust, The Deontic Force of Apparent Reasons
16:10-17:00 Charles Côté-Bouchard, Déontologismes et involontarisme doxastique

• 27 et 28 mars 2020 -Annulé-

Virtue Ethics and Politics Workshop: The Personal and the Common Good
SOCIAL JUSTICE CENTRE

Room LB-362 (Third floor of the Webster Library), J.W. McConnell Bldg , Concordia University, SGW Campus, 1400 Maisonneuve Blvd W.

• REPORTÉ À L’AUTOMNE 2020

Robin Dembroff (Yale University) – GRIN/Thème phare éthique féministe

Salle/Room: 422, Stone Castle, (2910 Édouard-Montpetit, Université de Montréal)

• REPORTÉ À L’AUTOMNE 2020

Miriam McCormick (University of Richmond) “Belief as Emotion”

Salle/Room: 422, Stone Castle, (2910 Édouard-Montpetit, Université de Montréal)

Résumé/Abstract:

It is commonly held that (i) beliefs are evidence-sensitive and (ii) beliefs are connected to actions in reliable and predictable ways. Given such a view, many argue that if a mental state fails to respond to evidence or doesn’t result in the kind of behavior typical or expected of belief, it is not a belief after all, but a different state. Yet, one finds seeming counter examples of resilient beliefs that fail to respond to evidence, or that do not connect to action in the way we would expect them to. I offer a view of belief that does not force us to exclude states as real beliefs that we pre-reflectively think of as beliefs, and that does not require us to “outsource” the work belief seems to do to other mental states. Rather than assume that belief is a purely cognitive state, I propose that we view belief as a type of emotion where emotions are understood as including cognitive and non-cognitive elements. Thinking of beliefs as emotions can help us make sense of resilient or recalcitrant beliefs, of seeming breakdowns between belief and actions, and offer insight into the phenomena of persistent disagreement and self-deception.

• 12 et 13 mai 2020

Éthique, Justice et Connaissance / Ethics, Justice and Knowledge

Salle/Room: Zoom (écrire à valery.giroux@umontreal.ca)

Sébastien Gambs, Université du Québec à Montréal, « Respect de la vie privée et problématiques éthiques à l’ère des données massives »
Prabhpal Singh, University of Waterloo, “After-Birth Abortion, Moral Status, and the Relational View”
Anne-Marie Gagné-Julien, Université du Québec à Montréal, « La médicalisation des troubles mentaux, les injustices épsitémiques et l’objectivité sociale »
Aude Bandini, Université de Montréal, « Le paternalisme épistémique dans la relation de soin »
Aušra Kaziliūnaitė, Vilnius University, « Foucault’s panopticism and ethics of modern surveillance: ‘plague stricken down’ reactualisation during corona crises”
Michaël Lessard, University of Toronto, (Faculty of Law), « Reconnaître la sensibilité des animaux peut-il les protéger? »
Samuel Dishaw, Harvard University, “Duties to Future Generations : Rethinking the No-Difference View”
Russ Shafer-Laudau, University of Wisconsin, Madison, “Conceptual Moral Truths”

2018-2019

Ateliers/Workshops

• 21 sept. 2018 :

Pamela Hieronymi (UCLA) “Freedom, Resentment, and the Metaphysics of Morals”   

10h-12h – Salle : en vidéoconférence, salle P-217, Pavillon Roger-Gaudry, (2900 Édouard-Montpetit, Université de Montréal)

Abstract :

Fifty-five years after its publication, P. F. Strawson’s “Freedom and Resentment” continues to inspire important work.  Its main legacy has been the notion of “reactive attitudes.”  Surprisingly, Strawson’s central argument—an argument to the conclusion that no general thesis (such as the thesis of determinism) could provide us reason to abandon these attitudes—has received little attention.  In a short manuscript, I am arguing that neither of the standard interpretations are correct.  Strawson’s argument relies on an underlying picture of the nature of moral demands and moral relationships—a picture that has gone largely unnoticed, that is naturalistic without being reductionistic, and that is, I think, worthy of serious consideration.   After very briefly presenting the main outlines of my interpretation, I will, in this presentation, focus on objections to Strawson’s underlying, naturalistic picture.  Though the objections are serious, I believe robust replies can be provided on Strawson’s behalf.

• 12 oct. 2018 :

Dana Nelkin (University of California, San Diego) 

“Equal Opportunity: A Unifying Framework for Moral, Aesthetic, and Epistemic Responsibility”

13h-15h – Salle :W-5215 – Pavillon Thérèse-Casgrain – UQÀM- en collaboration avec Fillosophie –

Abstract :

We naturally speak about moral obligations (e.g., “you ought to have kept your promise”) and we speak about epistemic ones and even sometimes what look like aesthetic ones, too (e.g., “you ought to have known that the polls were within the margin of error” and “you should have done better with that painting”).  Similarly, we blame and praise people for epistemic and aesthetic transgressions and achievements, as well as moral ones.  For these reasons, it is natural to conclude that our moral, aesthetic and epistemic practices should be treated in highly parallel ways, at least when it comes to the realm of holding responsible, praiseworthy, and blameworthy.  At the same time, there are clear asymmetries between the moral and epistemic case, and also between the moral and the aesthetic, which might seem to doom any hope for a genuinely parallel treatment.  For example, as many have pointed out, unlike actions or omissions, which are central objects of moral obligations, praise and blame, belief does not seem to be the kind of thing one has control over.  When it comes to the aesthetic case, many have doubted that we have obligations in the way that we do in the other cases.  Further, moral blame has seemed to many to be governed by a number of interpersonal norms that don’t seem to have parallels in either the pure epistemic or pure aesthetic case.  Despite these challenges, I argue that the prospects are promising for a unifying framework that applies in all three cases while at the same time leaving room for divergence on some important dimensions.  In particular, in this paper, I pursue the idea that one’s degree of blameworthiness or praiseworthiness depends on the quality of one’s opportunity in a given case.

• 26 oct. 2018 :

Paul Boghossian (New York University) “The Boundaries of Inference”

15h-17h – Salle : 201, S Annex (2145 Mackay), Sir George Williams Campus, Concordia University, H3N 1M8

Abstract: 

I will look at how we should decide the question what inference is and discuss some objections to my ‘intellectualist’ and ‘agential’ conception of inference.

• 1 février 2019 :

Charles Côté-Bouchard (GRIN, CRÉ, Université de Montréal) “Varieties of epistemic constitutivism“

10h-12h – Salle : 223, Stone Castle – 2910 bvd Édouard-Montpetit (Université de Montréal)

Abstract:

Epistemic constitutivism (EC) seeks to ground the epistemic domain in constitutive features relevant to agency. In this presentation, I examine the prospects of EC via two distinctions within the epistemic constitutivist family. The first is between what I call requirement-constitutivism (ERC) and normative-constitutivism (ENC). This distinction is about what epistemic constitutivism should try to ground. While ERC only seeks to ground the requirements (norms, standards, rules) of epistemology, proponents of ENC want to go further and ground the normative authority of those epistemic requirements.The second distinction, which draws from recent work by Kate Nolfi and Amy Flowerree, is between belief-constitutivism (EBC) and action-constitutivism (EAC). This second distinction is about what should do the grounding in epistemic constitutivism. While EBC grounds the epistemic in what is constitutive of belief, EAC invokes the constitution of action or agency more generally. My goal is to formulate and evaluate the four possible versions of EC that we get from these distinctions. I argue that all four versions of EC face serious problems. Constitutivism is therefore not a promising approach to grounding the epistemic domain.

• 1 mars 2019 :

Barry Maguire (Stanford University)  “Ethical Desiderata for a Satisfactory Socialist Economics”

10h-12h – Salle : en vidéoconférence ; salle P-217, Pavillon Roger-Gaudry, (2900 Édouard-Montpetit, Université de Montréal)

Abstract: It has become rather old-fashioned to contrast the self-directed nature of market motives with the socialist ideal of a productive community in which each contributes according to their ability and is contributed to according to their need. A barrage of arguments from theorists in economics, psychology, political theory, and philosophy have weakened this contrast, arguing that market participation is compatible with a range of attractive kinds of social relations. In a series of papers, Robert Sugden and Luigino Bruni have argued that we can conceptualise market exchange as a joint activity undertaken together with the intention of realizing a mutual benefit. And so we can. The key question is whether this conceptualization is compatible with the relevant socialist ideal. This is the question that drives this talk. I start by strengthening Sugden and Bruni’s case, granting as many assumptions as possible to market theorists along the way. And still, I argue, there is at least one crucial difference between these two forms of economic society. In markets, our individual motivations to serve others in our productive lives are conditional upon self-directed concerns. In the socialist ideal, our motivations to serve others in our productive activities are instead directly explained by a commitment to serve our community in some useful way. We may yet be willing and able to uphold this commitment only if doing so is compatible with living a good life oneself. I explore the nature and significance of this contrast, partly by application to cases of price gouging, salary negotiations, and gentrification.

• 5 avril 2019 :

Lisa Tessman (Binghamton University)  “Failure without Fault”

10h-12h – Salle : 307, Stone Castle – 2910 bvd Édouard-Montpetit, UdeM

Abstract:

People often suffer from anguish or other distressed emotions in the wake of their own moral failures. Drawing on the literature on “moral distress” (in medical ethics) and “moral injury” (in military ethics), I compare situations in which people suffer in the aftermath of what are moral failures only in their own eyes, and situations in which they suffer in the aftermath of wrongdoings for which other people, too, may hold them accountable. When a wrongdoing is completely unavoidable, people often still take themselves to be responsible for it, but other people cannot hold them responsible. The anguished sense of responsibility experienced in the wake of unavoidable wrongdoing expresses an important form of valuing, that, I suggest, other people should respect by refraining from pushing the sufferer to relinquish it. To better understand this, I examine both the first-person experience of being required and the sense of requirement experienced from what, following Darwall, we can call the second-person standpoint. I take first-person experiences of requirement and second-person address to be two different sources of normativity, associated with opportunities for different kinds of failures.

• 9 avril 2019 :

Caroline T. Arruda (University of Texas)  “Sticking to it and Settling: Commitments, Normativity and the Future”

10h-12h – Salle : C-1017-02, Carrefour des Arts et des Sciences, 1er étage, Pavillon Lionel-Groulx – 3150, rue Jean-Brillant, UdeM

Abstract:

People often think that commitments are designed to secure various aspects of the way we exercise our agency over and through time. These include the following: commitments help us to resist temptation (Holton 2009; Marušić 2015 ); commitments block re-deliberation (Bratman 2004; 2016; 2018 Hinchman 2015; Holton 2009); commitments help us to do what we correctly think that we are unlikely to do (Marušić 2015 ); commitments ensure (or provide one route by which to ensure) the diachronic stability of our intentions or decisions (Morton 2013; Morton & Paul forthcoming). Broadly speaking, we can say that commitments are a source of what we might broadly classify as agential stability. Or, more simply, commitments explain how and why I should “stick to it” or “settle” on a course of action. In this paper, I argue that paradigmatic cases of commitments reveal that commitments themselves cannot nor could not provide any of these kinds of agential stability. Instead, I show that if commitments serve any of these functions, it is in virtue of their relationship to what we care about, what has import for us or what we value. If this is correct, it follows that it isn’t the commitment that does the work in explaining why we should “stick to it”; it is the reasons that we have to form the commitment in the first place.

2017-2018 Ateliers/Workshops

• 20 oct. 2017 :

Sigrún Svavarsdóttir (Tufts University) “Value Ascriptions”

10h-12h – Salle : 223 (2910 Boul. Édouard-Montpetit, métro Université de Montréal)

Abstract:

This paper focuses on value as ascribed to what can be desired, enjoyed, cherished, admired, loved, and so on: value that putatively serves as ground for evaluating such attitudes and for justifying conduct. The main question of the paper is whether such value ascriptions are property ascriptions and why anyone would even think so. Given how the disagreement between cognitivists and non-cognitivists is traditionally construed within metaethics, the question concerns whether cognitivism provides the right approach to value ascriptions and what the basic motivation for that approach is. According to the philosophical lore, the structure of evaluative thought and language prima facie favors the cognitivist thesis that value ascriptions are property ascriptions. This paper rethinks the lessons to be drawn from the structure of evaluative thought and language. The paper does not take sides in the traditional debate between cognitivism and non-cognitivism but, instead, questions how the debate about the nature of value ascriptions has traditionally been framed.

• 12 janv. 2018 :

Nomy Arpaly (Brown University) “On Benevolence”

14h-16h – Salle DS-1950 (320, rue Sainte Catherine Est, UQÀM)

Abstract:

It is widely agreed that benevolence is not the whole of the moral life, but it is not as widely appreciated that benevolence is an irreducible part of that life. This paper argues that Kantian efforts to characterize benevolence, or something like it, in terms of reverence for rational agency fall short. Such reverence, while credibly an important part of the moral life, is no more the whole of it than benevolence.

• 26 janv. 2018 :

Dale Dorsey (The University of Kansas) “Preferences and Prudential Reasons”

10h-12h –  223 (2910 Boul. Édouard-Montpetit, métro Université de Montréal)