"In Conversation" Series
For our next In Conversation meeting, we will be having two short lectures with two centers’ gests.
Lecturer:
Prof. Alon Zaslaver (Hebrew University)
Title:
Small brains, big decisions
Abstract:
In my talk, I will show how we use a small model organism, consisting of just 302 neurons, to understand decision-making paradigms, focusing on (ir)rational decisions.
Lecturer:
Dr. Preston Werner (Hebrew University)
Title:
Considerative Justice and the Patterning of Moral Force
Abstract:
A standard principle in egalitarian political theory - in fact, even perhaps the essential motivating intuition behind it, says that it is unjust and unfair — and thus prima facie wrong — for some people to be worse off than others through no fault or responsibility of their own. Taking this Egalitarian Insight seriously has unforeseen moral implications, once we draw out its connections to the distribution of what I call moral force: The amount of weight our interests and rights are owed in the moral deliberation of different moral agents. I argue that the distribution of special, moral-reason grounding relationships (familial, friendship, group-based, and institutional) that we find in the world is unequal, often due to considerations which are no fault or responsibility with less moral-reason grounding relationships. If this is right, and if being given moral consideration is, as I claim, a genuine and irreducible moral good, then the distribution of special relationships is unjust and prima facie wrong. This suggests the need for moral principles related to the formation and maintaining of special relationships. But finding such principles which are not counterintuitively freedom-constraining is not easy. I propose that we look to the literature on egalitarian distributive justice for some potential paths forward.
Location:
Eilan Hall, Feldman Building, Second Floor, Edmond Safra Campus.