Current Controversies in Virtue Theory now available
/My copy arrived in the mail today.
My first book was dedicated to my parents and my spouse. This one... my rabbit.
Available on Amazon here.
Philosophy and Other Thoughts: An informal discussion of ethics, moral psychology, Nietzsche, and other topics of interest.
Read older posts ➠
My copy arrived in the mail today.
My first book was dedicated to my parents and my spouse. This one... my rabbit.
Available on Amazon here.
Peggy DesAutels is in town to talk about feminist ethics and neuroethics. But it's not all fun and games. She also had to deal with the very serious issue of petting Nori's ears.
After a few tense moments, things seem to have reached a watchful detente.
Justin Weinberg, of Daily Nous fame, will come to UO to talk about regret. Exciting!
I wanted to use a different image, but got shot down by people with better taste....
I'm excited to hear her talk on "Non-Idealized Approaches to Ethics and Power."
Administrator and coach salaries at the University of Oregon continue to grow at an astronomical pace (they currently make roughly 120% of peers'). At the same time, faculty and graduate student salaries have stagnated (making roughly 80% of peers'). At the same time, tuition for both in-state and out-of-state students keeps rising.
Well, that's not really a fair way to put it: this process is not like a river or a tide rising, after all. It's more correct to say that the lairds keep raising tuition to line their own pockets with lucre from the pockets of their feudal vassals. This has gone on for a long time, with little opposition. It's a bit like the case of the frog in the pot of boiling water. Each increase ends up costing only a few bucks per student per term (or even per year), so they barely notice. In the aggregate, though, a few bucks from tens of thousands of people means a lot.
Some of the undergrads at the University of Oregon understand this, so when the Board of Trustees convened today for one of their quarterly meetings, they showed up in force. Some spoke movingly during the public comment period about being forced by tuition increases to forego eating meals, buying required books, or even having housing.
(During the same public comment period, I spoke briefly about the value of transparency; Chuck Lillis seemed to remember who I was from my public comments back in December; he interrupted me to make a snide comment at one point. Chuck and his handlers: if you're reading this, I'd be happy to speak with you privately; all of my previous attempts to communicate have been summarily ignored. The fact that it's impossible for constituents of this university to convey any message to you except during highly contentious public meetings is may a tiny bit your fault.)
Many, many more students came with picket signs to shame the fat cats who say there's no money for more teachers, more researchers, more student support, and so on, while paying themselves and the coaches huge salaries and bonuses, and even using student tuition money to fund legal fees to defend against and countersue rape victims. In other words, they'd had enough of the bullshit and were resorting to direct action.
Two members of the Board of Trustees (Wilcox and Schlegel) supported the students; the rest went right ahead and raised tuition over 3.5%.
In response, the undergrads began chanting their demands. They invaded the holy of holies: the area between the Trustees' tables. They refused to stop, leading Chuck Lillis, the chair of the BoT and a part-time Santa impersonator, to call an emergency recess.
Turns out, one of the reasons the BoT voted to raise tuition is that they had been fed shite data by Brad Shelton and Jamie Moffitt. When this sort of thing happens, one always has to ask the question, "Stupid or evil?" Fortunately, there are multiple potential answers, ranging from, "Stupid" to "Both, independently" to "Both, in a statistical interaction from the the depths of hell" to "Evil." My best guess in this case is the third option, with most emphasis on the interaction effect.
I took a few grainy videos of the protest....
Nori was delighted to welcome a visitor to Eugene this week: the indefatigably hilarious and brilliant Nina Strohminger.
I'm proud to be on two posters at the 2015 SPSP -- one on intellectual humility, the other on mapping human values. Here they are (the printed versions are a bit larger...).
Nina Strohminger -- philosopher, psychologist, and all-around good person -- will visit the University of Oregon in early March to give a talk titled "The Essential Moral Self." Be there!
Mark Alfano, Amir Ebrahimi Fard, J. Adam Carter, Peter Clutton, & Colin Klein. (forthcoming). Synthese.
Sullivan, E., Sondag, M., Rutter, I., Meulemans, W., Cunningham, S., Speckmann, B. & Alfano, M. (forthcoming). International Journal of Philosophical Studies.
Mark Alfano, Andrew Higgins, & Jacob Levernier. (2018) Journal of Value Inquiry.
Mark Alfano, Emily Sullivan, & Amir Ebrahimi Fard. (forthcoming). Guilford Press.
Sullivan, E., Sondag, M., Rutter, I., Meulemans, W., Cunningham, S., Speckmann, B., & Alfano, M. (2020). Oxford University Press.
John Turri, Mark Alfano, & John Greco. (2018). Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Kathryn Iurino, Brian Robinson, Markus Christen, Paul Stey, & Mark Alfano. (2018). In I. Inan, L. Watson, D. Whitcomb, & S. Yigit (eds.), The Moral Psychology of Curiosity. Rowman & Littlefield.
Mark Alfano, J. Adam Carter, & Marc Cheong. (2018). Journal of the American Philosophical Association.
Markus Christen, Mark Alfano, & Brian Robinson. (2017). AI & Society.
Mark Alfano, Kathryn Iurino, Paul Stey, Brian Robinson, Markus Christen, Feng Yu, & Daniel Lapsley. (2017). PLoS ONE, 12(8): e0182950.
Mark Alfano, Alexandra Plakias, & Don Loeb (2018). Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Mark Alfano (2016). From Personality to Virtue: Essays in the Psychology and Ethics of Character, pp. 186-202. Jonathan Webber & Alberto Masala (eds.), Oxford.
Mark Alfano & August Skorburg (2018). Extended Knowledge. Duncan Pritchard & Orestis Palermos (eds.), Oxford.
Philipp Koralus & Mark Alfano (2017). Moral Inference. Jean-Francois Bonnefon & Bastien Tremoliere (eds.), Psychology Press.
Mark Alfano (2015). American Journal of Bioethics, 15(10): 3-12.
© 2014 ScienceSites Inc: making science accessible
Powered by Squarespace
Mark Alfano. Cambridge University Press (2013).