Dr Lubomira Radoilska, University of Cambridge
Moral responsibility and control
7 November 2012

Summary

Moral responsibility is often conceptualised in terms of control. The basic intuition at the heart of this approach is that a person may only be held responsible for things that are under her control, and only in so far as they are under her control. In this paper, I look into some apparent counterexamples, and argue that these are better accounted for by a theory of moral responsibility that, like Aristotle’s, operates with two separate, equally fundamental notions of control rather than by alternative theories that reject control as irrelevant.

Prof James R Hamilton
“What goes on there?”
4 October 2012

Prof James R Hamilton of Kansas State University is the world’s leading philosopher of theatre. Visiting the UK, he will be giving a talk at the Open University entitled ‘What Goes on There?’

Abstract
A general account of spectating conceived as information processing. Approaching spectating as information processing allows for those kinds of activities that require grasp of performer intentions (where “performer” is construed broadly enough to include directors, lighting designers, actors, etcetera), but does not preclude those kinds of activities that neither require such grasp or would be precluded were we to conceive of spectating as essentially involving grasp of intentions. The account is broad enough in scope to include spectating non-narrative theater of almost any kind without denying those features peculiar to the grasp and appreciation of narrative theater.

Professor Julian Dodd, University of Manchester
‘Performing works of music authentically’
1 February 2012

Professor Dodd works in metaphysics, the philosophy of language and aesthetics, and has a particular interest in truthmaker theory, the ontology of music and the philosophy of music generally. He is currently working on Wittgenstein’s Tractatus, McDowell’s identity conception of truth, and topics in the philosophy of music.

Prof Richard Ashcroft
Doing the Right Thing for the Wrong Reason? The Morality of Changing People’s Behaviour by Paying Them
14 December 2011

There are a number of initiatives worldwide which aim to promote healthy living, compliance with medical or other official advice, or uptake of public services by offering patients, service users and citizens structured personal financial incentives.  Examples include incentives to give up smoking, take regular exercise, stay drug-free, or (especially in the developing world) to ensure children’s attendance at primary school or to agree to long-acting contraceptive injections.  Some of these objectives are inherently controversial or even immoral; but most are not.  Nonetheless the schemes are often controversial even where their objectives are not.  The use of money as an incentive seems to involve a problematic attitude to the person receiving the incentive on the part of the payer.  But it also seems to involve the payee acting for the wrong (type of) reason. Surely I should give up smoking because I want to give up, not to get hold of some money? And surely I should make sure my child goes to school because it is good to go to school? In this paper I want to examine more deeply this type of objection to incentive schemes: what is it to “do the right thing for the wrong reason”? And when, if ever, do incentive schemes truly fall foul of this objection?

Richard Ashcroft is Professor of Bioethics in the School of Law at Queen Mary, University of London, and Co-Director of the Centre for the Study of Incentives in Health, funded by the Wellcome Trust.

Dr. Brendan Larvor (University of Hertfordshire)
What philosophy of mathematical practice can teach pragma-dialectical theory about diagrams and pictures
2 November 2011

Argumentation theorists typically think of arguments as verbal exchanges. However, there is an increasing move to consider diagrams and other visual devices in argumentation. A leading figure in this movement is Leo Groarke, who uses the approach to argumentation developed by van Eeemeren and Grootendorst.
In this paper, I argue using mathematical examples that this approach fails. In fact, it excludes the very possibility of visual argumentation properly so called. I offer a diagnosis, and suggest that the approach to argument pioneered by C.S. Peirce offers a way forward that does justice to visual argumentation and satisfies the broad aims of the movement for the study of argumentation. The full paper is available at: http://herts.academia.edu/BrendanLarvor/Papers/803187

Dr David Roden
Posthumanism and The Disconnection Thesis
5 October 2011

The computer scientist Virnor Vinge’s idea of a technologically led intelligence explosion (Vinge 1993) is philosophically important because it requires us to consider the prospect of a posthuman condition succeeding the human one. What is the ‘humanity’ to which the posthuman is ‘post’? Does the possibility of a posthumanity presuppose that there is a ‘human essence’, or is there some other way of conceiving the human-posthuman difference?