Whereas the Greeks soughtto regulate appetite in pursuit of the good life, perhaps what is sought after today is a facsimile of it: a corporatised eudaimonia-lite, where the goal isn’t virtue but efficiency; not equanimity, but productivity. In this view, …
Hang Onto Your Soul
Corn and mutton are good for increasing human population numbers, though not at all good at helping human individuals thrive. The villages became towns; the towns became cities; the cities streaming into one another and became conurbations. Again, the picture’s …
Susanna Schellenberg will livestream “Subjective Perspectives and Perceptual Variance” on May 6
6 May 2022 You can preview the paper here. Practical information: Subjective Perspectives and Perceptual Variance h14-16 Greenwhich Mean Time / 16-18 CEST (check your local time here) Abstract. Perception is to its core perspectival: we perceive our surrounding …
Video Interview: Is Vaccine Nationalism Justified?
High income countries have been criticised for hoarding covid-19 vaccines: they have been accused of ‘vaccine nationalism’. But what exactly is vaccine nationalism? Is it really wrong to prioritise one’s own citizens, and, if so, why? How can we do …
2022 Uehiro Lectures : Ethics and AI, Peter Railton. In Person and Hybrid
BOOKING Lecture 2. Date: Monday 16 May 2022, 5.00 – 7.00 pm. Jointly organised with Oxford’s Moral Philosophy SeminarsVenue: Mathematical Institute (LT1), Andrew Wiles Building, Radcliffe Observatory Quarter, Woodstock Road, Oxford OX2 6GG. I will begin by outlining a framework …
Guest Post: The Ethics of Wimbledon’s Ban on Russian players
Those who support the ban often invoke abstract reasons, such as sending messages of disapprobation to Moscow or limiting Russia’s global influence, but its consequences are very real for the affected athletes or artists, whose (usually short) careers and livelihoods …
AI and the Transition Paradox
David G. Blanchflower, Is happiness U-shaped everywhere? Age and subjective well-being in 145 countries. Journal of Population Economics 34, 575–624 (2021) These are the things we want more of when we become richer. And since rich countries are predominantly democratic …
Rethinking ‘Higher’ and ‘Lower’ Pleasures
One of John Stuart Mill’s most well-known claims concerns the distinction between higher and lower pleasures. Higher pleasures—which are, roughly, ‘mental’ pleasures—are, says Mill, always preferable to lower pleasures—the pleasures of the body. Interpretation [1] is a common one; on …
New Publication: ‘Overriding Adolescent Refusals of Treatment’
We consider and reject two views (by Neil Manson and Faye Tucker) that argue for the sharing of the power to validly consent to treatment for a period between adolescents and their parents and courts under an arrangement of transitional …
Sabrina Coninx will livestream “The notorious neurophilosophy of pain: A family resemblance approach to idiosyncrasy and generalizability” on April 22
The next Neural Mechanisms Online webinar “The notorious neurophilosophy of pain: A family resemblance approach to idiosyncrasy and generalizability” will be delivered by Sabrina Coninx on Friday the 22nd. See below for details about the free talk and how to …