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Seminars In Canberra
The Centre has moved to the Barton CSU Campus. Seminars are held at CAPPE (Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics) Level 1, 10-12 Brisbane Avenue, Barton, ACT, 2600. Please contact Sadjad Soltanzadeh: sadjad.s@googlemail.com with any questions about directions.
Next Canberra seminar:
Wednesday June 19: 16:30 pm
Dr. Steve Clark (CAPPE, CSU)
Using Religion to Justify
Violence
Abstract:
Much has been written about the relationship between religion and violence, and much of what has been written is aimed at trying to determine whether, how and why religion causes violence. In my forthcoming book The Justification of Religious Violence (Wiley-Blackwell), I pursue a different goal, which is to understand if and how religion can be used to justify violence. Followers of many different religions, who commit violent acts, seek to justify these by appealing to religion. I argue that religious believers are able to incorporate premises, grounded in the metaphysics of religious world views, in arguments for the conclusion that this or that violent act is justified. In the book I examine various different ways in which the metaphysics of religious world views can be used in justifications of violence. In this presentation I concentrate on appeals to the importance of the afterlife to justify violence, focusing specifically on arguments that have been developed in the Christian and Buddhist traditions.
Wednesday June 05: 16:30 pm
Assoc. Professor Fritz Allhoff (CAPPE & Western Michigan
University)
The Paradox of Nonlethal Weapons
Abstract:
Not all weapons are designed to kill; some are just meant to cause injury. Yet under the rules of war—a somewhat haphazard collection of ethical and legal directives—we are sometimes allowed to use lethal weapons even when certain nonlethal weapons are disallowed. In short, the lethal weapons are more permissible on the battlefield. As Donald Rumsfeld once complained “in many instances, our forces are allowed to shoot somebody and kill them, but they’re not allowed to use a nonlethal riot-control agent.” This is the paradox of nonlethal weapons, and it has been around for some time. Yet as military technology becomes increasingly capable of halting an enemy without killing him, it is a situation that international law must reconsider. Isn’t less deadly better?
For background, see this article in Slate or this interview on Huffington Post.
Wednesday May 22: 16:30 pm
Dr Gerhard Øverland (CAPPE) & Prof. Bashshar Haydar
(University of Beirut)
Benefiting from Injustice and Poverty Alleviation
Abstract:
Sometimes we receive benefits that we
have done nothing to deserve. In some of these cases, no one is made worse off
by it. In other cases, the benefits come as a consequence of something bad
happening to other people. And what happens to them may also be the consequence
of other people’s wrongdoing. When it does, we benefit from a wrong or from an
injustice.
In this paper, we investigate whether benefiting from an injustice gives one a
special moral responsibility to give up some of these benefits in order to help
the victims of that injustice. We argue that while little may follow from the
mere fact that you benefit from an injustice, there are certain conditions that
(together with the fact that one benefits from injustice) ground fairly
stringent requirement on part the beneficiary to relinquish a considerable
portion of the benefits in question.
We identify three types of situations in which those who benefit from an
injustice would be morally required to give up significant part of their
benefits in order to compensate the victims of the injustice, even when the
beneficiaries do not contribute to the injustice nor posses any property that
rightfully belongs to the victims of the injustice. In the first type, the
beneficiary happen to be the motivational cause of the injustice. In the second
type, the beneficiary gains the benefits in question through a direct or
indirect transfer of assets from the perpetrators of the injustice to her. In
the third type, the beneficiary benefits from a distortion of a fair competitive
procedure for allocating awards. In the last part of the paper, we argue that
for the question of poverty alleviation some of these factors are quite often at
play, and that, therefore, affluent people have benefiting-based responsibility
to address global poverty.
Wednesday May 15: 16:30 pm
Dr Edward Spence (Charles Sturt University)
Media Corruption in a Convergent Digital Media Environment
Abstract:
This paper will provide an applied philosophical model of corruption that will be utilized to first identify and then ethically analyse and evaluate some major types of corruption that arise in the media. Key case studies will provide a practical illustration and contextualisation of those major types of media corruption. In addition to identifying, analysing and ethically evaluating the major types of corruption in the media, the paper will also provide a diagnostic analysis of media corruption in terms of its possible causes and contexts. One cause and context of media corruption to be examined will be in terms of the epistemology and ethics of information. For insofar as information can be defined as a type of knowledge that of necessity must be true then cases of “cash-for-comment” and “media release journalism” practices, for example, may prove to be conducive and constitutive of corruption, if they result in misinformation or disinformation rather than information. The paper aims to show that infomercials, advertorials, product placements within news content, as well as cash-for-comment and media release journalism cases, among others, constitute instances of such corruption. Closely related to the convergence of information and persuasion practices within the media is the conflict of professional roles which can also be conducive to corruption. In the case of media release journalism, for example, where journalists reproduce media releases as news or editorial comment without independent corroboration of content or disclosure as to their source, the roles of journalism and that of public relations give rise to a conflict of interest through a convergence of their inherently conflicting roles that can be conducive to corruption. The paper aims to show that the ‘unholy’ alliance between journalism on the one hand and advertising and public relations on the other is one of the major and pervasive causes of corruption within the media. In the wake of the News of the World hacking scandal, this paper also aims to examine whether new information and communication technologies (ICTs) are proving conducive to media corruption by affording certain media practices that undermine rather than promote the traditional values of journalism of informing the public on matters of public interest. This paper will also investigate how certain new media and convergent media practices, such as blogging, and user-sourced information may also prove to be conducive to the corruption of the dissemination of information to the public. A key example concerns the blog of A Gay Girl in Damascus in 2011 that was not written as originally thought by a 35-year-old woman kidnapped by security forces in Syria, but by Tom MacMaster, a married, 40-year-old American studying at Edinburgh University. Related to that, the paper will finally examine whether information “hoaxes” perpetrated by self-defined activists or hactivists such as in the case of the Whitehaven hoax by Jonathan Moylan, may also constitute media corruption in the digital informational environment.
Bio:
Dr. Edward Spence is a Senior Lecturer (Philosophy and Ethics) at School of Communication and Creative Industries at Charles Sturt University, Senior Research Fellow at Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics (CAPPE), and Research Fellow at 3TU. Centre for Ethics and Technology, Den Haag, Netherlands.
Wednesday May 8th: 16:30 pm
Shannon Ford (CAPPE, Charles Sturt University)
Military force short-of-war
Abstract:
In this paper, I make the case that jus ad vim is a promising, and potentially necessary, addition to just war theory. First, I examine Michael Walzer’s conception of jus ad vim (i.e. just use of force-short-of-war) where he argues for the extension of jus ad bellum. I argue that Walzer’s jus ad vim is a broad concept that encapsulates a state’s mechanisms for exercising power short-of-war. I focus on his more narrow use of jus ad vim which is the state’s use of lethal force. Next I attend to a series of arguments against jus ad vim, and identify the scope and conditions that a worthwhile account of jus ad vim might take. Then, I argue that jus ad vim provides an appropriate “hybrid” moral framework for judging the ethical decision-making of soldiers outside of war. An important benefit of jus ad vim is that it stops us expanding the definition of war while still providing the necessary ethical framework for examining violent conflict outside that context. I conclude that the notion which Michael Walzer calls jus ad vim has the potential to improve the moral evaluation for using military lethal force in conflicts other than war, particularly those situations of violent conflict short-of-war.
Bio:
Chief Investigator, Ethics of Cybersecurity
Project CENTRE FOR APPLIED PHILOSOPHY AND PUBLIC ETHICS: An ARC Special Research
Centre and Adjunct Lecturer, Intelligence and Analysis AUSTRALIAN GRADUATE
SCHOOL OF POLICING AND SECURITY Office 1.14, Level 1, 10-12 Brisbane Ave,
CANBERRA, ACT 2600
Wednesday May 1st: 16:30 pm
Adam Henschke (CAPPE, Charles Sturt University)
Good Research? Some epistemic, moral and practical questions
Abstract:
Research sits at the centre of life for
many academics. Beyond the academy, research forms the basis for many
innovations in science, technology and other applications in the world.
Typically, there is competition in and around limited research funds, and these
competitive granting processes demand a great deal of economic, temporal and
cognitive resources. Key assumptions to these competitive processes are that
some research is good, and that competitive granting processes are conducive to
promoting good research. But what is good research, and why is it desirable? In
this paper I put forward a series of questions and propose some tentative
answers in and around the idea of ‘good research’ – what is it, how do we know
when we have it, should we incentivize it, and if so, how best can we do this?
Wednesday April 25th: 16:30 pm
Dr Peter Balint, University of NSW Canberra
Difference-Sensitive Neutrality
Abstract:
Almost all theories of
multiculturalism (and similar differentiated-rights) start by rejecting
liberal state neutrality as unable to adequately address issues of
diversity. In this paper, I challenge this move and argue that
neutrality has been wrongly characterised. Neutrality is an
unrealisable, yet still action-guiding political ideal that is not
absolute. It only makes sense in relation to a particular range of
things (in this case, people's ways of life), and needs to be sensitive
to the changing nature of this range. Unlike neutrality as 'benign
neglect', this allows it to be sufficiently neutral over time to
changing ways of life. Yet difference-sensitivity can be realised by
either withdrawing support for all parties or actively assisting them.
In the last part of the paper, I argue that state neutrality should
involve withdrawing support for favoured ways of life rather than
actively recognizing the various ways of life of its citizens.
Bio:
Peter Balint is a Lecturer in International &
Political Studies at UNSW Canberra. His research is primarily focussed on the
principles for diversity, including respect, toleration, neutrality, and social
cohesion. His latest book is 'Liberal Multiculturalism and The Fair Terms of
Integration' (with Sophie Guerard de Latour).
Wednesday April 17th: 16:30 pm
Mr Connal Lee, Flinders University of South Australia
Humanism vs. nonhumanism in philosophy of technology
Abstract:
‘Metaphysical humanism’ in the
field of philosophy of technology could be defined as the claim that
purely human intentions, actions, goals, and values are sufficient to
conceptualize technologies. ‘Metaphysical nonhumanism’, on the other
hand, would be the claim that a proper understanding of a given
technology could be achieved by giving at least some explanatory weight
to the role that nonhuman elements (here, technologies) play in humans’
individual and social lives.
In this paper I focus on the conception of technologies as
puzzle-solving physical instruments in order to study the debate between
humanism and nonhumanism. I first elaborate on the humanist
understanding of technologies and its main features. Then I will point
out to the common objections to the humanist understanding of
technologies which are posed by nonhumanist thinkers. On the basis of
these objections, it becomes clear how human (perception of) (ethical)
values can be influenced and conditioned by technologies and how
technologies shape the goals that drive humans in their puzzle-solving
activities.
Instead of embracing a fully nonhumanist position, however, I analyse
the conception of technology as puzzle-solving physical instrument to
show four aspects that make this conception a humanist one. These four
aspects, I argue, are all linked to humans’ possession of a
sophisticated mind. I conclude that the conception of technology as
puzzle-solving physical instrument commits us to a fair level of
humanism. This is not to say that nonhumanism is totally wrong, but to
say that in understanding puzzle-solving physical instruments a middle
position needs to be taken, one which is partly humanist and partly
nonhumanist.
Wednesday March 20th: 16:30 pm
Prof. Seumas Miller, CAPPE Charles Sturt University
Criminal Investigators and Moral Responsibility
Abstract:
Criminal investigators have multiple moral responsibilities to various parties, e.g. victims, suspects. Some of these responsibilities pertain to the ends or goals of criminal investigation, others to constraints on investigators in their pursuit of their investigative ends. Some of these moral responsibilities are collective, e.g. when investigators are members of a team; some are evidently epistemic, i.e. responsibilities to acquire knowledge. In this presentation I seek to identify the nature of these moral responsibilities and their relationships to one another. I also discuss some of the philosophical problems that they give rise to.
Bio:
Professor Seumas Miller (Centre
for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics (CAPPE), an Australian Research Council
Special Research Centre at Charles Sturt University (Canberra) and 3TU Centre
for Ethics and Technology at Delft University of Technology in The Hague)
Prof. Miller is the author numerous books and articles including The Moral
Foundations of Social Institutions, Police Ethics, (with John Blackler and
Andrew Alexandra), and Corruption and Anticorruption (with Peter Roberts and Ed
Spence). Investigative Ethics: The Aims And Limits Of The Role Of Police
Detective, written with Ian Gordan is forthcoming.
Wednesday March 13th: 16:30 pm
Mr Sadjad Soltanzadeh, CAPPE Charles Sturt University
Humanism vs. nonhumanism in philosophy of technology
Abstract:
‘Metaphysical humanism’ in the
field of philosophy of technology could be defined as the claim that
purely human intentions, actions, goals, and values are sufficient to
conceptualize technologies. ‘Metaphysical nonhumanism’, on the other
hand, would be the claim that a proper understanding of a given
technology could be achieved by giving at least some explanatory weight
to the role that nonhuman elements (here, technologies) play in humans’
individual and social lives.
In this paper I focus on the conception of technologies as
puzzle-solving physical instruments in order to study the debate between
humanism and nonhumanism. I first elaborate on the humanist
understanding of technologies and its main features. Then I will point
out to the common objections to the humanist understanding of
technologies which are posed by nonhumanist thinkers. On the basis of
these objections, it becomes clear how human (perception of) (ethical)
values can be influenced and conditioned by technologies and how
technologies shape the goals that drive humans in their puzzle-solving
activities.
Instead of embracing a fully nonhumanist position, however, I analyse
the conception of technology as puzzle-solving physical instrument to
show four aspects that make this conception a humanist one. These four
aspects, I argue, are all linked to humans’ possession of a
sophisticated mind. I conclude that the conception of technology as
puzzle-solving physical instrument commits us to a fair level of
humanism. This is not to say that nonhumanism is totally wrong, but to
say that in understanding puzzle-solving physical instruments a middle
position needs to be taken, one which is partly humanist and partly
nonhumanist.
Wednesday March 6th: 16:30 pm
Dr Anne Schwenkenbecher, The University of Melbourne
Public goods, joint duties and the wrongness of free-riding
Abstract:
In recent years, there has been a growing philosophical interest in questions of collective moral agency and responsibility. Philosophers have tried to analyse collective action dilemmas from a moral point of view and to show how individuals can have moral duties to contribute to joint endeavours. One issue that is increasingly discussed is the moral wrongness of non-compliance with collective or joint moral duties. There exists an ongoing debate of whether or not individuals act wrongly even if their individual contribution to an outcome (or their individual defection) makes no (*) difference to that outcome. In a similar and yet distinct way, other philosophers have been debating the normative dimensions of the provision of public goods for some time. They have tried to argue how individual failure to contribute to a public good (free-riding) can be unfair and morally wrong even if the supply of the public good is not diminished or jeopardized by the defection. In this paper, I want to draw a parallel between these two debates in order to find out whether moral accounts of free-riding on a public good can help us understand what is wrong with defecting from a collective moral duty. In order to illustrate my argument I will use the mitigation of individual greenhouse gas emissions as an example of a collective moral duty and a stable global climate as an example of a morally desirable public good. Does the public goods “lens” provide us with a clearer account of what is morally wrong about not reducing one’s individual emissions? Does it deliver a more convincing argument for condemning individual polluters?
Bio:
Dr. Anne Schwenkenbecher is a Research Fellow at The Nossal Institute for Global Health at The University of Melbourne, Australia. Her main research interests are in the morality of groups, the ethics of climate change and the ethics of war and terrorism.
Wednesday February 27th: 16:30 pm
Dr Kristen Rundle, The London School of Economics and Political Science , CSU Canberra video conference room #1.02
Legality in the Contracting-Out State: Cues from the Case of Jimmy Mubenga
Abstract:
The phenomenon of contractually outsourced government power has largely eluded the critical grasp of legal commentators. Though there is clearly concern about the implications of this governmental turn, worries have tended to be pitched in the broad terminology of 'legal failure' or 'rule of law deficits'. While this undoubtedly touches an important nerve, and gestures to something distinctly legal, the generality of the complaint leaves much content to be filled in. The aim of this paper is to begin to give more specific content to these concerns by focusing on the hybridised forms of privately outsourced government power, and still more specifically on how this hybridised architecture shapes the position of the person subject to governmental power so configured. The paper takes as its starting point an especially pathological case: the death of a deportee at the hands of the private security firm contracted by the UK Border Agency to provide immigration detention and removal services. As almost a caricature of the contractualised image of government administration that is now so widespread, the case offers insight into why concerns about legality in the contracting-out state are increasingly voiced, how those concerns might be mapped, and why they take on a special charge in circumstances that implicate high levels of vulnerability. Though undoubtedly limited to only some contexts of outsourcing, the specific focus of the paper on questions of form and subjectivity is aimed to contribute a new perspective to conversations about whether, and how, private legal forms can fulfil the 'public' demands that are increasingly placed upon them by the 'contracting-out state'.
Bio:
Kristen Rundle is a Lecturer in Law, with interests in legal theory and administrative law. Her research explores a number of themes concerning the relationship between the form of law and human agency; a line of inquiry that spans her work on the jurisprudence of Lon Fuller, law and the Holocaust, and questions of legality and vulnerability in the context of contracted-out government power. Her recent book Forms Liberate: Reclaiming the Jurisprudence of Lon L. Fuller (Hart Publishing, 2012) was awarded Second Prize, Society of Legal Scholars Peter Birks Book Prize 2012. Kristen holds an SJD from the University of Toronto, where she was also a Doctoral Fellow in Ethics at the Centre for Ethics. She also holds an LLM (honours) in public law and legal theory from McGill University, which she undertook as the 2001 Australian Lionel Murphy Postgraduate (Overseas) Scholar, and a combined BA/LLB degree (first class honours) from the University of Sydney.
Wednesday February 27th: 16:30 pm
Nathaniel Adam Tobias Coleman, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor , CSU Canberra video conference room #1.02
A right to avoid blacks?
Abstract:
You have
the right, don't you, to avoid anyone, for any
reason? This is not just a right you enjoy
against a law that forces you to associate with
a person you prefer to avoid. On the contrary,
it is also a right you enjoy against social
criticism. We might express your right as the
following generalised principle:
G. For any person P, and for any person Q, P has
the right to avoid Q for any reason at all.
The principle seems reasonable enough, doesn't
it? However, from this generalised principle,
some people infer a racialised result. For
instance, some people think it follows that,
R: If P is racialised-as-white, if Q is
racialised-as-black, and if P's reason for
avoiding Q is that P has an unfavourable opinion
of 'blacks', then P has a right to avoid Q.
The philosopher Michael Levin gives an example
of some people who think we can infer the more
specific racialised principle from the
generalised principle. Levin tells us that
'Libertarians will wonder why a right to avoid
blacks needs any defense at all, since it falls
under voluntary association [. . .]' (1996:
313). I presume what Levin's 'Libertarians' mean
is that 'a right to avoid blacks' is justified
by some theory of voluntary dissociation. I
shall argue that 'a right to avoid blacks' is
not justified (a) by any contemporary theory of
voluntary dissociation or (b) by John Stuart
Mill's classical theory of voluntary
dissociation.
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Previous Seminars in Canberra
Seminars In Melbourne
The Centre presents regular seminars at the University of Melbourne. Seminars will normally be held on Wednesdays at 2:15pm to 4pm. For details of the next seminar and its location, click here.
Enquiries to Sagar Sanyal or 61 3 9035 3642
If you wish to receive notification of forthcoming CAPPE Seminars in Melbourne, you can send an email to LISTSERV@artsit.unimelb.edu.au with the text "subscribe cappe-broadcast Your First Name Your Last Name" in the BODY of the email and you will be added to our list automatically.
Seminars in Wagga Wagga
The Centre presents regular seminars on the Wagga Wagga campus of Charles Sturt University. These are held on Tuesdays at 5:00 pm in Room 181, Marchant Hall unless otherwise stated.
Click here for upcoming seminars.
Enquiries to Dr Daniel Cohen: Daniel.Cohen@anu.edu.au or +61 (02) 6125-1741
CONFERENCE/WORKSHOPS
Technology and the Ethics of Warfare
The Pavilion, Charles Sturt University Barton Campus. (June 14th, 2013 9:00am-5:00pm)
Participants include: Mr. Andrew Alexandra - Associate Director, CAPPE, University of Melbourne, Mr. Adam Henschke - Researcher/PhD Candidate, CAPPE, Charles Sturt University; Assoc. Prof. Rob Sparrow - Monash University; Mr. Jai Galliot - PhD Candidate, Macquarie University; Dr. Stephen Coleman - University of NSW@ADFA; Assoc. Prof. Fritz Allhoff - Western Michigan University and CAPPE, Charles Sturt University; Assoc. Prof. Patrick Lin - University of California Polytechnic and CAPPE, Charles Sturt University; Mr. Shannon Ford - PhD Candidate, CAPPE, Charles Sturt University; Assoc. Prof. Grant Wardlaw - Centre of Excellence, Policing and Security, the Australian National University; Mr. Chris Holloway - Vice Chief of Defence Force Group, Dept of Defence; Mr. Andrew Arnold - Defence, Science and Technology Organisation, Dept of Defence
Click Here for more information
Human Rights: Old Dichotomies Revisited
November 25-26, 2011
Sydney Law School, Australia
The conference will bring together the leading international and Australian scholars in jurisprudence and in international human-rights law to reflect upon the traditional, 'classical' dilemmas and taxonomies in the philosophy of human rights, in the light of recent developments in theories of rights and in the international law of human rights.
Keynote Speakers: Professor Tom Campbell, Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics (CAPPE).Professor Leslie Green, Oxford University. Professor David Kinley, University of Sydney. Professor Susan Marks, London School of Economics. Professor Thomas Pogge, Yale University and CAPPE. Professor Jeremy Waldron, New York University & Oxford University. Professor Neil Walker, University of Edinburgh. Click Here for more information
Ethics in Financial Transactions & Society: The Way Forward
September 17 and 18, 2011
University of Melbourne
This is the fourth in a series of conference on ethics-based financial transactions. The scope of the conference is wide, including Islamic/Jewish/Christian financial ethics; prudential regulations and ethics; law and ethics; business ethics; investor protection; etc.
Participants include: Mohamed Ariff, Professor of Finance, Bond University, Abdullah Saeed Professor & Director, National Centre for Excellence in Islamic Studies, University of Melbourne; Andrew Alexandra, Director CAPPE, University of Melbourne; Constant Mews, Professor of Religion, Monash University; Charles Sampford, Director, Key Centre for Ethics, Justice and Governance, Griffith University.
For further information
Click Here
Measuring Poverty and Gender Disparity Conference
Hedley Bull Centre 1 (Bldg #130) ANU
0900-1300, March 21, 2011
The ANU is currently involved in a three-year, multi-country, interdisciplinary effort, financed by the Australian Research Council and project partners, to design and test measures of poverty and gender disparity that will improve on existing indices. In March, academics, staff from partner organisations and field researchers will be in Canberra to share findings from the first fieldwork phase of the project, which seeks to elicit the views of poor men and women on poverty and its gendered dimensions. The Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics, the new Gender Institute and the Development Policy Centre at the Crawford School of Economics and Government will co-host a half-day forum to enable the wider academic, policy and NGO community to hear from and talk with the research team about how gender shapes poverty, with particular reference to field contexts in Africa, Asia and the Pacific, and why this matters for development policy. Time for questions is built into every session. An informal lunch will provide an opportunity for further discussion with field researchers and project team members.
Full program available Here. Please RSVP by 16 March to Scott.Wisor@anu.edu.au for more information