Sosa’s Safety, Halloween Party and the Backward Clock

Abstract:
I first review various early safety conditions originating with Sosa, showing that each is unsatisfactory. Next I show that that contrary to Comesaña and McBride, Halloween Party is not a counterexample to Sosa’s disjunctive safety condition. However Backward Clock shows that this condition is too weak. It also shows that McBride’s modification to Sosa’s disjunctive safety condition is too weak. Then I examine ways of supplementing or modifying safety conditions, showing that these are dead ends. I conclude that an analysis of knowledge in terms of safety conditions appears unpromising. I end by analysing Halloween Party as a case of lucky knowledge, that is, knowledge that one could easily have not had, rather than an easily false belief.

Moore’s Paradox for God

Abstract:
I argue that ‘Moore’s paradox for God’, I do not believe this proposition shows that nobody can be both omniscient and rational in all her beliefs. I then anticipate and rebut three objections to my argument.

Keywords:
Omniscience, rationality, self-reference, Moore’s paradox, belief, knowledge

Date: 19 October 2017
Time: 2pm to 4pm
Venue: Philosophy Meeting Room (AS3-05-23)

About the Speaker:
John N. Williams is an Associate Professor in Philosophy at the School of Social Sciences, Singapore Management University. He received his Ph.D. from Hull University, UK. His research interests include paradoxes, theory of knowledge, philosophy of religion and applied ethics. His research has been published in Acta Analytica, American Philosophical Quarterly, Analysis, Australasian Journal of Philosophy, Journal of Philosophy, Journal of Philosophical Research, Logos and Episteme, Mind, Philosophia, Philosophy East and West, Philosophy Compass, Philosophical Studies, Religious Studies, Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective, Synthese, and Theoria. He is a co-editor of Moore’s Paradox: New Essays on Belief, Rationality and the First Person, Oxford University Press 2007.

All are welcome

Deontological Decision Theory and the Grounds of Subjective Permissibility

Abstract:
What grounds deontological judgements of subjective permissibility? In virtue of what is an act subjectively permissible or impermissible? I will consider two possibilities: verdicts of objective permissibility; and objective moral reasons. On the first approach, subjective permissibility aims to optimally satisfy objective permissibility, given our uncertainty. On the second approach, subjective permissibility aims to optimally satisfy our objective moral reasons, given our uncertainty. An account of subjective permissibility adopts the verdicts approach if it takes objective verdicts as inputs. One example: ‘minimise expected objective wrongness’ (Graham [2010]; Olsen [2017]). The reasons approach is naturally associated with: ‘maximise expected objective deontic value’ (Colyvan et al. [2010]; Oddie and Milne [1991]). I will argue that the reasons approach is right, but that we have to put more of the ‘deontological’ into ‘deontological decision theory’, and rely less on the model of orthodox rational decision theory.

Date: 18 September 2017
Time: 2pm to 4pm
Venue: Malay Studies Conference Room (AS8-06-46)

About the Speaker:
Seth Lazar is an Associate Professor, and Head of the School of Philosophy, in the Research School of Social Sciences at the Australian National University. He writes on topics in political philosophy, and normative and applied ethics. In his last book, Sparing Civilians (Oxford, 2015), he defended the protection of civilians in war against political and philosophical threats that have arisen in recent years. He is editor of the Oxford Handbook of Ethics of War (Oxford, 2016), and The Morality of Defensive War (Oxford, 2014). His papers have appeared in Ethics (2009, 2015, 2017), Philosophy & Public Affairs (2010, 2012), Australasian Journal of Philosophy (2015), Nous (2017), Philosophical Studies (2017), and other leading philosophy and political science journals. His current project focuses on how deontologists can make decisions under risk and uncertainty. He is working on a book, provisionally called ‘Duty Under Doubt: Deontological Decision-Making with Imperfect Information’.

All are welcome

Two Sides of Positional Goods

Abstract:
Positional goods typically serve to ration access to some distinct good whose supply cannot easily be increased. A standard example is the rationing of educational credentials as a means of allocating competitive advantage in the labor market. Political philosophy tends to recognize that positional goods gain their instrumental value from certain facts about how relevant scarce goods are made accessible. Our contention is that the significance of this fact has been insufficiently explored, particularly with respect to education. In general, the focus of philosophers has been somewhat one sided: Much has been said about the role of children and their parents where educational competition is concerned, with little said about the role of players on the ‘other side’, principally employers and educational institutions. Our aim in this paper is to develop a more sophisticated understanding of positional competition that is more balanced with respect to the role of players on both sides. We use the analysis developed to evaluate some influential claims about justice in the distribution of educational resources.

Date: 26 October 2017
Time: 2pm to 4pm
Venue: Philosophy Meeting Room (AS3-05-23)

About the Speaker:
Daniel Halliday works mainly on topics at the intersection of political philosophy and economics, with a special focus on markets, taxation, and inequality. His monograph The Inheritance of Wealth: Justice, Equality, and the Right to Bequeath is currently forthcoming with Oxford University Press. Dan is also working on a co-authored textbook about the moral foundations of capitalism. He has a PhD in philosophy from Stanford University, and has been teaching at Melbourne University since completing graduate school in 2011.

All are welcome