The Normative Significance of Cognitive Science

What is the relationship between normative ethics and scientific research on moral judgment and decision-making? What potential is there for drawing ethical implications from such empirical investigations? While questions in this area have received considerable attention lately, the discussion so far has been largely dominated by two opposing scepticisms: scepticism about the relevance of empirical research to ethics, and scepticism about the value of ‘traditional’ moral theory. This workshop aims to go beyond such outright scepticism by investigating different ways in which empirical research might impact on normative ethics. The focus will be on philosophical reflection, whether critical or constructive, rather than on simply showcasing the latest scientific research.

Programme

Tuesday, 17 July

9.00 – 9.45          Registration and coffee

9.45 – 11.00        Antti Kauppinen (Trinity College Dublin): “Skepticism About Moral Intuitions”

11.00 – 11.30      Coffee break

11.30 – 12.45      Maureen Sie (Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam): “Science, Responsibility & The Traffic Participation View on Human Agency”

12.45 – 2.00        Lunch

2.00 - 3.15           Alex Voorhoeve (London School of Economics): “When Can('t) We Trust Our Moral Intuitions in Distributive Cases?”

3.15 - 3.45           Coffee break

3.45 - 5.15           Kwame Anthony Appiah (Princeton University): “Accepting our natures. When should we accept the ways people tend to behave; when should we aim to change them?”

Wednesday, 18 July       

8.45 – 9.00          Coffee

9.00 - 10.15         Regina A. Rini (University of Oxford): “What is a Moral Bias?”

10.15 - 11.30       Liane Young (Boston College):  “When the mind matters for morality”

11.30 - 12.00       Coffee break

12.00 - 1.30         Stephen Darwall (Yale University): “Experimental Evidence for Morality As Accountability”

1.30                    Closing remarks

Hosted by the Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics and the Oxford Centre for Neuroethics, Faculty of Philosophy, Oxford University.

Organisers: Regina Rini and Guy Kahane

Enquiries:    [email protected]

Catering charges:  Catering will be provided for this 1.5 day event and will include a sandwich lunch on day one, and teas and coffees on both days. Please note it is necessary for us to charge a nominal registration fee to cover the catering costs.  The charges are as follows:

Discounted Student rate £15

Standard £25

Registration:  to register your place at this conference, please email [email protected]  in the first instance.

Conference webpage:  http://www.practicalethics.ox.ac.uk/25656

This event is part of the ‘Intuition and Emotion in Moral Decision-Making: Empirical Research and Normative Implications’ project, funded by the Volkswagen Foundation.

For more information on this project, see: