Here, at the View from the Owl’s Roost.
Parfit Remembrance Videos
About a year ago, several family members, friends, and philosophical luminaries gathered at All Souls College to remember and celebrate the life of the great moral philosopher, Derek Parfit. Those twenty videos, with the production assistance of several members of the Parfit family, have been posted here, and they include remembrances by the moral and political philosophers Tim Scanlon, Frances Kamm, Jeff McMahan, Martin O’Neill, Larry Temkin, Roger Crisp, John Broome, Brad Hooker, Jonathan Dancy, Jonathan Glover, Rahul Kumar, Julian Savulescu, and others.
NDPR Forum on Andrew J. Cohen’s Toleration and Freedom from Harm
Welcome to our NDPR Forum on Andrew Jason Cohen’s Toleration and Freedom from Harm: Liberalism Reconceived (Routledge 2018), which was recently reviewed by Peter de Marneffe in NDPR. Please feel free to join in on the discussion, about the book, the review, or related issues. Andrew will be joining in soon.
Hanna Pickard’s Responsibility Without Blame Project
For those who don’t know, Hanna Pickard has developed a very cool site, called “Responsibility Without Blame,” based on her famous article and advocacy. Her clinical and philosophical work has well-placed her to develop this project, which “provides a free and accessible e-learning for anyone interested in thinking about our ideas of responsibility and blame, and finding ways to work and relate more effectively with people with personality disorder or complex needs.”
NDPR Forum: Suzy Killmister’s Taking the Measure of Autonomy, reviewed by Ben Mitchell-Yellin
Welcome to our next NDPR Forum, on Suzy Killmister’s book Taking the Measure of Autonomy: A Four-Dimensional Theory of Self-Governance. It was recently reviewed in NDPR by Ben Mitchell-Yellin. Below the fold are a few blurbs about the book and passages from the review. Please feel free to join in on the discussion!
NDPR Forum: Bennett Helm’s “Communities of Respect,” Reviewed by Caroline Arruda
I am pleased to kick off another discussion forum on books recently reviewed in NDPR. The series gives book authors a chance to respond to their reviewers. We also invite reviewers to chime in, as well as anyone else who is interested. This forum is on Bennett Helm’s latest book, Communities of Respect: Grounding Responsibility, Authority, and Dignity (OUP 2017), reviewed in NDPR by Caroline T. Arruda. Normally, I would first post the OUP description of the book, followed by some flavorful passages from the review. But Bennett has written a rather robust response to the review, and in so doing he makes clear both what his book is about and what aspects of the review he thought involved misconstruals, so I’m going simply to let him start off this discussion in his own words.
WHAT FOLLOWS IS WRITTEN BY BENNETT HELM:
Thanks to Caroline Arruda for engaging with my book with her review, and thanks to PEA Soup for the opportunity to respond and hopefully provoke further discussions. Unfortunately, the review involves significant misconceptions of what I am up to in this book and of the kind of account I offer, so I want to take this opportunity to clarify. The account I offer ends up rejecting deeply entrenched views of the mind and of persons, so perhaps it is not surprising that there would be misunderstanding of my central aim. Moreover, my theory is quite systematic and wide-ranging, developed over 25 years and two prior books (and a separate dissertation), with each building upon the rest. Thus Communities of Respect really is part 4 of a longer series, in which I investigate what it is to be a person by considering the nature of: (1) caring in general (Helm 1994), (2) personal values (Helm 2001), (3) interpersonal values in intimate relationships (Helm 2010), and now in this book (4) interpersonal values in non-intimate relationships (Helm 2017).
Journal Liaisons Wanted
We’ve got a few openings for liaison positions with various journals. One, for example, is the Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy. Others will be political-philosophy-oriented. Liaisons put together discussion forums on an article in an issue of the journal, no more than twice/year. If you’re interested, please contact one or both of the Daves, Shoemaker or Sobel, and say what topics you’re interested in.
