PEA Soup

Commonsense Consequentialism: A Bleg for Comments

Currently, I’m working on a book entitled Commonsense Consequentialism: Wherein Morality Meets Rationality. (Click on the link to be taken to a web site where you can download individual chapters.) The book is on morality, rationality, and the interconnections between the two. In it, I defend a version of consequentialism that both comports with our commonsense moral intuitions and shares with other consequentialist theories the same compelling teleological conception of practical reasons. I have a complete draft of the book finished, but I’m still in the process of revising it. I have promised to submit it by the end of this coming January. I would be very grateful, then, to those who have the time to read it (or any portion of it) and give me comments before then, as this would be of tremendous help to me in revising it. Comments, questions, and/or criticisms can be posted here or sent to me at douglas.portmore@asu.edu. Below the fold, I include the table of comments followed by a brief synopsis of each chapter.

Subjective Utilitarianism: What is it good for? – Absolutely Nothing

Suppose that a subject, S, is in some less-than-ideal epistemic position with respect to both the relevant normative facts and the relevant non-normative facts – that is, assume that S faces both normative uncertainty (i.e., uncertainty about the relevant normative facts) and non-normative uncertainty (i.e., uncertainty about the relevant non-normative facts). Yet S must still choose which of the mutually exclusive and jointly exhaustive act alternatives available to her to perform. Call this S’s choice situation.

Theories about what S ought to do in her choice situation fall into one of the following three categories:

Faculty Fellowships

“The Murphy Institute’s Center for Ethics and Public Affairs at Tulane University is pleased to announce residential Faculty Fellowships for the 2010-2011 academic year. These fellowships, made possible by funds from the Tulane Murphy Foundation, are available to support outstanding faculty whose teaching and research focus on ethics, political philosophy, or questions of moral choice in areas such as, but not restricted to, architecture, business, government, law, medicine and environmental policy.” Get the application (due 11/17/09) and read the full announcement here, and see my post from last year for some further details of which I have first-hand knowledge.

Welcome Anita Superson!

We are happy to announce that Anita Superson has accepted our invitation to be a contributor here at PEA Soup.  Anita is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Kentucky, and specializes in ethical theory, feminism, and issues at their intersections.  It's great to have you aboard, Anita!

Fellowship Opportunity

The Humanities Center at the University of Pittsburgh invites applications for a residential fellow for the academic year 2010-11. For more info, see here: http://www.humcenter.pitt.edu/call-for-applications.php.

Visiting Faculty Fellowships 2010-11

The University of Toronto’s Centre for Ethics invites applications for its Visiting Faculty Fellowships. For the academic year 2010-11, two fellowships will be awarded to outstanding scholars and teachers interested in writing and conducting research about ethics during a year in residence at the University of Toronto.

Journal Surveys

The new better alternative to the philosophy journals wiki is here at http://www.andrewcullison.com/journal-surveys/. It's brought to you by Andrew Cullinson, who has done a fantastic job putting this together. I encourage you all to make good use of it and to help get the word out. 

Replacing the Philosophy Journals Wiki with Something Much Better

Some time ago, I started the Philosophy Journal Wiki. But as has been rightly pointed out here, the Philosophy Journal Wiki leaves a lot to be desired. Thankfully, Andrew Cullison has taken it upon himself to come up with a better version. I think that what he has in the works is excellent, but before he gets it up and running he's looking for some feedback. Over at his blog, he's created a small model of what he has in mind. Please click on this link http://www.andrewcullison.com/2009/07/best-journal-survey-method-so-far/ and check it out. Leave any useful feedback that you have there, not here. 

Welcome, Jason Brennan

We're pleased to announce that Jason Brennan has accepted our invitation to become a contributor. Here's a brief biography, which I borrow from his web site: "JASON BRENNAN (Ph.D., 2007, University of Arizona) is Assistant Professor of Philosophy, Research, at Brown University, and a member of the Political Theory Project, an interdisciplinary research center at Brown. He specializes in metaethics, normative ethics, and political philosophy. His current research is on voting ethics, and he is developing a new liberal, pluralistic theory of civic virtue that emphasizes the public value of private, non-political activity. Together with David Schmidtz, he is the author of A Brief History of Liberty, forthcoming from Blackwell in August 2009. His second book, The Ethics of Voting, is under contract with Princeton University Press." Please join me in welcoming Jason.

Global Comments Feed...

... returns, thanks to Simon Rippon.  You can find the feed link in the top Navigation Bar.

Thank you, Simon, for getting this global comments feed back up and running for us!