It's Alive! (?)

Hi Everybody!
( Hi Dr Sam!)
This is completely inaccurate, as I'm not yet a doctor, though eventually I'm sure that some will argue that I, like Dr Nick, am not a 'real' doctor.

Anyway, things have been quiet here for too long, but as most of our members are studying at at least a 4th year/Honours level or above, as well as working, they probably don't have much energy left for this. Never mind.

I am considering a range of updates to put in place over the summer. One is a move to Wordpress, which appears to offer a better service than this. But'm going to test it on my personal Blog first, so we will see how that goes.

The second thing I'm woking on is a detailed list of what philosophy and related courses our University offers, which will link to course and program information on the Uni site. If people are looking for a place to study Philosophy in Australia, I want them to find us.

And, on a more personal level, I'm going to try to be nicer, in an effort to not scare so many people away next year. This probably won't work, but then at least I can say that it wasn't my fault.

-Sam.

Philosophy at the Melbourne Writers Festival

(Plagirised from Dirk Baltzly's a-phil list email on behalf of Graham Oppy)


Philosophy at the Melbourne Writers’ Festival

As part of the History of Australasian Philosophy Project, there are the following four public lectures as part of the Melbourne Writers’ Festival. These lectures are being recorded by the ABC, and will be re-broadcast on Radio National. They will be available as pod-casts for about one month after they are broadcast.



More Details:


Saturday, August 26

1:30 – 2:30 Barry Taylor (Melbourne University)
“David Lewis in Australia and New Zealand”
The Tower, CUB Malthouse
113 Sturt Street, Southbank

3.15 – 4:15 Val Plumwood (Australian National University)
“Nature in the Active Voice”
The Tower, CUB Malthouse
113 Sturt Street, Southbank

Saturday, September 2

1:30 – 2:30 John Bigelow (Monash University)
“Metaphysics in Australasia”
The Tower, CUB Malthouse
113 Sturt Street, Southbank

3:15 – 4:15 Tony Coady (Melbourne University)
“Philosophy in Melbourne”
The Tower, CUB Malthouse
113 Sturt Street, Southbank

The School of Philosophy and Bioethics at Monash University will also be hosting two sessions tailored for secondary school students on Monday, August 28. One session, run by Kim Little, will be on Bioethics; the other session, run by Yanna Rider, will be on Critical Thinking.

There will also be one further philosophy lecture associated with the Heart of Philosophy August Symposium Dinner (at The Golden Triangle):

Sunday, August 27

7:00 – 9:00 pm John Armstrong (Melbourne University)
“What is it we really want to know about a significant person’s
life, love and thoughts?”
(Price for this event is about $90, and includes cost of a copy of
John’s new book.)

Meeting Times

To be perfectly clear, the Philosophy Club will be meeting on Tuesdays in the McMullin Courtyard from 12 - 2 pm, though unofficially I'll be there from about 11 am. If the weather is inclement, we can be found in the Non-Existent Philosophy Common Room (where staff and students of the Non-Existent Department of Philosophy sometimes lurk), or the adjacent seminar room, MC 110.

I'll put a link in the side-bar so that updates and other events can be added if needed. Suggested agenda for specific meetings could be suggested as comments.

Notices, Updates and Questions

Well classes are back, and people (well actually it was just James) are asking me what is going on with the weekly meetings. Personally I'm happy to continue on having the informal discussion on at the same time and place: Tuesday, 1 - 3 pm McMullin Courtyard (I just didn't turn up yesterday due to the nasty weather). If anyone has any ideas on varying or adding to this timetable, please feel free to suggest them. I'll be turning up at least, until someone advise me otherwise. I notice that PHIL4080 - Philosophy Honours IV is scheduled for Tuesday 12 - 2. Is this actually the real time, and if so where would the honours students like me to move the meeting to? Since Intro to Philosophy B is on from 9 till 11, we have the option of going earlier, eg, 11am till 1 (or 2ish). This also means we aren't clashing with 'Topics' - PHIL3060, but obviously won't work if that time listed for the honours course is the real one. So I guess I'll turn up at about 11ish next Tuesday (unless I hear from people) and see how we go from there.

Other members have also asked if the club, or parts thereof, intend to do anything for This is Not Art (TiNA) in October?

It has been suggested that we might field a discussion panel based on something (I can't remember exactly what) in order to raise the profile of philosophy in Newcastle and make outrageous claims in public. I'm happy to organise this once we have some idea of what we are doing.

There is also an idea for a new club publication that has been suggested to me that I will need to discuss with the executive (what is left of it) and our staff representative. I'll go into more detail about it at the next meeting.

So there it is: Holidays are over and if you are like me - staring down the barrel of a job that is going to turn you into an adminsitrative slave or drive you completely postal if you don't escape, then act now! Seize the day, or alternatively, seize your keyboard and write something. It might not help, but it can't be worse than what you are doing right now, which is nothing.
-Sam Douglas.

Shine on you Crazy Diamond

Sadly, for Syd, there is no other day. He died yesterday at the age of 60 of diabetes complications. I fear from this day on, starving children may be a little hungrier, little kittens a bit less fluffy.

Post-Graduate Symposia Today

Today the University of Newcastle is holding a series of Post-graduate Symposia in the reception rooms on the top floor of the Union Building on the Callaghan campus. The various talks will be running from 9:30 today, with our own Matt Girdler giving a talk on Truth versus Happiness at 3:00 pm. All club memebers and intersted students and staff alike are encouraged to attend.

It is hoped that a transcript and/or podcast of this talk will be posted here in the next week or so.

Philosophy Mailing List

The Australasian Association of Philosophy (AAP) provides a mailing list for the dissemination of infromation that may be relavent to those working/studying in, or interested in the field of philosophy. This should be of particular interest to academics and post-graduate students. (Who should really know about this already).

Subscribe here: http://aap.org.au/resources/lists.php

First On-Line Philosophy Conference – Papers

The first set of papers for the much announced On-Line Philosophy Conference:

- Mary Coleman, ‘Holistic Directions of Fit and Smith’s Teleological Argument’

- Julia Driver, ‘Luck’

- Noa Latham, Fundamental Laws’

- Alfred Mele, ‘Practical Mistakes and Intentional Actions’

- Stephen Stich and Daniel Kelley, ‘Two Theories about the Cognitive Architecture Underlying Morality’

- Jessica Wilson, ‘Non-reductive Physicalism and Degrees of Freedom’

- Outstanding Undergraduate Paper: Andrew Bailey, ‘Some Unsound Arguments for Incompatibilism’

The papers and commentaries are available here, while comments can be made at the Conference blog.

Foucault, footy and philosophy

Marc Abrahams
Tuesday May 2, 2006
The Guardian

Of all the football leagues for all the players in the world, the Australian Football League is the first to sponsor research that overtly applies the work of the French philosopher Michel Foucault.
Australian football is not soccer, nor is it American football. It is, fans and players like to point out, based on a different philosophy from anything else that answers to the name "football". Australian behaviourists Peter Kelly and Christopher Hickey elucidate one aspect of the game's philosophy in a study they call: Foucault Goes to the Footy: Professionalism, Performance, Prudentialism and Playstations in the Life of AFL Footballers.
Read the whole article here

On ‘John Stuart Mill’

'If anyone does an act hurtful to others, there is a prima facie case for punishing him' - John Stuart Mill, On Liberty (Penguin, 1985) 70.

An interesting portrait of John Stuart Mill.

[A bit of an ethics theme with these two posts …]

Review Notice – ‘The Evolution of Morality’

‘Controversial’ Australian (?) ethicist Peter Singer has reviewed Richard Joyce’s The Evolution of Morality for NDPR – includes the requisite discussion of primates …

Question On Ethics And Schools

Yesterday the Sydney Morning Herald ran an article – ‘Call for ethics classes as alternative to religious teaching’ – on a call by the Federation of Parents and Citizens Associations of NSW for ethics classes to be provided in New South Wales public schools as alternative to the weekly scripture lessons that have been part of the public system for most of its history.

The questions I want to put forward are (i) should ethics classes have a place in the school system, and (ii) how should ethics be taught in schools?

For reference, the St James Ethics Centre’s proposal is available here.

Editorial Considerations

We have been getting a reasonable amount of original posts on the blog, which is good, but I have concerns regarding the quality of some of these. I’m not asking for literary masterpieces, but I do have a few requests. (I know that some of the contributors don’t want to hear this but I am going to politely suggest this anyway. Please note that none of these requests apply to Ad hominem, I don’t care what you do there.)


The Editor requests that you please:

Try to spell words properly. I know this is hard, but I’ve taken criticism for poor spelling in the past, and I don’t see why anyone else should get away with it. This is not that difficult and I will expect contributors to attempt this, for the initial post at least.

Pay attention to sentence structure and grammar. If you read a sentence aloud and you sound like a gibbering idiot having an acid flashback, it probably needs to be re-written. This is an aim that is probably less achievable in philosophy, since sometimes things can get a bit convoluted.

Be clear on how you are using words. If you are using an obscure word (or a common word) in a non-standard or obscure way, please indicate that you are doing so.

Think about how this will look to other people. I am happy for people to use this site as a way to speculate in ways that may not be well received in our academic work. New and unusual ideas are good. But in terms of the quality, as opposed to the content, of posts, we could stand to do a little better. I have read 1st year tutorial papers (that are student’s first attempts at academic philosophy) that are better in many of the above respects than some of the contributions that we host. This is not right, as many of our contributors are honours students or graduates.

We are one of the few ways in which Philosophy at the University of Newcastle connects to the Web in a way that a broader audience will see. I don’t want to give the impression to outside visitors that this institution churns out philosophy graduates who are borderline illiterate.

-Sam Douglas.

AAPAE Conference

( Plagiarised gratuitously from an email I received via the 'aphil-l' mailing list)

AAPAE 13th Annual Conference12-14 June, 2006University of New South Wales
Sydney, New South Wales Australia The annual Australian Association for Professional and Applied Ethics (AAPAE) conference is the longest established conference in Australasia in the area of Professional and Applied Ethics. Sessions and presentations have regularly dealt with a variety of topics, ranging from ethical issues in health care, to business ethics, ethical issues in education, research ethics, public sector ethics, and many others. Presenters have included academics and practitioners form a variety of fields, and keynote speakers drawn from prominent roles in public and professional life. This year’s conference will take place at the UNSW Kensington Campus.Papers/presentations are welcome in all areas of professional and applied ethics. In addition, identified themes of this year's conference are –

Public Sector Ethics
Healthcare Ethics
Business Ethics
Environmental Ethics
Military/Defence Ethics


Further:

So far, in addition to streams in these areas and other presentations, special workshops are being organised in the areas of Defence ethics, and Ethical issues of mental health care – in particular, involuntary treatment. Registrations and presentations already accepted have a truly international flavour. Those who would like to submit papers for presentation at the conference can choose whether they would like a full refereeing process for acceptance, or whether they would like their presentation proposal accepted on the basis of an abstract only. It is not too late to submit at paper. It is certainly not too late to register!Aside from conference publication, presenters will have the opportunity to submit their work for consideration for publication subsequent to the conference. keynote speakers are being organised, and
will include Lawrence Hinman (Director of the Values Institute at the University of San Diego), who will be talking about moral imagination, and, he says, sketching out a framework that is applicable in various areas, including law and business. Full details of the conference are available from the conference website:http://www.arts.unsw.edu.au/aapae/conference06/index.htm/
or go to the AAPAE website
http://www.arts.unsw.edu.au/aapae/
click on ‘conferences’, and follow the links Conference registration and submission of papers are available online.The early-bird rate for registrations ends on May 18

On Ethics And The University

“Unfortunately, there is no employer who carefully scrutinises the ethics courses to make sure they are rigorous enough. University students know that if they fail ethics, or don’t even take ethics, they can still graduate from university and go on to a good job.

And ethics lecturers know that if they make the subject too difficult, nobody will take it. If nobody takes your subject, the university starts asking why they need you. What student wants to waste their time doing a subject that no employer cares about and then fail because it is too difficult and there is too much work involved?

Over time the ethics and philosophy courses become easier and require less work. Not as many books need to be read. The exams are graded less rigorously. Less is required from the assignments” – Eric Claus, ‘Ethically Speaking’ (On Line Opinion).

On ‘The Source Of True Self’

“In 1989 eminent McGill University philosopher Charles Taylor, published a book entitled Sources of the Self. Taylor’s book is a history of western philosophy that, as its title suggests, seeks to explain the origin of the western mind.

While this book is instructive and explains much about the way we now think, a theologian would want to argue that it misses the primary origin of the western self, the person of Jesus. In this we must make a distinction between the contribution to the self made by philosophical ideas and that made by one whose significance cannot be explained in terms of philosophical ideas or in codes of morality, and certainly not as a founder of a great religion, but in his very being as the one true human being.

This is why the New Testament is so puzzling to the modern mind which looks for ideas or even great actions. Here we have a person whom John the Evangelist describes as the Word made flesh, that Word that was with God and was God, the eternal truth of all things. The Christian proclamation is not of a set of ideas but of the perfection of a person, the source of true self” – Peter Sellick, ‘The source of true self’ (On Line Opinion).

Normally I would have refrained from posting this, but it is Easter and I get the feeling that there are certain Contributors who will make fools of themselves misinterpreting this. And there are some who are just going to scoff. But, before your do, make sure you read the entire piece because it gets somewhat better from there.

The only thing missing is the requisite reference to Foucault …

On-line Philosophy Conference: Schedule of Papers

The schedule of papers for the First On-line Philosophy Conference has been posted, with the first set of papers to be posted on the 30th of April.

Given the alleged ascendency of analytic philosophy within the Club, it is highly likely that most of the readers of this forum will find something of interest among the papers when they are posted.

History of the Philosophy Club?

A few days ago I was think about a poster for the club, something that would include: "Corrupting the Youth of Newcastle Since..." (plus a picture of a youth being 'corrupted', whatever that looks like). It was then that I realised that I had no idea how long we had been corrupting these so-called youths.

So if anyone who frequents this site has any information on this, or any ideas on where to start or who to ask, I'd be very happy to hear them. We could compile a comprehensive history, replete with anecdotes and disagreements. (What we will probably end up with is philosophical equivalent of He Died With a Felafel in His Hand. )

Question On The Nature Of Ethics

Is it appropriate to consider an ‘ethic’ to be anything more than the schema of norms adopted by an individual in the course of ethical decision making?

[Thanks Bill for the post that got me thinking along this particular line.]

Objective Ethics, morality reason judgement faith law meaning relativism death teaching children and honesty

An important point from the discussion today I'd like to highlight is that 'objective ethics' is a contradiction.

There are some systems of beleif that might argue that there is such a thing as objective ethics. For example, religions would assert a set of moral truths - "thou shalt" - which are universally or objectively (ie: true independantly of subjective construction or judgement) true because God/s said they are. And that the set of moral truths constitute an objectively true system of ethics. Alternatively a scientific or sociological approach might investigate the frequency of actual morals and moral principles across society. It might turn out that all cultures or persons hold one or more moral principles/imperatives in common, and that these may be regarded as objective moral standards. Or there might be statistically frequent ones, with confidence intervals etc which are more or less 'objectively true' prima facie from an empirical science point of view. Again these may be regarded as constituting an objective ethical system.


First lets consider terminology. I'll use philosophical definitions, rather than laymans terms, since we are philosophers (In laymans terms 'ethics' and 'morality' are little distinguished. Regardless of terminology, the distinctions are useful for our understanding of stuff). A moral is a 'should'. A moral statement is an assertion that we should behave some way as opposed to a statement that we do behave some way. Morals always involve a choice.

An ethical relation is one in which two or more 'subjects', capable of making choices, can make moral judgements of one another, ie: you should have done x, you should not have done y; it was wrong to do x; you are right; all people at all times should do x but you did y so you are evil... This might also be extended to other judgements, like you are beautiful, but lets stick with morals right now, since most people think of ethics as being about morality.

So it is 'unethical' to treat another 'subject' (like a person) as an 'object' (like a stone, or a tool, only). It is ethical when dealing with subjects to recognise that they are capable of constructing the world in their own way, their own opinions about reality, capable of making their own moral judgements, and their own moral judgements of your actions - and importantly, that they do so independantly of you. You never really know what another person is thinking, etc. In an ethical relationship you recognise that someone is like yourself, capable of perceiving and acting in the world, and of judgement, yet they are not yourself, and you cannot understand them in the sufficiently complete way you would understand a 'thing' or object (like a rock or shovel - whether animals can be subjects or to what extent, is debatable).

So then you have the morality of ethical relationships - what should we do to each other. I should treat people well. You should not treat people like objects. You should not treat me like that. You should use rocks this way, not like that. Everyone should obey the law. And so on.
But the point is, that ethics involves 'subjects'. And the distinctively ethical point about this relationship between subjects is that they are each capable of their own judgement. Because it is a matter of subjective judgement it is necessarily not objective.

This does not in any way devalue ethics or morality as a 'meaningless relativism'. Rather it compels us to acknowledge and respect each other and ourselves as arbiters, as judges. We cannot simply say "You're wrong acording to this book of objective morality here so I'll chop off your head". We cannot act lightly without considering the consequences of our actions. We can't assume what other people think without asking them. It compels us to negotiate instead of force, or at least to accept that to force is our own decision and judgeable by others.

It also is not 'meaningless relativism' in that we can talk to each other, and decide, for example that everyone should have a right to walk down the street without being murdered, so lets make a law saying murder is wrong. I wouldn't like to be murdered would you? And lets say, anyone who murders will be locked up by these other people who have decided to follow that through. We can establish moral principles. We can and do agree on them and fight about them. They are not meaningless at all. Because they are intersubjective, not objective, does not make them meaningless or any less important, quite the contrary - it gives each of us and our moral decisions more meaning that we could possibly have if morals were not our choice.

Each of us must say, "I am the arbiter of right and wrong."And each of us must recognise that each other person is too.This gives us enourmous freedom and responsibility.To say "I am the arbiter of right and wrong." is not to say "Yippee I can do whatever I want." On the contrary it makes us weigh our thoughts and deeds with gravity.

It can be hard and conscience wracking to figure out what is the right thing to do, or if we should care at all. But luckily we are equipped with reason so we can figure it out. Ultimately we can say we made the right choice at the time, given the information, no regrets - but only if we accept the freedom/responsibility of being a moral and ethical creature. It is typically when people give themselves over to an 'objective morality' that atrocities are committed.

One of the reasons religion is appealing to people is because it is hard to figure out what is right and wrong. (Notably many people who turn to religion are people who have really stuffed up their choices in life and have become desperate.) Life becomes easier if someone else tells you.
But I reckon that's a bit of a weak way to be a person (Blessed are the meek!). It is to relinquish what it is that makes you a person - your ability to judge and to choose. (Worth noting here also, that religious beleif depends on faith, not reason which is what we need for judgement).

I must acknowledge that I get a lot of this thinking from Emmanual Levinas - and also that this breif discussion doesn't nearly do him justice. I reckon no philosopher ought to be comfortable talking about ethics unless they have read Levinas' Totality And Infinity - so read it. On reading it - I have to say I didn't understand a single thing he said for 6 pages. Then when I finally did it was like a revelation and I understood what he was saying for those six pages. So - it's a difficult read at first, and it would be good to have a teacher, I beleive Chris Falzon knows Levinas, but once you get into it it is beautiful and thoroughly rewarding. I was almost religious about this book for a while.

On that note - I have no objection to philosophy being personal. Why do philosophy if it isn't relevant to you? Considering the discussion today, I'd like to add that reading Levinas was a significant factor in my decision not to abort the first 'accident' my wife and I had. It has affected my thinking ever since and been a good basis for deciding about how to relate to my children. They are like me, I will teach them, but they are not me, they are subjects and form their own judgements etc. The way Levinas describes love, fecundity, old age and children certainly provides an a-religious conciliation with death.

So when my daughter beleived in God for about a year or so, it was not vitally important to convince her otherwise. I never beleived that her beleifs could be controlled absolutely by me, nor the scripture teacher. And I was ready to accept it if she decided to remain a Christian. I was always honest with her about my own beleifs, which are very hard to explain to a 5 to 6 year old, but I did what I could to explain if she asked. One day she said "Now I beleive in God about a quarter." and that was all her figuring out - even at 6 years old. I never told her not to beleive in God. I didn't even say I didn't beleive in God. But that said, ours is not a religious household.

When there is no objectivity, no absolute truth, independant of us, what matters above all is honesty.