Our schedule for the 31st Annual Graduate Conference in Philosophy is now available!
Schedule
Note: All talks will be in-person, in Eastern Time, in HH 373.
THURSDAY March 14, 2024: CONFERENCE DAY 1
13:30-14:00
Opening Remarks
14:00-14:45
Eric Devall - "Epistemic Intimidation: Fear as a Powerful Tool for Belief Manipulation"
14:45-15:30
Nathan Malcomson - "New Solutions, Old Problems: Agreement and Novelty in Dynamic Conventions"
15:30-16:15
Break
16:15-17:00
Vanita Fernandes - "Redefining Harm Reduction to Treat Severe and Enduring Anorexia Nervosa"
FRIDAY March 15, 2024: CONFERENCE DAY 2
10:00 – 10:30
Opening Remarks
10:30-11:15
Logan Ginther - "Having an End and Feeling Moved to Action: Kant on What It Means to Have an End"
11:15-12:00
Avneet Kaur - "Exploring A Paradigm Shift: Connecting Newtonian Mechanics and Vedanta Philosophy Through Quantum Insights"
12:00-13:00
LUNCH
13:00-13:45
Tanya Dushatska - "Artificial Intelligence, Phenomenal Consciousness, and Creative Agency"
13:45-14:30
Nicholas Francis Marshall - "The Activity of Judgement: Proposal for a Relevance Condition of Inclusion in Complexes in Russell’s MRTJ"
14:30-15:15
Kacper Mykietyn - "Rational Reflection as a Constitutive Solution to the Theoretical/Practical Puzzle"
15:15-16:00
Break
16:00-17:30
Keynote speaker: Dr. Tracy Isaacs - "Meat-Eating as Ideology and 'Meat-Eaters' Fragility'"
Abstracts
Tracy Isaacs - "Meat-Eating as Ideology and 'Meat-Eaters' Fragility'"
Two major lines of reasoning yield the result that we should give up animal products. The first draws attention to the vast animal suffering and exploitation involved in factory farming, from which comes 99% of animal products consumed globally. The second focuses on the impact of animal farming on the Earth’s climate and environment. Each recognizes that the enormous scale of animal use and consumption necessitates a collective action solution. Despite compelling reasons found in both lines of reasoning, it is difficult to have reasonable conversations about the topic. Meanwhile, the reality of animal suffering and exploitation and the impact of factory farming of animals on our planet are states of urgency. We need a way forward. I introduce two related ideas that explain why it’s so difficult to discuss the human use and consumption of animal products: Meat-eating as an ideology within a larger ideology of human dominion/entitlement/supremacy over animals and a phenomenon I call “meat-eaters’ fragility” (modelled on Robin DiAngelo’s “white fragility” 2018). The ideology of meat-eating generates widespread ignorance of its wrongness. The accompanying fragility serves to protect meat-eaters’ privilege over non-human animals. Because of the scale of the issue the required solution requires a collective effort that acknowledges the hold of ideology while also preserving human agency and choice. Taking meat-eaters’ fragility seriously, I propose a strategic approach to challenging the status quo, concluding with some practical strategies that take this approach.
Eric Devall - "Epistemic Intimidation: Fear as a Powerful Tool for Belief Manipulation"
Epistemic intimidation is the strategy of trying to get an individual or group to accept something by making them afraid or uncomfortable to think otherwise (Nguyen 2021). In his discussion of epistemic manipulation, C. Thi Nguyen coins the concept of epistemic intimidation but does not go into any depth on the topic beyond this. The goal of this paper will be to take up this mantle and uncover what epistemic intimidation involves and demonstrate why it is a powerful tool in the manipulation of beliefs. Epistemic intimidation is a method often used by those with power in order to control the beliefs of in-group members. It can run rampant in echo chambers and result in a plethora of collective irrationalities such as conspiracy theories.
Tanya Dushatska - "Artificial Intelligence, Phenomenal Consciousness, and Creative Agency"
This paper argues that current generative artificial intelligence models such as ChatGPT and Dall-E are not capable of creativity because they do not possess phenomenal consciousness. I begin with a discussion of Margaret Boden’s view that creativity is “the ability to produce ideas or artefacts that are new, surprising, and valuable.” Then, I defend the view that agency is a necessary condition of creativity and further argue that creative agency requires phenomenal consciousness. The thesis that creative agency requires phenomenal consciousness gains support from Susan Wolf’s argument that only individuals with roughly the same capacities, knowledge, and experience of the world as ourselves are appropriate targets of praise and blame. Creative agency entails praiseworthiness, so entities who lack phenomenal consciousness – including generative AI models – cannot be creative agents. Although generative AI models can produce works that are new, surprising, and valuable, they do not meet the agency requirement for creativity because they lack phenomenal consciousness.
Vanita Fernandes - "Redefining Harm Reduction to Treat Severe and Enduring Anorexia Nervosa"
This paper argues that the application of harm reduction (HR) strategies to treat individuals with Severe and Enduring Anorexia Nervosa (SE-AN) requires both an expansion and a modification of HR concepts. First, I argue that Stoljar’s (2020) deontological framework is a more suitable justification for HR to treat SE-AN, prioritizing dignity and autonomy. Next, since HR is usually used for drug use, to understand its application to SE-AN, I discuss analogies and disanalogies between the two contexts. The analogies, Meeting People Where They Are and Lack of Self-Governance show that, in both cases individuals are not expected to stop risky behaviours and that, in each case, one’s autonomy is reduced. The disanalogies are the Separation of Behaviour and Harm and the Moralization and Stigmatization of Behaviour and they show that unlike in the context of drugs, with SE-AN it is difficult to distinguish the behaviour from the harm and that the behaviours that characterize SE-AN are not inherently moralized or stigmatized. Finally, I suggest that employing HR in SE-AN allows for treatments grounded in dignity and autonomy, challenging the conventional 'behaviour/harm' division associated with HR.
Logan Ginther - "Having an End and Feeling Moved to Action: Kant on What It Means to Have an End"
Kant famously defines imperfect duties as duties to adopt certain ends rather than to perform particular actions. Despite the amount of speculation surrounding the questions of “how and how much” we ought to act toward ethical ends, there has been remarkably little discussion about what it means to have an end. The tendency has been to interpret Kant’s ends as normative-rational considerations: ends are things that figure in your practical reasoning as considerations about you should act. In this paper, I will argue for a motivational-affective interpretation of what it means to have an end: having an end involves feeling moved to action in accordance with normative-rational constraints. A motivational-affective interpretation stays closer to what Kant himself says about what it means to have an end. It also better enables us to acknowledge and explain the element of conflict in decisions about how to act pursuant to distinct ethical ends.
Avneet Kaur - "Exploring A Paradigm Shift: Connecting Newtonian Mechanics and Vedanta Philosophy Through Quantum Insights"
Newtonian Mechanics, which served as the cornerstone of science for nearly two centuries, has faced significant challenges in light of modern scientific theories. Its inherent limitations, such as its notions of absolute certainty and inability to address atomic particles, were brought into question with the advent of Relativity and Quantum theory.
Albert Einstein, through his special theory of relativity, shattered the absolute concepts of space and time that Newtonian Physics had posited. Furthermore, Quantum theory established the dual nature of matter. Einstein's pursuit of a unified theory that could reconcile these two new paradigms sparked the Bohr-Einstein Debate, where he famously stated, "God does not play dice" while questioning Heisenberg's uncertainty principle. However, this debate remained inconclusive until David Bohm took up Einstein's unfinished work with a steadfast determination to complete it. Bohm provided an ontological interpretation of Quantum Theory, offering an alternative to the Copenhagen interpretation. He also made significant contributions to the development of the Holographic Paradigm, outlining a philosophy of implicate order. In this framework, Bohm pointed to the profound wholeness inherent in the intersection of relativity and quantum theory, emphasizing its reality and the need for metaphysical exploration. The implicate order offered a means to model aspects of this wholeness, approach its contradictory aspects, and encourage the physics community to move away from outdated worldviews.
To comprehend how this emerging scientific paradigm aligns with the broader understanding of reality, it is essential to consider an overarching framework. Vedanta philosophy has long provided such a framework. Notably, Vedanta presents being and consciousness as a hierarchy of dimensional levels, starting with the Annamayakosha, the level of physical matter and the material cosmos, followed by the Pranamayakosha, the sheath of biological functions, and the manomayakosa, the sheath of the mind. Beyond these are the vijnamayakosa, a higher form of mind, and the anandmayakosa, the realm of perfect transcendence. Each level corresponds to a specific field of study.
Nathan Malcomson - "New Solutions, Old Problems: Agreement and Novelty in Dynamic Conventions"
The view that social conventions fix the meanings of our words was originally plagued with 'The Agreement Problem': the problem of explaining how social conventions could fix the meanings of our words if meaningful communication is needed to establish social conventions. However, most have taken Lewis' (1969) account to be a definitive response to the Agreement Problem, and now the main debates around linguistic conventions revolve around the problem of accounting for innovative uses of language (The Novelty Problem). To meet this new problem, Armstrong (2016) has recently presented a substantial revision to Lewis' account of linguistic conventions, advocating for a 'dynamic' account of linguistic conventions. In this paper, I argue that Armstrong's account does not work: depending on how one reads him, he presents either a highly implausible or a truistic account of what speakers are committed to when they speak meaningfully. Moreover, I argue, in analyzing where Armstrong goes wrong, we can see that Lewis never truly addressed The Agreement Problem.
Nicholas Francis Marshall - "The Activity of Judgement: Proposal for a Relevance Condition of Inclusion in Complexes in Russell’s MRTJ"
Kacper Mykietyn - "Rational Reflection as a Constitutive Solution to the Theoretical/Practical Puzzle"
Most normative realists believe that their moral beliefs are by and large true. The challenge for them is to explain how most of their moral beliefs coincide with stance-independent normative facts. Sharon Street (2016) argues that normative realists fail to provide a satisfactory explanation. In this paper, I will argue that rational reflection allows one to distinguish between true and false moral beliefs. More specifically, the normative realist may rely on several epistemic tools (including deduction, comparison, synthesis) to explain why their moral beliefs are mostly true. If my reasoning is correct, then the explanatory challenge is met, and the normative realist ought not to worry.