The Center for Values and Social Policy is pleased to host the thirteenth annual Rocky Mountain Ethics Congress, held this year via Zoom on August 13-16. Details, including the schedule and contact information for getting passwords for the Zoom links, can be found here.
Posted in RoME, Uncategorized
Jennifer Kling is an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Siena Heights University in Adrian, Michigan who works primarily in social, political, and moral philosophy and who is currently focusing on issues that arise in just war theory. Professor Kling gave a talk at this summer’s Rocky Mountain Ethics Congress on “Who Owes What to War Refugees”. What follows below is a short excerpt from that talk. What’s Wrong? is grateful to Professor Kling for making this short piece available to its readers.
(image: refugees)
Posted in military ethics, race, RoME
Philosopher Helen Daly (Colorado College), whose What’s Wrong? interview about modelling sex/gender at this summer’s Rocky Mountain Ethics Congress poster session was posted here shortly after RoME ended, is currently the “Featured Philosop-her” over at Philosop-her. The entry about Professor Daly, posted here today, includes a useful short piece on her research project.
(image: Caster Semenya)
One more interview from the poster sessions at this summer’s Rocky Mountain Ethics Congress, this one featuring Russ Jacobs (Washburn University) raising some objections to the conjugal view of marriage with a particular focus on the position taken by Sherif Girgis, Ryan T Anderson, and What’s Wrong? Advisory Board member Robert P George in their book What is Marriage?: Man and Woman: A Defense.
For those who are just starting to follow What’s Wrong?, previous interviews arising from the poster sessions at this summer’s RoME can be found on the biological account of special moral obligation, doing, allowing and causation, the case of Anwar Al-Awlaki, and modelling sex/gender. Daily Nous also had a recent piece on the use of poster sessions at philosophy conferences that featured some examples from RoME.
Posted in RoME, sex and gender, the law
Jeff Sebo is a Research Assistant Professor of Philosophy and the Associate Director of the Parr Center for Ethics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He gave a talk at this year’s Rocky Mountain Ethics Congress entitled “Reconsider the Lobster” in which he asked how we should treat nonhuman animals in cases of uncertainty about whether or not they are sentient (on the assumption that sentience is necessary and sufficient for having moral status). The paper considers three answers to this question and concludes that we morally ought to treat many animals, such as invertebrates, much better than we currently do. What’s Wrong? is grateful to Professor Sebo for making the full text of his paper available. (image: cooked lobsters)
Posted in animal ethics, RoME
(image: spanking)
UCLA graduate student Laura Gillespie gave an intriguing talk on childhood punishment at this year’s Rocky Mountain Ethics Congress. In it, she proposed a novel account that would justify the practice in at least some cases. For those who were unable to attend her presentation, she has written a short piece for What’s Wrong? that introduces what she calls the Participant View of childhood punishment. As always, comments are welcome. Continue reading
Posted in RoME
Jake Monaghan, a graduate student at the University of Buffalo, discusses his project “Against the Biological Account of Special Moral Obligation” in a What’s Wrong? interview at the Rocky Mountain Ethics Congress, Friday, August 7, 2015. Monaghan’s rejection of the claim that purely biological connections generate special moral obligations has important implications for a number of issues in applied normative philosophy, especially in bioethics.
Molly Gardner (Bowling Green State University), another RoME regular (every year since 2010) , discusses her project “Doing, Allowing, and Causation” in a What’s Wrong? interview at the Rocky Mountain Ethics Congress, Friday, August 7, 2015. As Gardner briefly notes during this conversation, her work has important implications for a number of issues in applied normative philosophy including the debate over the distinction between active and passive euthanasia.
Posted in RoME
Hallie Liberto is an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of Connecticut who has attended every Rocky Mountain Ethics Congress but one (and she had a good excuse that year). At this year’s RoME, Professor Liberto gave a talk entitled “Promises and the Backward Reach of Uptake.” The paper examined the extent to which promissory obligations are constrained by conditions relating to the receipt or acceptance of the promise on the part of the promisee, a question of clear importance to a number of issues in applied normative philosophy. What follows is a short blog entry that Professor Liberto produced specifically for What’s Wrong? (image: promise)
Posted in RoME
Tim Campbell identifies a problem with the standard view of self-defense. Anyone got a solution? (image: Reservoir Dogs)
Posted in RoME
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