Digest Week 8 Hilary Term 2024

2023 Annual Uehiro Lectures in Practical Ethics

'Knowledge and Achievement: Their Value, Nature, and Public Policy Role'

Speaker: Professor Thomas Hurka is currently Chancellor Henry N. R. Jackman Distinguished Professor of Philosophical Studies at the University of Toronto. He gained a B.Phil. and D.Phil. in Philosophy at University of Oxford University, after a B.A. at the University of Toronto.

A series of three public lectures (in-person only).

Lecture 1: Knowledge and Achievement as Organic Goods

Date/Time: Monday 4 March 2023, 4:30pm – 6:15pm

Venue: H B Allen Centre Lecture Theatre, Keble College, 25 Banbury Rd, Oxford OX2 6NN

Hurka has published on a number of topics, however his main area of research and teaching is moral and political philosophy, especially normative ethical theory. His writings focus on perfectionist moral theories: authored books include Perfectionism (OUP)] and Virtue, Vice, and Value (OUP). He has also discussed the justification of punishment, population ethics, nationalism, friendship, and the morality of war.

In 2011, Professor Hurka published a non-academic book The Best Things in Life (OUP), about the many things – pleasure, knowledge, achievement, virtue, personal love – that can make life desirable. Later, in 2014, he published British Ethical Theorists From Sidgwick to Ewing (OUP), the first full historical study of an important strand in the development of modern moral philosophy. The book follows a series of British ethical theorists from the late nineteenth century to the mid-twentieth century, who shared key assumptions that made them a unified and distinctive school.

Booking is now open for in-person attendance on Bookwhen.com (please register for each lecture separately). All are welcome to attend these free, public lectures.

Interdisciplinary Psychoanalysis Seminar and the Wollheim Centenary Project

Conveners: Professor KP Tod, Dr L Braddock, Dr N Gildea

'Richard Wollheim and the psychoanalytic aesthetics of Adrian Stokes'

Speaker: Janet Sayers, Professor Emerita, University of Kent

Date/Time: Monday 4 March between 6-7pm 

Location: St John's College

In her talk Janet Sayers (author of Art, Psychoanalysis, and Adrian Stokes) focuses on the work of the philosopher Richard Wollheim iand art critic Adrian Stokes. She begins with examples from Stokes's account of looking at pictures before turning to Stokes's role in introducing Wollheim to Melanie Klein and her version of psychoanalysis. Sayers follows this with the very different attitudes of Wollheim and Stokes to abstract expressionist painting; and with the publicity accorded Stokes's work by Wollheim's 1972 book, The Image in Form. The talk ends with the relation of Stokes’s objection to abstract expressionist painting to Wollheim’s account of what he described as the 'two-foldedness' of 'seeing-in'.

Registration here is necessary as the venue for talks may change or send an email to wollheimcentenary@gmail.com.

'Evolution of Sentience and its Implications for Altruists'

Speaker: Dr Walter Veit (University of Reading)

Date/Time: Monday 4 March between 18:00-20:00 (including Q&A and free pizza afterwards)

Which animals are capable of suffering? And if animals as different as insects, birds, fish, and pigs suffer, how can we assess how much they suffer in comparison to each other? Is eating insects an ethical alternative to say pork if the amount of insects that have to be killed vastly outweigh the number of pigs? To answer these questions we need to understand the evolution of Benthamite creatures capable of pleasure and pain. The goal of this talk is to offer an explanation for the evolutionary origins of consciousness. According to the pathological complexity thesis, the evolution of hedonic valence can be understood as an adaptive response to a computational explosion of pathological complexity that occurred during the Cambrian, allowing Darwinian agents to track what matters to them and to make the right decisions at the right time. It is in this context that proximate interests or imperative motivations are born, giving rise to a new mode of animal agency in these Benthamite creatures with efficient action control and action selection. This framework will allow us not only to determine which animals are capable of suffering, but also to offer us a reasonable way to allow for interspecies comparisons of welfare.

Walter Veit is a Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in Philosophy at the University of Reading, where he is also the director of the PPE program as well as the philosophy MA program. Furthermore, he is an external member of the Munich Center for Mathematical Philosophy, Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich. His interests are broad, but he works primarily in and at the intersections of (i) the Philosophy of Cognitive and Biological Sciences, (ii) the Philosophy of Mind, and (iii) Applied Ethics. Much of his recent writing has been on animal minds, welfare, and ethics, as well as evolution. Dr Veit's first monograph titled ‘A Philosophy for the Science of Animal Consciousness‘ integrating this research into a coherent whole has been published with Routledge. He received his PhD in 2023 from the School of History and Philosophy of Science, University of Sydney. 

Venue: Daubeny Laboratory, Magdalen College

The facebook link to the event is here.

'AI-Powered Neural Implants and the Future of Personal Autonomy'

Speaker: Maximilian Keiner, Junior Professor and Institute for Ethics in Technology Lead, Hamburg University

Date/Time: Tuesday 5 March at 6pm

Venue: Statistics Department

Biomedical technologies do not merely influence our bodies. They are starting to have a profound impact on our minds too. One area where this is especially salient is the burgeoning field of AI-powered brain implants. These devices can bridge the gap between the biological and the digital and have the potential to treat neurodegenerative diseases, enhance cognitive capabilities, and even integrate AI-enhanced functionalities directly into our neural makeup. Building on joint work with Tom Douglas (Oxford), I shall concentrate on the concern that neural implants might, even when initially employed with the patient’s free and informed consent, still impede an individual’s autonomy. I propose a novel framework called TRICK for assessing this concern. The acronym stands for Transparency, Rationality, Irresistibility, and Consent Kinetics. TRICK builds on insights from the neighbouring debate on nudging, where considerations relating to transparency, rationality, and (ir-)resistibility have been prominently explored, but also highlights the limitations of, qualifies and supplements these principles.

Free pizza will be served afterwards.

Oxford Philosophy Society Event

‘Debate: Is the virtuous agent as described by Aristotle objectionably self-centred?’

Date/Time: Tuesday 5 March between 19:30-20:30

Professor Thomas Hurka and Dr Karen Margrethe Nielsen will be debating whether Aristotle’s ‘virtuous agent’ is objectionably self-centred. Professor Hurka will be arguing that Aristotle’s ‘virtuous agent’ is indeed objectionably self-centred. While Dr Nielsen will be arguing that Aristotle’s ‘virtuous agent’ is not objectionably self-centred. There will be time for a Q&A toward the end of the debate.

Dr Nielsen works on ancient philosophy, with special emphasis on Aristotle’s ethics and moral psychology. Her current research is funded by a Leverhulme Major Research Fellowship (2022-24), and will result in a monograph titled Prohairesis: Aristotle’s Theory of Decision and its Legacy. She has recently published a book in the Cambridge Elements series titled Vice in Ancient Philosophy: Plato and Aristotle on Moral Ignorance and Corruption of Character (CUP, 2023) and was the editor (with Devin Henry) of Bridging the Gap between Aristotle’s Science and Ethics (CUP, 2015). Her articles have appeared in specialist and generalist journals, including Phronêsis, Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy, Philosophical Review, Classical Quarterly and Philosophical Perspectives, as well as in edited volumes.

Professor Hurka is the Chancellor Henry N. R. Jackman Distinguished Professor of Philosophical Studies at the University of Toronto. He has published on a number of topics, however his main area of research and teaching is moral and political philosophy, especially normative ethical theory. His writings focus on perfectionist moral theories: authored books include Perfectionism (OUP) and Virtue, Vice, and Value OUP). He has also discussed the justification of punishment, population ethics, nationalism, friendship, and the morality of war.

Venue: Harold Lee Room, Pembroke College

2023 Annual Uehiro Lectures in Practical Ethics

'Knowledge and Achievement: Their Value, Nature, and Public Policy Role'

Speaker: Professor Thomas Hurka is currently Chancellor Henry N. R. Jackman Distinguished Professor of Philosophical Studies at the University of Toronto. He gained a B.Phil. and D.Phil. in Philosophy at University of Oxford University, after a B.A. at the University of Toronto.

A series of three public lectures (in-person only).

Lecture 2: Degrees of Value in Knowledge and Achievement

Date/Time: Wednesday 6 March 2023, 4:30pm – 6:15pm

Venue: H B Allen Centre Lecture Theatre, Keble College, 25 Banbury Rd, Oxford OX2 6NN

Hurka has published on a number of topics, however his main area of research and teaching is moral and political philosophy, especially normative ethical theory. His writings focus on perfectionist moral theories: authored books include Perfectionism (OUP)] and Virtue, Vice, and Value (OUP). He has also discussed the justification of punishment, population ethics, nationalism, friendship, and the morality of war.

In 2011, Professor Hurka published a non-academic book The Best Things in Life (OUP), about the many things – pleasure, knowledge, achievement, virtue, personal love – that can make life desirable. Later, in 2014, he published British Ethical Theorists From Sidgwick to Ewing (OUP), the first full historical study of an important strand in the development of modern moral philosophy. The book follows a series of British ethical theorists from the late nineteenth century to the mid-twentieth century, who shared key assumptions that made them a unified and distinctive school.

Booking is now open for in-person attendance on Bookwhen.com (please register for each lecture separately). All are welcome to attend these free, public lectures.

Interdisciplinary Psychoanalysis Seminar and the Wollheim Centenary Project

Conveners: Professor KP Tod, Dr L Braddock, Dr N Gildea

'Why Wollheim? Why collage?'

Speaker: Louise Braddock, Independent scholar

Date/Time: Wednesday 6 March between 6-7pm 

Location: St John's College

In Wollheim’s psychoanalytic theory he picks out certain states of mind as ‘iconic’; they present as if what they are about is real. Dreams are the obvious example but Wollheim includes also certain sorts of memory and imagination. From his art theory we learn how and under what conditions a painter tries to produce an image that is, again, ‘iconic’.

Patrice Moor’s collages can be viewed in this light: they are made by a process that the artist can describe or show to us but they are also an image of the process captured at a certain point. Thus, they give us and the artist a window into the process and how it is experienced by the artist at the time of making; a picture, that is, of the process.

In the talk I will bring together these two perspectives to explore how the concept of iconicity extends to collage, and whether collage offers us a further insight into the formation of the iconic state of mind.

Registration here is necessary as the venue for talks may change or send an email to wollheimcentenary@gmail.com.

Oxford Jurisprudence Discussion Group

'Detention and Distrust'

Speaker: Kimberly Kessler Ferzan (UPenn)

Kimberly Kessler Ferzan, Earle Hepburn Professor of Law and Professor of Philosophy; and Co-Director, Institute of Law & Philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School, presents the eighth and final paper of Hilary Term 2024: "Detention and Distrust". 

Date/Time: Thursday 7 March 5-7pm

Venue: Arthur Goodhart Seminar Room, University College. The Room is located in Logic Lane and can be accessed from High St. or Merton St. without having to go through the main entrance to University College.

Pre-reading is desirable and strongly suggested, but not a requirement to attend.

If you want to receive the papers we discuss in our seminars join our mailing list by sending a blank email at jurisprudence-discussion-group-subscribe[at]maillist.ox.ac.uk.

This event is open to anyone. No registration needed.

'Do this in Remembrance of Me: Memory, Cognitive Neuroscience, and the Embodied Remembrance of God in Liturgical Action'

Speaker: Buki Fatona, University of Oxford

A seminar presented by the Ian Ramsey Centre for Science and Religion and the Humane Philosophy Project

Time/Date: Thursday 7 March between 5:00pm-6:30pm

In this seminar, I explore implications of a constructivist model of memory for liturgical theology. Recent findings in cognitive neuroscience challenge the classical model of memory in philosophy as a storage device wherein memories are imprinted from experience and reproduced when remembering. It appears, however, that remembering past events consists in active (re)constructions in the present in a similar manner and via the same mechanisms as imagining the future. This means, counterintuitively perhaps, that one can successfully simulate memory of an event without a prior experience of that event. Further, as I argue and drawing on an enactivist theory of cognition, active (re)constructions of the past in memory are generated via an organism’s embodied interactions with, and navigations of, its environment. A constructivist-enactivist model of memory has hitherto unexplored implications for liturgical theology. In exploring these implications, I go on to argue that anamnesis—that is, the liturgical action of celebrating the Eucharist in remembrance of Christ—is better explained by a constructivist-enactivist model of memory than by the classical model.

Buki Fatona is nearing completion of a Doctor of Philosophy at the University of Oxford in Theology (Science and Religion). Her research brings together her degrees in Microbiology (BSc); Theology (BA); and Epistemology, Ethics, Philosophy of Mind and Cognitive Science (MSc). In her work, she examines memory systems in antiquity (Aristotle) and the medieval period (Augustine and Thomas Aquinas) via the lens of contemporary cognitive neuroscience. It is a work which draws on her knowledge of, and passion for, classics; ancient and medieval science and philosophy of mind; contemporary philosophy of memory and cognitive neuroscience.

Venue: Main Lecture Room, Faculty of Theology and Religion, Gibson Building

This talk is free and open to the public. Refreshments will be served.

2023 Annual Uehiro Lectures in Practical Ethics

'Knowledge and Achievement: Their Value, Nature, and Public Policy Role'

Speaker: Professor Thomas Hurka is currently Chancellor Henry N. R. Jackman Distinguished Professor of Philosophical Studies at the University of Toronto. He gained a B.Phil. and D.Phil. in Philosophy at University of Oxford University, after a B.A. at the University of Toronto.

A series of three public lectures (in-person only).

Lecture 3: Knowledge and Achievement as Public Policy Goals

Date/Time: Friday 8 March 2023, 4:30pm – 6:15pm

Venue: H B Allen Centre Lecture Theatre, Keble College, 25 Banbury Rd, Oxford OX2 6NN

Hurka has published on a number of topics, however his main area of research and teaching is moral and political philosophy, especially normative ethical theory. His writings focus on perfectionist moral theories: authored books include Perfectionism (OUP)] and Virtue, Vice, and Value (OUP). He has also discussed the justification of punishment, population ethics, nationalism, friendship, and the morality of war.

In 2011, Professor Hurka published a non-academic book The Best Things in Life (OUP), about the many things – pleasure, knowledge, achievement, virtue, personal love – that can make life desirable. Later, in 2014, he published British Ethical Theorists From Sidgwick to Ewing (OUP), the first full historical study of an important strand in the development of modern moral philosophy. The book follows a series of British ethical theorists from the late nineteenth century to the mid-twentieth century, who shared key assumptions that made them a unified and distinctive school.

Booking is now open for in-person attendance on Bookwhen.com (please register for each lecture separately). All are welcome to attend these free, public lectures.

Interdisciplinary Psychoanalysis Seminar and the Wollheim Centenary Project

Conveners: Professor KP Tod, Dr L Braddock, Dr N Gildea

'Memories, dreams and collage; emotions in image'

Speaker: Ellie Roberts, Psychoanalytic Psychotherapist

Date/Time: Friday 8 March between 6-7pm 

Location: St John's College

Dreams and their symbol-making are often thought to capture something about collage as a form of art. But do they explain, or do they supply, the artistic form of collage or, is it the other way around? Do collages open up a window on the mind’s work of symbolisation more generally? The discussion brings together what Wollheim says about iconic image-making and the expression of emotion in art, and emotional growth through symbolisation in therapeutic work with a four-year-old girl.

Registration here is necessary as the venue for talks may change or send an email to wollheimcentenary@gmail.com.

'The Right to Believe in Values, Obligations, and Moral Responsibility'

Speakers: Tamás Paár and László Bernáth

Date/Time: Friday 8 March between 5:00pm-6:30pm

A seminar presented by the Ian Ramsey Centre for Science and Religion and the Humane Philosophy Project

We argue against W. K. Clifford’s well-known slogan, “It is wrong always, everywhere, and for anyone, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence.” We start with the simple example of believing in the existence of values, claiming that anyone is entitled to the belief in values regardless of the evidence. Our second example is the belief in having epistemic agency at least in a minimal sense, to which everyone is entitled. Our last example is the belief in the existence of strong obligations and their perquisite, the existence of moral responsibility. Even though the entitlement to these beliefs does not provide knowledge about their truth because being entitled to sustaining a belief does not imply having positive justification for the belief in question, the entitlement to them demonstrates the falsity of Clifford’s principle.

Tamás Paár and László Bernáth are the essay winners of a competition held throughout Central and Eastern Europe, part of a project run by the Ian Ramsey Centre.

Venue: Main Aula, Blackfriars Hall, Oxford

This talk is free and open to the public. Refreshments will be served.