Spring 2008

(All talks are on Wednesdays in 1115 Skinner Hall at 4:00 unless noted otherwise, followed by a reception in the philosophy department lounge)

February 20, 2008
Speaker: Ken Waters, Minnesota University
Title: Causes That Make a Difference

Abstract:
Biologists studying complex causal systems typically identify some factors as the causes and treat other factors as background conditions. When geneticists explain biological phenomena, they often foreground genes as causes and the cellular milieu as background. But factors in the milieu are as causally necessary as genes for the production of phenotypic traits, even traits at the molecular level such as amino acid sequences. Gene-centered biology has been criticized on the grounds that because there is a parity among causes, the privileging of genes reflects a reductionist bias, not a difference based in reality. The idea that there is an ontological parity among causes is related to a philosophical puzzle identified by John Stuart Mill: what, other than or interests or biases, could possibly justify identifying some causes as the actual or operative ones, and other causes as mere background? The aim of this paper is to solve this conceptual puzzle. It turns out that solving this puzzle helps answer a seemingly unrelated philosophical question: what kind of causal generality matters in biology?

Februyary 27, 2008
Speaker: Sherri Irvin, University of Oklahoma
Title: "Aesthetics as a Guide to Ethics"

Abstract:
The relationship between aesthetics and ethics is most often discussed in relation to the ethical criticism of art: should we think that an artwork's immoral content undermines the work not just ethically, but also aesthetically, or that its contribution to moral knowledge heightens its aesthetic value? In this presentation, conversely, I will examine ways in which the aesthetic qualities of an action or situation may contribute to or undermine its moral character. I will consider, for instance, (a) the possibility that the right thing to do may be partly a matter of one's aesthetic character, (b) the idea that setting an example for others, in a way that is morally good, may be in part an aesthetic matter, (c) the prospect of harnessing aesthetic goods to motivate moral behavior, and (d) the idea that there might be an ethical imperative to cultivate one's aesthetic sensibilities.

March 26, 2008
Speaker: Connie Rosati, Arizona University (National Institute of Health)
Title: "The Story of a Life"

Abstract:
A number of philosophers have appealed to the notion of narrative in addressing a variety of philosophical issues, including issues about the nature of the self, the character of autonomy, the nature of personal identity, and the welfare value of a life. My interest lies with appeals to narrative to account for the welfare value of a life. After raising certain skeptical worries about the views of those who argue that the value of a life for the person living it is a function not simply of momentary welfare but of the narrative relations that hold between events in a life, I offer a hypothes is about how narrative might distinctively enhance a person's welfare.

April 9, 2008
Speaker: Dmitri Tymoczo, Princeton University
Title: "Music Theory and Linguistics"

Abstract:
There has recently been considerable interest in the connections between music theory and linguistics. Thinkers such as Leonard Bernstein, Ray Jackendoff, and Fred Lerdahl have pointed to striking analogies between the thinking of Noam Chomsky and the music theorist Heinrich Schenker, one of the principal figures of twentieth- century music theory, and have suggested that linguistic methods can put music theory on firmer methodological footing. Some, such as Fred Lerdahl and the philosopher Diana Raffmann, have argued that atonal music is unpopular because it violates universal musical principles, comparable to the "universal grammar" postulated by recent linguistic theory. In my talk, I will suggest that these ideas are misguided. Linguistics does not provide a useful model for music theory, and the most plausible candidate "musical universals" are very different from those found in linguistic theory. More generally, the contrast between music and language sheds interesting light on various questions, including the role of intention in the interpretation of art, the role of semantics in assessing grammaticality, and the contrast between tonality and atonality.

April 16, 2008
Speaker: Jesse Prinz, North Carolina University
Title: "The Sentimental Basis of Moral Values"

Abstract:
There is a long standing philosophical debate about whether emotions merely accompany some moral judgments or are instead essential to them. I survey recent empirical evidence in support of the view that emotions are in fact essential. I also draw a distinction between emotions that are moral sentiments, arguing that emotions are components of moral judgements, and sentiments that are components of values. In metaethics, sentimentalist views have usually been associated with expressivism. Drawing on empirical evidence again, I argue that expressivism is not the most plausible metaethical theory.

April 30, 2008
Speaker: David Velleman, New York University
Title: "The Identity Problem"

Abstract:
Derek Parfit calls it the non-identity problem. It's the problem of how to treat future persons given that any attempt to treat them better may result instead in their never being born. For example, the people who will have inadequate resources in the Twenty-Second Century because of our wastefulness today will owe their existence to human couplings that never would have occurred if we had lowered our thermostats and showered less often. As those future people commute by bicycle or read by candlelight, they will have to recognize that we couldn't have conserved resources for them, since our conserving would have prevented them from existing. Because the people affected by our wastefulness will not be identical to those would have been affected by our conservation, there appear to be no future individuals for us to harm or benefit, whatever we do. This description of the problem depends on an empirical assumption about the effects of our environmental policies on the makeup of the population. In this paper I will argue even if this empirical assumption were false, the problem would remain. Even if we could ensure that the people affected by our conservation were identical to the people affected by our wastefulness, neither group could be harmed or benefited by what we do. I call it the identity problem, to indicate that it is a variant of Parfit's.