Ethics and Political Philosophy Group Talk (Theron Pummer, St. Andrews)

Please note date change!

Theron Pummer is a Senior Lecturer at the University of St. Andrews. His areas of interest include normative ethics, value theory, and social and political philosophy. His recent work includes “Supererogation and conditional obligation,” (Philosophical Studies, 2021) and editing a volume on effective altruism, Effective Altruism: Philosophical Issues (OUP, 2019) with co-editor Hilary Greaves.

Talk Title

The Rules of Rescue: Cost, Distance, and Effective Altruism

Talk Abstract

In a forthcoming book, I defend a non-consequentialist picture of moral requirements to help others. I argue that there are reasons with requiring strength to prevent serious harm to strangers. The ubiquity of these requiring reasons threatens to make morality extremely demanding. But there are also permissions that stop many requiring reasons from resulting in full blown requirements. In this talk, I show how several such permissions work. These include permissions grounded in considerations of (lifetime) cost and autonomy, and permissions to help each individual stranger.

Location

Join the Zoom meeting: https://utoronto.zoom.us/j/83761980981

No passcode required

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.