Ethics and Political Philosophy Group Talk (Hallie Liberto, Maryland)

The Ethics and Political Philosophy Research Group is pleased to welcome as guest speaker Hallie Liberto, an associate professor of Philosophy at the University of Maryland. Dr. Liberto is a moral philosopher who studies normative power. She writes about the power we have to change the moral, legal, and social world through speech acts and other expressions of our will. She also works on exploitation theory, and much of her work relates to sexual ethics.

This is an in-person event, but those not able to come to campus can join via Zoom.

Talk Title

Threat, Intentions, and Illocutionary Force

Talk Abstract

There are many traditional ways of distinguishing threats. Some threats are communicated, while others are simply behaviors or speech through which a person intentionally evinces danger. Some threats are conditional and some are unconditional (or categorical). Some things that sound like threats might be mere warnings about one’s future behavior. Some threats are non-commital, while others sound like a dark version of a promise. Finally, some threats rely for their credibility on the threat-maker’s rational, calculating presentation, while others rely on the threat-maker’s wild or emotional presentation. In this project, I examine these distinctions and I defend the view (against recent contestation) that there is a distinct illocutionary force involved in threat-making speech-acts, and that the speech act in no way relies upon the intentions of the threat-maker. For instance, it does not require that the threat-making act plays a special role in the generation of the intentions it communicates. In this way, I position my view against at least two popular accounts in moral philosophy, including one popular theory of coercion.

About the Ethics and Political Philosophy Group

The Ethics and Political Philosophy Group meets periodically throughout the year to discuss topics in value theory and related fields, including meta-ethics, normative ethics, applied ethics, social and political philosophy, philosophy of law, moral psychology, practical reason, agency, and identity.