“Preferring to Go On” by Meghan Sullivan (Jan 22)

In my talk, I will identify some structural parallels between preferences that we form about prolonging our natural lives and preferences that we form about whether we hope to have an afterlife. I’ll argue that the two cases (taken as cases of forming rational preferences) are similar in ways which are often overlooked. I’ll then consider some norms that rational agents might follow in adopting preferences about “going on” more broadly conceived. I’ll argue both sets of “going on” preferences (life extension and afterlife) are preferences that can be guided by rational deliberation. And I’ll argue for a particular principle for forming these preferences.

Philosophy Seminar Series
Date: Thursday, 22 Jan 2015
Time: 2pm – 4pm
Venue: AS3 #05-23
Speaker: Meghan Sullivan, University of Notre Dame
Moderator: Dr. Qu Hsueh Ming

About the Speaker:

Picture1Meghan Sullivan is the Rev John A O’Brien Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame.  She specializes in metaphysics and topics where it overlaps with semantics, logic, epistemology and practical reason.  She’s currently on leave writing a series of papers on issues at the intersection of the metaphysics of time and diachronic rationality, supported by grants from the University of Sydney and UC Riverside.  Meghan holds a PhD from Rutgers University and a B.Phil from Oxford, where she studied as a Rhodes Scholar.

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