Moral Sciences Club
Recordings of talks at the Faculty of Philosophy Moral Sciences Club.
Episodes
Why Is Genius Still Gendered?
In the past, accounts of genius have been put forward which explicitly exclude women from this category. Today genius does not tend to be explicated in such an explicitly gendered way. Nonetheless, stereotypes exist which indicate that whilst the category of genius may not explicitly exclude women, genius remains psychologically associated with men more than women. This paper explores what could b
Do Pictures Look Like What They Depict?
Pictures look like what they depict to those who understand them. That is a natural and seemingly unassailable thought. Looking at Mona Lisa, the painting strikes us as looking like a woman with a mysterious smile in front of a mountainous backdrop. Call this the ‘looks like’ intuition. It is tempting to think not just that the ‘looks like’ intuition is true, but that it gets at the heart of what
Fear, Sallust and Roman Political Theory
Explaining the decline of the Roman Republic, the historian Sallust made a famous claim about the importance of fear, a claim which has influenced writers from Augustine to Schmitt. Drawing on phenomenological apparatus, including Lear on the collapse of Native American society, this paper has two goals. First, to show that the standard reading of Sallust is incoherent. Second, to propose a new re
Consent and Common Ground
Manon Garcia has recently proposed a model of sexual consent as conversation, which emphasizes collaboration and that interlocutors work together toward a common goal. Independently, though in a similar spirit, John Gardner has developed an idea of consent as teamwork. There is much that is appealing about these models of consent as ideals. Still, this paper challenges the de facto possibility of
Inextricability and the Brain
In discussions concerning the possibility of AI consciousness, computational functionalism has been the dominant position. This is the view that consciousness is essentially kind of computation and therefore medium independent (not reliant on any one kind of physical realizer). The opposing position, biological naturalism, has recently been discussed by Block (2025) and Seth (forthcoming). This is
Aristotle on Being Ruled Well
In Politics 3.4 Aristotle distinguishes the virtue of the good citizen from the virtue of the good person by noting that the good citizen should both rule well and be ruled well. I show that ‘being ruled well’ here is best understood in terms of ‘being good at being ruled’ and find evidence elsewhere for what Aristotle thinks it is to be good at being ruled, how this differs from and is related to
Touching Through: The Puzzle of Mediated Contact (co-authored with Robert Morgan, University of Leeds)
It is natural to think that one person touches another when their bodies make direct contact. However, much of interpersonal touch is not like this. We often touch people through things like their clothing. But this raises a puzzle: how can you touch someone without directly touching them? Moreover, where particular moral violations and crimes essentially involve touch, an account of when one pers
Why Doesn't Physics Matter More?
There is an explanatory puzzle about the relationship between physics and the rest of science: if the lower-level facts from physics in some way underpin higher-level facts, why don’t the lower-level details matter more for the day-to-day practice of the special sciences? Is it just a pragmatic feature of the practice of science, or are the special science genuinely autonomous, and if so, in what
The Revival of Classical Pragmatism: Truth, Reality and Methodology
Talk given by Professor Hasok Chang at the Moral Sciences Club on November 25th 2025.
The Incomparable Value of the Individual
Talk given by Professor Christine Korsgaard at the Moral Sciences Club on October 21st 2025.
Justice in Climate Litigation: A Modest Defense of Joint and Several Liability
Talk given by Dr Megan Blomfield at the Moral Sciences Club on November 4th 2025.
Facts and Propositions
Talk given by Professor Michael Potter at the Moral Sciences Club on October 14th 2025.
Salience-Based Tensions in Socially Progressive Initiatives
A talk given by Ella Whiteley at the Moral Sciences Club on 19 November 2024.
Rethinking Responsibility
A talk given by Monima Chadha at the Moral Sciences Club on 12 November 2024
The Prison of the Self: Kantian reflections on loneliness
A talk given by Facundo Rodríguez at the Moral Sciences Club on 5 November 2024
Political Liberalism, Antidiscrimination Law, and Expressive Harm
A talk given by Samuel Cole (Cambridge) at the Moral Sciences Club on 29 October 2024.
Why Paternalism is Wrong (When it is Wrong)
A talk given by Dr Jonathan Parry (LSE) at the Moral Sciences Club on 22 October 2024
From Each According to Their Abilities
A talk given by Jan Kandiyali at the Moral Sciences Club on 9th of May 2023
Pragmatic Genealogy
A talk given by Matthieu Queloz at the Moral Sciences Club on 15th of November 2022
Beyond Derogation and Offense: Coarseness
A talk given by Bianca Cepollaro at the Moral Sciences Club on 21st May 2024
A Defence of Kantian Epistemic Autonomy
A talk given by Alix Cohen at the Moral Sciences Club on 14th May 2024
What is a hobby?
A talk given by Clare Chambers at the Moral Sciences Club on 30th April 2024
Online Public Shaming and the Case for Regulating Social Media Platforms
A talk given by Paul Billingham at the Moral Sciences Club on 12th March 2024
Defining Social Power
A talk given by Åsa Burman at the Moral Sciences Club on 5th March 2024
The Best Game in Town: The Re-Emergence of the Language of Thought Hypothesis Across the Cognitive Sciences
A talk given by Eric Mandelbaum at the Moral Sciences Club on 20th February 2024
The Zetetic Puzzle
A talk given by Anne Meylan at the Moral Sciences Club on 6th February 2024
Thinking Together
A talk given by Adham El Shazly at the Moral Sciences Club on 30th January 2024
Artefacts of representational choices
A talk given by Tim Button at the Moral Sciences Club on 23rd January 2024
Philosophical Pathologies and the Point of Inquiry
A talk given by Pablo Hubacher Haerle at the Moral Sciences Club on 28th October 2023
Nature’s Poetry and Humanity’s Artifice: Cavendish on the Powers of the Imagination
A talk given by Julia Borcherding at the Moral Sciences Club on 21st November 2023
Human Individuals and Human Kinds: A Process View
A talk given by John Dupré at the Moral Sciences Club on 14th November 2023
Property Versatility
talk given by Ofra Magidor at the Moral Sciences Club on 7th November 2023
Why Isn’t (Pure) Epistemic Autonomy of Value?
A talk given by David Enoch at the Moral Sciences Club on 24th October 2023
Abduction: The Glory and Scandal of Philosophy?
A talk given by Finnur Dellsén at the Moral Sciences Club on 10th October 2023
Political thinking: the flight from solidity
A talk given by Michael Freeden (University of Oxford) at the Moral Sciences Club on 23 May 2023.
Epistemic rationality and the value of truth
A talk given by Sophie Dandelet (University of Cambridge) at the Moral Sciences Club on 28th February 2023.
Rethinking Moral Claim Rights
A talk given by Laura Valentini (Ludwigs-Maximilians University Munich) at the Moral Sciences Club on 8 November 2022.
Unmistaken: imaginative perception and illusion
A talk given by Adrian Alsmith (King’s College London) at the Moral Sciences Club on 18 October 2022.
The Theory of Scientific Explanation: An Obituary
A talk given by Philip Kitcher (Columbia University) at the Moral Sciences Club on 14 March 2023.
Social Science, Policy and Democracy
A talk given by Johanna Thoma (LSE) at the Moral Sciences Club on 7th February 2023.
Armchair Knowledge: Some Kantian Reflections
A talk given by Adrian Moore (University of Oxford) at the Moral Sciences Club on 31st January 2023.
Plan B Consistency
A talk given by Sarah Paul (NYU Abu Dhabi) at the Moral Sciences Club on 24th January 2023.
Evidence, Defeat, and Permissible Suspension
A talk given by Mona Simion (University of Glasgow) at the Moral Sciences Club on 1st November 2022.
Virtual Reality as Fictional or Real
A talk given by Alex Fisher (University of Cambridge) at the Moral Sciences Club on 25th October 2022.
Perceiving Oppression
A talk given by Paula Keller (University of Cambridge) at the Moral Sciences Club on 22nd November 2022.
Was lockdown racist?
A talk given by Alex Broadbent (Durham) at the Moral Sciences Club on 17th May 2022.
Empathy and Feeling the Emotions of Others
A talk given by Derek Matravers (Open University) at the Moral Sciences Club on 10th May 2022.
The Singular Ownership Claim
A talk given by Jane Heal (Cambridge) at the Moral Sciences Club on 15th March 2022.
Catastrophic Risk and the Complaints of Future People
A talk given by Emma Curran (Cambridge) at the Moral Sciences Club on 8th March 2022.
What is disability?
A talk given by Tom Shakespeare (London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine) at the Moral Sciences Club on 8th February 2022.
Why Did the Volcano Erupt? Kant’s Bayesian Theory of Hypotheses
A talk given by Christopher Benzenberg (Cambridge) at the Moral Sciences Club on 1st February 2022.
“I Wasn’t Thinking About That!” The Logic of Framing Effects
A talk given by Franz Berto (St Andrews) at the Moral Sciences Club on 25th January 2022.
[Co-authored with Aybüke Özgün, ILLC-University of Amsterdam]
On Buck Passing: Methodology in the Philosophy of Art
A talk given by Catharine Abell (Oxford) at the Moral Sciences Club on 30th November 2021.
Knowledge and the Failings of Folk Epistemology
A talk given by David Papineau (KCL) at the Moral Sciences Club on 23rd November 2021.
Epistemic Norms for Search Engines
A talk given by Jessie Munton (Cambridge) at the Moral Sciences Club on 16th November 2021.
Value Capture
A talk given by C. Thi Nguyen (Utah) at the Moral Sciences Club on 9th November 2021.
Transforming Solidarities
A talk given by Rahel Jaeggi (Humboldt University) at the Moral Sciences Club on 2nd November 2021.
Tempted like Achilles
A talk given by Sophie-Grace Chappell (Open University) at the Moral Sciences Club on 26th October 2021.
On Absolute Units
A talk given by Neil Dewar (Cambridge) at the Moral Sciences Club on 19th October 2021.
New and Improvable Lives
A talk given by Joe Horton (UCL) at the Moral Sciences Club on 4th May 2021.
Refugee Discrimination and Offsetting the Costs of Rescue
A talk given by Helen Frowe (Stockholm) at the Moral Sciences Club on 16th March 2021.
You can run, but you cannot hide: social norms and social normativity
A talk given by Alexander Horne (Trinity College, Cambridge) at the Moral Sciences Club on 9th March 2021.
Plural Signification and Semantic Paradox
A talk given by Cian Dorr (NYU) at the Moral Sciences Club on 2nd March 2021.
Against Empiricism
A talk given by Alexander Bird (St John's College, Cambridge) at the Moral Sciences Club on 23rd February 2021.
Hypocrisy and Blame
A talk given by Justin Snedegar (St Andrews) at the Moral Sciences Club on 9th February 2021.
Delusion and Identity
A talk given by Lisa Bortolotti (Birmingham) at the Moral Sciences Club on 1st December 2020.
The Legacy of Peter Abelard in Twelfth-Century Logic
A talk given by Roxane Noël (Wolfson College, Cambridge) at the Moral Sciences Club on 10th November 2020.
Political Epistemology and Social Critique
A talk given by Sally Haslanger (MIT) at the Moral Sciences Club on 27th October 2020.
Should Ontology be Explanatory?
A talk given by Amie Thomasson (Dartmouth) at the Moral Sciences Club on 20th October 2020.
How to Understand Rule-Constituted Kinds
A talk given by Manuel Garcia-Carpintero (Barcelona) at the Moral Sciences Club on 11th February 2020.
Ryleing the Irreal: sensory imagining as knowledge of perceiving
A talk given by Robert Hopkins (NYU) at the Moral Sciences Club on 4th February 2020.
What Hume Really Thought about Causation
A talk given by Peter Millican (Oxford) at the Moral Sciences Club on 19th November 2019.
Agency and Genius
A talk given by Kenny Walden (Dartmouth) at the Moral Sciences Club on 12th November 2019.
Carnap’s Defence of Abstract Objects
A talk given by Benjamin Marschall (Cambridge) at the Moral Sciences Club on 5th November 2019.
Choosing between Faith and Heresy
A talk given by Bob Pasnau (CU Boulder) at the Moral Sciences Club on 29th October 2019.
Roasting Ethics
A talk given by Luvell Anderson (Syracuse) at the Moral Sciences Club on 22nd October 2019.
Euclid, Plato, and Aristotle on What Geometry is About
A talk given by Nick Denyer (Cambridge) at the Moral Sciences Club on 15th October 2019.
Normative Explanation and Justification
A talk given by Pekka Väyrynen (Leeds) at the Moral Sciences Club on 21st May 2019.
Love, Rationality, and Arbitrariness
A talk given by Meghan Sullivan (Notre Dame) at the Moral Sciences Club on 14th May 2019.
Norms of Racial Discourse in the Age of Trump
A talk given by Jennifer Saul (Sheffield) at the Moral Sciences Club on 7th May 2019.
