Social Philosophy Workshop II
Date: Wednesday 24 June, 2:00 – 5:30pm
Venue: Ryle Room, Schwarzman Centre
Workshop convenor: James Laing
Timetable
- 2:00 – 3.30pm – Jordan Walters (Nuffield), What We Owe to the Dead
- 3:30 – 4.00pm – Break
- 4:00 – 5.30pm – Cara Addleman (Christ Church), Lying, Cheating Bastards: Why Not Lock Them Up?
2026 Lockwood Memorial Lecture and medal presentation
Title: Is Ethical Divestment Possible?
Speaker: Prof David Boonin, University of Colorado Boulder
Date: Thursday 25 June, 5:00 – 6:30pm, followed by a drinks reception
Venue: Geoffrey Thomas Lecture Theatre, Rewley House, 1 Wellington Square, Oxford OX1 2JA
Abstract: A common justification for ethical divestment rests on the claim that your owning stock in an immoral company makes you complicit in the company’s immoral behavior. But there’s something puzzling about this view. Suppose you own such stock. Ethical divestment requires you to sell it. If you sell it to someone, then they’ll own it. If it’s wrong to own the stock, then they’ll be doing something wrong. So if you sell someone the stock you own in an immoral company, you’ll be helping them do something wrong. And it seems wrong to help someone do something wrong. This seems to make it wrong for you to sell the stock to them. How, then, can a company’s immoral behavior make it wrong for you to own stock in the company but not make it wrong for you to get rid of the stock by selling it to someone else? How, in short, can ethical divestment be possible? I will discuss a variety of answers that have been offered to this puzzling question and propose an alternative response.
Registration via Bookwhen
Bitesize Ethics Programme
Title: Bitesize Ethics 2026: Life, death and difficult decisions
Date: Wednesday 24 June 2026 to Wednesday 12 August 2026, 12.35 - 1.20pm
Department: The Uehiro Oxford Institute (Department)
Description: This 8-week online programme provides a short introduction to some of the ethical issues affecting decisions taken around the beginning and end of life of living things, based on current research from academics at the Uehiro Oxford Institute. Prof Dominic Wilkinson provides a general introduction in week one, and the series continues with a different specialist each Wednesday, addressing themes such as conscience and conscientious objection, age-based decision-making, AI and life extension, the ‘badness’ of death, and difficult decisions in healthcare. The series will finish with a wrap-up discussion looking back at the topics covered, led by Dr Jonathan Pugh.
Online via Zoom
Register here: https://bookwhen.com/uehiro#focus=ev-scvz9-20260701123500
More information: https://www.practicalethics.ox.ac.uk/bitesize-ethics-summer-2026
