“Defending Supererogation” by Feng Lin (18 Mar)

Supererogation is a concept for a class of acts that goes beyond the call of obligation. There is a view called Anti-supererogation claiming that there is no such act that is both morally good while not obligatory. I will defend supererogation by trying to refute arguments for anti-supererogation, and by showing that some morally good acts “cannot” be obligatory and hence they are supererogatory acts.

Graduate Seminar Series.
Date: Tuesday, 18 Mar 2014
Time: 3 pm – 4 pm
Venue: Philosophy Resource Room (AS3 #05-23)
Speaker: Feng Lin
Moderator: Li Qingyi

About the Speaker:

Feng LinLin Feng’s particular area of research is metaethics, as well as philosophy of language. She is also interested in philosophy of mind, and other topics in Anglo-American philosophy. She has been mainly writing on metaethics, including shame in morality, Darwall’s second-person standpoint and obligation, and Supererogation. Now she is working on faultless disagreement.

“Defending reason-motivation internalism” by Melvin Ng (18 Mar)

One version of reason-motivation internalism states that if a consideration is a reason for me to Φ, then I must be motivated to Φ, if I were rational.  Julia Markovits challenges reason-motivation internalism with various counter-examples. One class of counter-examples involves things that you purportedly have reason to do, but that you would never be motivated to do, if and because you were rational. My first aim is to refute this class of counter-examples.

My second aim is to explain my motivation for doing so. Markovits makes a distinction between internalism and the thesis that there is a necessary relation between an agentʼs having a reason and some psychological, usually motivational, fact about the agent (what I shall call the Humean Theory of Reason, or HTR). Markovits rejects internalism but endorses HTR. Coming from the position of a moral error-theorist, I shall explain why I would not accept Markovitsʼ uncommon position, and in doing so, explain my motivation for defending internalism.

Graduate Seminar Series.
Date: Tuesday, 18 Mar 2014
Time: 2 pm – 3 pm
Venue: Philosophy Resource Room (AS3 #05-23)
Speaker: Melvin Ng
Moderator: Feng Lin

About the Speaker:

melvin_ngNg Han Wei Melvin is a part-time M.A. student, whose main interest is in metaethics. He is a moral error theorist. In other words, he believes there are no objective moral facts, and people are by-and-large mistaken about morality. Chat with him to find out how he thinks he can still discuss moral issues if he does not believe there are objectively true answers to moral questions. Alternatively chat with him on any topics in philosophy. He also teaches philosophy to young teenagers in a local secondary school, and is interested in both the philosophy of pedagogy and pedagogy of philosophy.

“Motivation for Human Excellence: Is Infinite Utility the Trigger?” by Mitradutta Mohapatra (5 Mar)

The very notion of ‘Infinite Utility’ has always been eclipsed with dubious philosophical credentials. The term ‘Infinite’ is extremely loaded and therefore, one is generally advised to use the word with enough care and caution. In this paper, I shall try to examine the driving force behind the motivation for exemplary human excellence. Human and philosophical history has shown us time and again that the force that drives an agent on the path of extra-ordinary excellence carries a sort of resolve that is beyond human comprehension. What is the motivation that makes Jesus seek divine pardon for his adversaries at the time of his crucification? How can an Ibn Arabi at the face of the hard-coded canon laws of Islam, spread the message of supreme love, consistently throughout his life, unafraid of the likely violent repercussions? What motivates Buddha to be uniquely consistent throughout his life with his exemplary practice and message of supreme human conduct? What is driving this motivation? Is there a case to examine whether at the core of such motivation does lie the concept of ‘Infinite Utility’? Using the analytic techniques of decision theory, I would argue that there possibly remains a case prima facie.

Graduate Seminar Series.
Date: Tuesday, 5 Mar 2013
Time: 2pm – 4pm
Venue: Philosophy Resource Room (AS3 #05-23)
Speaker: Mitradutta Mohapatra, PhD Student

Mitradutta Mohapatra holds an MA from University of Mumbai and he is exposed to both Indian and Western philosophical traditions. He is keen to look at various aspects of moral philosophy and more particularly, his interest lies in ‘applied ethics’. His current research interest at NUS is to have a closer look at the evolution of compliance governance in the contemporary business world and examine its compatibility with the ethical theories and the traditional tenets of human morality.

“The Essence of Truthmaking (and a Quandary for Quasi-Realism)” by Jamin Asay (7 Feb)

Conventional wisdom in truthmaker theory is that which propositions an object makes true is a function, in part, of its essential properties. For instance, Socrates himself is a truthmaker for <Socrates is human> but not <Socrates is a philosopher> because while Socrates is essentially human, he is not essentially a philosopher. I’ve argued previously that we can make sense of a different kind of truthmaking that relies not on essential properties, but on the kinds of projectivist practices at work in quasi-realist accounts of metaethics. Such a distinction enables quasi-realists to distinguish themselves from realists (in particular, naturalistic “Cornell” realists). But what if modality itself is best understood quasi-realistically? What would this mean for truthmaker theory? In this talk I’ll explore what the ramifications of anti-realism about modality are for truthmaker theory. In particular, I’ll argue that this perspective offers an argument for a nominalist-friendly approach to truthmaker theory, but that comes at the expense of clouding the distinction between realism and anti-realism. A further consequence of this shows that quasi-realists may be on shaky ground if they pursue their quasi-realism about both morals and modals.

Philosophy Seminar Series.
Date: Thursday, 7 Feb 2013
Time: 2pm – 4pm
Venue: Philosophy Resource Room (AS3 #05-23)
Speaker: Jamin Asay, Assistant Professor of Philosophy, Lingnan University, Hong Kong
Moderator: Dr. Ben Blumson

About the Speaker: 

Jamin Asay is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Lingnan University in Hong Kong. He has also taught at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, from which he recently earned his Ph.D. He has published in the areas of metaphysics, philosophy of science, metaethics, and philosophy of language. His monograph entitled The Primitivist Theory of Truth will be released by Cambridge University Press in summer 2013.