Cultural Relativism: Monday, April 21st at 9:00 pm
Cultural relativism is often taken as a given in academia. Propelled by findings of modern anthropology, it sometimes seems as if its only alternative is modern jingoism, nationalism, or an attitude of cultural superiority. But is this true? Are there general points of agreement which virtually all cultures share or should share? Or, rather, is the search for absolutes fruitless? And what of variation within a cultural itself? Can we distinguish between relativism about morality and relativism about other practices, or do we have to accept or reject relativism outright?

Location: Tower Room, 1879 Hall.

Robin Hanson on Economic Welfare and Morality: Monday, April 14th at 6:00 pm
We are pleased to present a special dinner with Robin Hanson, associate professor of economics at George Mason University, who specializes in the study of rationality and decision-making.

He will discuss the relationship between economic welfare and morality. Economists typically infer what people want from their choices, and then endorse policies expected to give everyone more of what they want. Philosophers often complain such policies are morally deficient, implicitly endorsing an implausible and crude version of utilitarianism. Professor Hanson will argue that what people want includes their moral considerations, and that he (and most of us) want policy to give us what we want, even if that is immoral.

Hanson sketches out his argument here. Background information can be found here.

No RSVP is necessary; students of all backgrounds are welcome! Please get your food from the serving area and then bring your trays into the PDR (there'll be a sign on the door). Note to juniors and seniors without a meal plan: you will have to use one of your two weekly meal passes to come to this event.

Location: Rockefeller College Private Dining Room.

Bas van Fraassen on Conflicts and Dilemmas: Sunday, April 13th at 6:00 pm
Our Sunday dinner series continues with Professor Bas van Fraassen, one of the world's preeminent epistemologists and the inaugural winner of the prestigious Lakatos Award for philosophy of science. Professor van Fraassen will be retiring at the end of the semester, so this is perhaps the last time to ever hear him speak.

He will discuss the reformative consequences of dilemmas and intellectual conflicts in both ethics and epistemology. In epistemology, we necessarily commit ourselves to particular worldviews which then structure our observations, beliefs, and theories. Yet these worldviews can be wrong. How can we make sense of accepting a new worldview when it is not a genuine option under our current one? In ethics, we sometimes face moral dilemmas; that is, there are times when we ought to do something and not do it. Such situations can motivate us to revise our moral beliefs, but the basis upon which we do so is unclear. Professor van Fraassen will examine each of these cases and then look for possible connections and parallels between them.

Background on moral dilemmas can be found here. Background on worldview change can be found here.

No RSVP is necessary; students of all backgrounds are welcome! Please get your food from the serving area and then bring your trays into the PDR (there'll be a sign on the door). Note to juniors and seniors without a meal plan: you will have to use one of your two weekly meal passes to come to this event.

Location: Whitman College Octagonal Private Dining Room.

Decision-Making Paradoxes: Tuesday, April 10th at 9:00 pm
Decision theory is the area in philosophy that studies how we ought to make rational decisions in light of our ends. Two notorious open problems in decision theory are Newcomb's problem and Kavka's toxin puzzle, each of which suggest that it might be 'rational' to be 'irrational'. We will examine each of these paradoxes in turn and consider what they have to say about rational judgement.

A brief overview of each problem may be found here (highly recommended).

Location: Tower Room, 1879 Hall.

John Gardner on Moral Luck: Sunday, April 6th at 6:00 pm
Our Sunday dinner series continues with Professor John Gardner, who is visiting Princeton this semester from Oxford University and is considered one of the world's leading legal philosophers. Professor Gardner will discuss the problem of outcome luck: that we judge actions differently based on how they turn out, rather than simply on intent. A familiar instance of the problem is found in the distinction drawn in most legal systems between attempted crimes (such as attempted murder) and their completed counterparts (such as murder). He will discuss whether there is an authentically moral explanation for the disparate treatment -- whether completed wrongs and attempted wrongs are morally distinct -- or whether such differentiation is merely prudential.

Further background information can be found here.

No RSVP is necessary; students of all backgrounds are welcome! Please get your food from the serving area and then bring your trays into the PDR (there'll be a sign on the door). Note to juniors and seniors without a meal plan: you will have to use one of your two weekly meal passes to come to this event.

Location: Whitman College Octagonal Private Dining Room.

Gideon Rosen on Philosophy of Mathematics: Sunday, March 30th at 6:00 pm
Our Sunday dinner series continues with Professor Gideon Rosen, a specialist in metaphysics who has previously been awarded the President's Award for Distinguished Teaching, Princeton's highest honor for teaching. Professor Rosen will talk about the philosophy of mathematics and why it matters. He'll present a "knock down" argument for Platonism, the view that non-physical, non-mental abstract objects exist, and then discuss the implications of this for metaphysics, epistemology, and the philosophy of language. The material is completely non-technical, so knowing basic arithmetic will suffice for understanding the argument.

Professor Rosen has kindly provided a background reading, "On What There Is" by WVO Quine.

No RSVP is necessary; students of all backgrounds are welcome! Please get your food from the serving area and then bring your trays into the PDR (there'll be a sign on the door). Note to juniors and seniors without a meal plan: you will have to use one of your two weekly meal passes to come to this event.

Location: Whitman College Octagonal Private Dining Room.

Sarah McGrath on Moral Disagreement: Sunday, March 9th at 6:00 pm
The inaugural speaker for our new Sunday dinner series will be Professor Sarah McGrath, a specialist in moral philosophy and metaphysics. Professor McGrath will discuss the the epistemic problem of moral disagreement: even if some moral facts exist, how can we ever determine what they are given the extensive degree of moral variation in the world? Are we justified in holding idiosyncratic moral values even if they are widely rejected? If half of us believe that fetuses have moral rights and half of us do not, how are we to decide who is correct? How does the moral case relate to the general problem of epistemological disagreement?

A concise summary of the basic problem can be found here. A more detailed treatment may be found here.

No RSVP is necessary; students of all backgrounds are welcome! Please get your food from the serving area and then bring your trays into the PDR (there'll be a sign on the door). Note to juniors and seniors without a meal plan: you will have to use one of your two weekly meal passes to come to this event.

Location: Whitman College Octagonal Private Dining Room.

Justice and Revenge: Tuesday, February 26th at 9:15 pm
What is justice? What is revenge? Is there a difference? Why is justice generally acceptable and revenge unacceptable? Can we define a norm that validly distinguishes between justice and revenge? Or are "justice" and "revenge" merely artificial terms we use for convenience according to our subjective beliefs?

No formal philosophical knowledge required; students of all backgrounds ware welcome.

Location: Tower Room, 1879 Hall.

Personal Identity: Tuesday, February 12th at 9:00 pm
How do we define ourselves? What separates us from the external world? Will we be the same people ten years from now as we are now? Should the contracts we make at this moment bind us in the future (that is to say, should our present selves be allowed to bind our future selves). In considering action, must we consider the 'interests' of our future selves as being distinct from our own, or are the interests of our present selves indistinguishable from the interests of our future selves.

This is a subject with broad ramifications across both metaphysics and moral philosophy and troubling implications. For example, a consideration of identity leads some philosophers to compositional nihilism -- the notion that only 'simples' of matter, like electrons and quarks, exist, while 'objects' in the ordinary sense of the word (including people) do not exist. Peter Unger famously wrote a defense of this notion with the clever title "I Do Not Exist".

Location: Tower Room, 1879 Hall.

Pleasure, Pain, and Life's Purpose: Monday, December 17th at 9:00 pm
Normative hedonism is a moral doctrine which argues that seeking pleasure and avoiding pain should be the only ends in life. Many normative hedonists would further contend that -- considering evolutionary history and practical experience -- this doctrine underlies what most people believe. Rules simply exist to advance the pleasure-pain principle and should be discarded when they don't. Is this doctrine valid? Is it implicitly accepted by such a broad audience? Can inconsistencies in intuitive moral thought be reconciled by adopting it? Why shouldn't we adopt it and how strong are the arguments for not doing so?

Students of all backgrounds are welcome; there is no prerequisite knowledge of philosophy.

Location: Frist 207. Highly recommended background reading.

Free Will and Its Critics: Tuesday, December 4th at 9:00 pm
The Princeton Philosophical Society will be holding a student discussion on free will and its critics. Questions at issue: what is free will? can our commonsense definition withstand scrutiny? is free will actually a relevant concept? is determinism compatible with free will? does indeterminism have very radical implications? can we even judge whether determinism or indeterminism are correct? does the 'truth' of free will matter to us?

Students of all backgrounds are welcome; there is no prerequisite knowledge of philosophy.

Location: Frist 114. Reading on free will.

The Ethics of War: Tuesday, November 20th at 9:00 pm
The Princeton Philosophical Society will be holding a student discussion on the ethics of war. Topics to include: what are the justified reasons for waging war? can war ever be just? are there such things as 'laws of war' and if so what should they be? is conflict an inherent part of the human condition or can it be eliminated? if it can be eliminated, should we eliminate it? at what cost?

Students of all backgrounds are welcome. There is no prerequisite knowledge of philosophy! Take note, however, that this discussion is not for the purposes of questioning whether current day wars such as the invasion Iraq are right or wrong. It is a discussion of the eternal and theoretical aspects of war and morality, which can permit but will by no means center on discussion of current events.

Location: Frist 307. Optional but useful background reading.