• Workshops on Moral Agency
  • Strawsonian and Consequentialist Views on Personal Responsibility
  • 2: Everyday Reason Talk
  • 3:Narrativity: Interpretation, Embodiment and Responsibility
  • Additional information

Workshops on Moral Agency

Moral Agency

In this series of workshops (three in total) we explore fundamental issues concerning moral agency - free will, personal responsibility, acting for reasons - in relation to relevant research in the behavioral, cognitive, and neurosciences (hereafter: BCN sciences). Although we are interested in critical papers with regard to these developments and the aforementioned topics in moral philosophy, we especially seek constructive contributions, fruitfully bringing together research from these two areas, resulting in new and exciting philosophical problems, answers to traditional philosophical puzzles, or conceptual refinement with the help of philosophical concepts of interesting empirical research.

Schedule

Organisation

This series is organised within the VIDI project (financed by the Dutch Organisation of Scientific Research, NWO): Conscious Control, Deliberative Awareness, and Moral Agency. The project is led by Maureen Sie (Associate Professor Meta-ethics and Moral Psychology). Other participants are Arno Wouters (Postdoc Philosophy of Science, Biology, Mind and Action) and Nicole van Voorst Vader (PhD Philosophy of Action and Normative Ethics). This project is conducted at the Erasmus University of Rotterdam.

VIDI project

This project identifies the paradigm of the so-called adaptive unconscious as the cause of feelings of unease and uncertainty about our status as moral agents. It relates this paradigm to contemporary discussions about moral agency in the ‘philosophy of mind and action’ and ‘metaethics’ and discusses its implications. It argues that rather than undermining our moral practices, the paradigm of the adaptive unconscious enables us to better explain and understand them. On closer scrutiny the idea that we are moral agents is compatible with the fact that, more often than we are perhaps aware, confabulate and rationalize our actions. We often act in an unaware and automatic fashion, hence, providing reasons for our behavior is bound to be a post-hoc affair. As a consequence there is ample room for mistakes (confabulation and rationalization). The mere possibility of mistakes does not undermine our moral practices as such, however, it does challenge us to take a closer look at our reason-giving practices, at the exact role of ‘conscious control’ and ‘deliberative awareness’ for moral agency.

Participants

This workshops are interesting for everyone involved in philosophical and/or scientific research into moral agency, responsibility, free will, and reasons for action

Papers

The workshops aim to discuss work in progress on the subjects outlined below, such that subsequent papers can be revised and collectively published (in a special issue or volume). At the workshop 30 minute slots will be available for presentation of the papers, followed by 45 minutes of discussion (including comments of invited commentators). Drafts will be distributed two weeks in advance of the workshop.

Information
For more information and updates see:
http://www.maureensie.info/Website_Maureen/VIDI_WORKSHOPS.html