Philosophy News

Henry Krahn Wins 2020 Martha Lile Love Essay Award

Published: November 17, 2020

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Congratulations to our PhD student Henry Krahn for winning this year’s Martha Lile Love Essay Award with his essay “The Dilemma of Sanctioning: Blame, Responsibility, and the Participant Stance,” originally written for Brendan de Kenessey’s seminar titled “Morality and Accountability.”  The adjudication committee composed of George Boys-Stones and Jonathan Weisberg described Henry’s … Read More

October 2020 Departmental e-News

The past six months have passed in a whirlwind, but they’ve been incredibly productive and successful for the department! Take a look at a recap of our biggest news since March in issue 12 of the Department of Philosophy e-News. Accidentally missing from the announcements in the e-bulletin is another … Read More

Brendan de Kenessey Writes on Bad People’s Suffering in Washington Post

Published: October 13, 2020

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A long-standing philosophical controversy deals with whether it is ever good in itself for bad people to suffer. In a recent Washington Post opinion piece, Professor Brendan de Kenessey took President Donald Trump’s recent diagnosis with COVID-19 as an entryway into the discussion, ultimately differentiating between wishing suffering on someone … Read More

Matthew Scarfone Contributes to The Conversation

Published: September 24, 2020

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The recent death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg has once again stirred discussions around reproductive rights. In light of these, Philosophy postdoctoral fellow Matthew Scarfone (UTM), an ethicist, has recently published a piece on the moral arguments used to defend both the pro-choice and the pro-life positions in The Conversation. Read his … Read More

From Aristotle Contest to Dialexicon: An Interview with Elizabeth Zhu

Published: August 10, 2020

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Elizabeth Zhu is a name to remember. Last year, as a 16-year-old Grade 11 student, Elizabeth genuinely impressed the judges with her submission to the 2019 Aristotle Contest, an annual essay-writing competition co-hosted between U of T’s Department of Philosophy and OPTA, the Ontario Philosophy Teachers’ Association. The adjudicating committee … Read More

Our Two Latest PhDs: Julia Smith and Manish Oza

Published: July 31, 2020

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Heartfelt congratulations to two more of our exceptional grad students who recently defended their doctoral dissertations: Julia Smith successfully passed her defense on Wednesday, July 22. Her thesis, titled “Unacknowledged Permissivism,” had been supervised by Jennifer Nagel. Today, on July 31, Manish Oza joined the ranks of freshly minted PhDs, … Read More