May 30 & 31 2016

Public lectures by Philip Pettit

"How Language Gives Birth to Ethics"

Goethe-Universität, Campus Westend, HZ 3

Public Lectures by Philip Pettit in Frankfurt am Main

In cooperation with the Cluster of Excellence “The Formation of Normative Orders”

"How Language Gives Birth to Ethics"

If the natural world contains no moral properties, how can we human beings find our moral bearings? How can we claim to identify features that make various actions or arrangements morally desirable, various agents or agencies fit to be held morally responsible?

Lecture 1:  Reports, avowals and pledges                                     30 May 2016, 18:15

Might a society of mutually reliant creatures like us use language only for exchanging reports about the world and their attitudes? Not likely. The desire to be taken as credible and reliable interlocutors would push them inevitably into practices of avowing and pledging their attitudes. Where reports are cheap, avowals and pledges are more expensive and more credible; they allow fewer excuses for failing to live up to them.

Lecture 2: Desirability and responsibility                                       31 May 2017, 18:15

The perspective internal to practices of avowal, in particular the avowal of desire, would make patterns available to such agents that correspond to our idea of desirable options. And the perspective internal to practices of pledging would make patterns available to them that correspond to our idea of agents who are fit to be held responsible for their choices.

Goethe-Universität Frankfurt

Westend Campus, Hörsaalzentrum Building, room HZ3

Theodor-W.-Adorno-Platz 5

60323 Frankfurt am Main