Author: Huenemann

The University of Utah Philosophy Department Colloquium Series
presents
Mitzi Lee
University of Colorado at Boulder
Friday, November 16th
3:00 – 5:00
Tanner Library, Room 459

“Greed and Justice in Aristotle’s Ethics”

Abstract
Abstract: Aristotle’s account of the virtue of justice has been criticized on the grounds that Aristotle gives an overly tidy minded picture of what just and unjust motivation look like, and reduces them to a single kind, namely, greed or lack thereof. I attempt to develop a defense of Aristotle’s account of justice, by arguing that what Aristotle means by ‘greed’ (pleonexia) is not simply excessive desire, but a complex motivational state that includes characteristic desires and beliefs about oneself and one’s proper relation to others, and that it is fundamentally a social disposition, not a simple emotion or desire, as is usually thought. The opposite of the greedy person is the isos or ‘fair-minded’ person—someone whose desires and beliefs reflect a correct perception of what his or anyone else’s fair share of some social good ought to be.

“Soren Kierkegaard once said: Take away paradox from the thinker and you have a professor.” Read the rest of the interview here.

Next Tuesday we will be discussing Galen Strawson’s essay, “Against Narrativity.” Here it is as a pdf:

against_narrativity

USU’s Ethics Bowl team will be discussing some of the cases that will be presented this weekend. Each of these cases is really interesting. Come hear the team present some opinions and arguments, and join in the fun.

Location: ANSC 118
Date: 11/7/12
Time: 4:00 – 5:30 p.m.

Each student will give a roughly 7 minute presentation on a particular case articulating the moral landscape and thought process of the Pro and Con positions. After their presentations there will be a brief ~5 minute Q&A.

Here is the line up:
Justin Solum: Indian Family Law
Jedd Cox: Mean Girls
Erika Lamborn: “Street Art”: Vandalism or Philanthropy?
Ben Harman: Drug Legalization
Justin Jerez: Racial Justice Act
Cameron Hunter: Gay Conversion Therapy
Mathias Fueling There is an app for THAT!

Dan Wack, a philosopher from Knox College in Illinois, will present a lecture this Thursday (11/8) at 4:30 in Main 304. All are welcome! I will include here an abstract of his lecture:

In section XI of Part II of his Philosophical Investigations, Wittgenstein distinguishes between two uses of the verb ‘to see’. On the one hand, there is a use of ‘to see’ in which one succeeds in seeing in the relevant sense if one is able to describe or reproduce the object seen. On the other, there is a use of ‘to see’ in which one succeeds if one recognizes a resemblance between two objects. In clarifying the relation between these two uses of ‘to see’, I articulate a Wittgensteinian account of perception in which one’s perception is organized and oriented by the demands of what one is going to do. In so doing, I locate Wittgenstein’s account of perceptual knowledge in a longer philosophical tradition of critical physiognomy, in which an person’s movements are seen as revelatory of her intentions, feelings, moods, and character, and show how clarifying relations between perception and understanding in acts of physiognomic judgment helps us resist characteristic philosophical confusion.

Students in Philosophy of Mind should see this as continuous with Dennett’s attempt to understand what seem like “private” mental states as inextricably bound up with public expressions of those states.