Neil Sinhababu (NUS) will be speaking on Wednesday, 16 December, at UNSW. His talk will be at 1 p.m. in room 308B of the Morven Brown building. Everyone is welcome to attend.
Here's the relevant information for Neil's talk: Title: Vivid Imagination and The Trouble With Double Effect Abstract: According to the Doctrine of Double Effect, it is worse to intend something harmful as a means to a good end than to intend the good end while foreseeing that it will cause harm. For example, it is worse to kill one person as a means to save five lives than it is to save the five in a way that then kills the one. I will argue that belief in Double Effect is produced by systematically misleading psychological processes. Intended harms seem worse because we imagine them more vividly than merely foreseen harms, resulting in more intense emotional responses. This is not a reliable way of forming true beliefs about which option is better. I will discuss recent experimental results from psychology and neuroscience that support this explanation and this criticism of Double Effect. Bio: Neil Sinhababu is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the National University of Singapore. He primarily works in metaethics, though he has also published on Nietzsche and on how David Lewis' modal realism allows you to have a romantic relationship with someone from another possible world. The best parts of his dissertation are in "The Humean Theory of Motivation Reformulated and Defended" (Philosophical Review 118:4, 2009). He received his Ph.D from the University of Texas at Austin. Stephen Hetherington Professor of Philosophy School of History and Philosophy University of New South Wales Sydney, NSW 2052 AUSTRALIA Phone: (61 2) 9385 2318 (office)
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