WORKSHOP Final Call for Registration January 20th 2012
University of Southampton
As part of its Aims and Norms project (see below), Philosophy at Southampton will host a one-day workshop on January 20th 2012. The workshop seeks to address such questions as: Is there an aim of action? For example, do all actions aims at the good, or at the satisfaction of one’s desires, or at self-knowledge? Can norms of action be understood by appeal to such aims?
Maria Alvarez (KCL), 'Values and the Normativity of Practical Reasoning' – Respondent: Sasha Mudd (Southampton)
Nishi Shah (Amherst), 'Attitudinal Norms' – Respondent: Anders Nes (CSMN)
Conor McHugh (Southampton), 'Does Intention Have An Aim?' – Respondent: Yair Levy (Oxford)
Matthew Chrisman (Edinburgh), 'Oughts Without Ends?' – Respondent: Alex Gregory (Reading)
The workshop series is funded by the British Academy, the University of Southampton's Adventures in Research Scheme and the Faculty of Humanities.
Workshop website:
Organisers: Conor McHugh, Jonathan Way and Daniel Whiting.
REGISTRATION
A limited number of places are available at the workshop. Please contact Jonathan Way (j.way@soton.ac.uk) to register. *The deadline for registration is Friday 13th January*
AIMS AND NORMS PROJECT
The above event is the second in a series of workshops hosted by Philosophy at Southampton investigating the prospects of so-called 'teleological' accounts of normativity. The other workshops in the series are:
Aims and Norms: Belief, 23rd September 2011
Presenters: Anandi Hattiangadi (Oxford); Andrew Reisner (McGill); Bart Streumer (Reading); Daniel Whiting (Southampton)
Aim and Norms: Emotions and Other Attitudes, 23rd March 2012
Presenters: Michael Brady (Glasgow); Pamela Hieronymi (UCLA); Jonas Olson (Stockholm); Jonathan Way (Southampton).
Theme:
Actions, beliefs, and emotions are subject to norms-they can be right or wrong, justified or unjustified, appropriate or inappropriate. But while judgments of this type are familiar, there remain pressing philosophical questions about the nature of norms and their grip on us. When is a belief, action, or emotion right or wrong, justified or unjustified? What makes this the case? And how are we able to respond to norms? In tackling such questions, philosophers typically treat norms of action quite separately from those of belief, and pay little attention to norms of other attitudes. This series of workshops will explore the possibility of a unified treatment of norms in all these domains. The workshops will focus on the hypothesis that belief and action have aims-e.g. that belief aims at truth, and that action aims at the good. Given this proposal, norms for belief and action can be understood as rules which help to achieve these aims. However, while suggestive, these ideas remain elusive. Despite an explosion of interest in these issues in the recent literature, there is little consensus on what it might be for belief and action to have aims, or on what these aims might be. This makes adequately evaluating the proposal impossible. Moreover, it is surprising that almost no attempt has been made to consider whether the approach can be extended to account for the norms of emotions. The workshop series will provide a forum for innovative new research on these issues.
Project website:
