Welcome to our NDPR review forum on Thomas Mulligan’s Justice and the Meritocratic State (Routledge 2018), recently reviewed in NDPR by Peter Dietsch. Please feel free to comment on any aspect of the book, the review, or the discussion below!
Featured Philosopher: Julia Markovits
Very pleased to be able to introduce our next Featured Philosopher, my Upstate friend, Julia Markovits. Take it away Julia:
Thanks so much for inviting me to contribute!
I’m currently working on a book about praise- and blameworthiness. One thing I’ll have something to say about in the book is how to understand degrees of praise- and blameworthiness. In the book, I defend a kind of quality-of-will account, according to which one dimension of moral worth tracks the extent to which we are (or fail to be) motivated to act by the reasons that would make something the right thing to do. (I’ve defended this claim before, in my paper “Acting for the Right Reasons” (Philosophical Review, 2010).) That thesis gives us the tools to account for one kind of variation in degree of moral worth, since our motivating reasons can overlap more or less with the normative reasons that apply to us.
But this notion of degrees of overlap can’t explain some variations in degree of moral worth than seem to have a lot of intuitive support. For example (as I argued in another paper, “Saints, Heroes, Sages, and Villains, Philosophical Studies, 2012), it can’t explain what makes so-called “heroic” actions especially praiseworthy, since both heroic and ordinary actions may exhibit perfect overlap between the reasons motivating their performance and the normative reasons justifying them.
Public Philosophy at its Best: Better Argument with John Corvino
John Corvino has a newish series of philosophically informative videos that are super clear and helpful. Consider giving them a look at his YouTube channel here.
It would be lovely if folks who know of other good public philosophy would post it below in the comments.
JMP Discussion of Helena de Bres’ “Narrative and Meaning in Life”
Welcome to what should be a fun and insightful discussion of Helena de Bres’ “Narrative and Meaning in Life” (generously made free access by Brill Online and the Journal of Moral Philosophy for the month of November). Antti Kauppinen has kindly contributed a critical précis, which appears immediately below. Please join the discussion!
Critical Précis to Helena de Bres’ “Narrative and Meaning in Life”
By Antti Kauppinen
In her excellent paper ‘Narrative and Meaning in Life’, Helena de Bres offers a new account of why and how narrative structure contributes to the meaningfulness of a life. In the course of doing so, she makes some very helpful distinctions, which I’ll urge everyone to adopt, though, in a plot twist, I’ll also raise some worries about her recountist alternative to relationist views like mine.
Carol Lee Price Scholarships for Women
Carol Lee Price Scholarships: funding in Montreal for female international students of philosophy.
The Scholarships are specifically intended to attract and support women pursuing graduate studies in philosophy at Concordia University, Montreal. They are restricted to students who would otherwise have to pay international fees. Each scholarship is worth $32,450 CAD; up to three may be awarded each year (with a maximum of two in each category). See here. (more…)
Featured Philosopher: Errol Lord
Very pleased to be able to introduce today’s Featured Philosopher, Errol Lord. Take it away Errol:
The following is based on joint work with Kurt Sylvan (see our paper ‘Reasons: Wrong, Right, Normative, Fundamental’, which is forthcoming in Journal of Ethics & Social Philosophy. I wrote this, though, so all mistakes belong to me.
There are few substantive claims about normative reasons that everyone can get on board with. Here is one candidate: there is a correlation between certain normative properties and the existence of certain normative reasons. So, for example, whenever someone is admirable, there are normative reasons to admire that person. Whenever something is desirable, there are normative reasons to desire it. The list could go on. To be clear, this is not to say (yet) that we can analyze admirability or desirability in terms of normative reasons. This just posits a correlation.
Featured Philosopher: Errol Lord (Thurs, Nov. 8)
Don’t change that dial. We will have a discussion with Errol Lord on Thurs, Nov. 8th.
The remaining Featured Philosophers Schedule looks like this:
November 14: Julia Markovits
Dec 12: Alex Guerrero
January 28: Jonathan Quong
Feb 11: Heidi Maibom
Feb 18: Ellie Mason
Feb 25: Japa Pallikkathayil
March 7: Valerie Tiberius
March 20: Julia Driver
April 8: Hille Paakkunainen
April 22: Stephanie Leary
May 1: Luvell Anderson
May 13: Nate Sharadin
