Since
2000, Raimond Gaita and the School of Philosophy at the Australian Catholic
University have been inviting a distinguished international scholar to give the
Simone Weil Lecture on Human Value. We are very pleased to announce that the
speaker for 2009 will be Dr Miranda Fricker –
Reader in Philosophy at Birkbeck, University of London. The
lecture, as well as a special seminar, will be held in both Melbourne and
Sydney. I have included details below. Please feel free to pass
this information onto others who might be interested.
Best wishes,
Leonie Martino
Raimond Gaita & The
School of Philosophy, Australian Catholic University
warmly invite you to the
2009 Simone Weil Lecture
on Human Value – In Melbourne & Sydney
“Knowledge and
Prejudice”
By Miranda Fricker
MELBOURNE LECTURE:
Wednesday 12th August
6.30pm, Christ Lecture Theatre, Australian Catholic
University, Melbourne (St Patrick’s Campus) 115 Victoria Parade, Fitzroy
Free, No Bookings Required
For More Information: http://www.acu.edu.au/65303 Email: [log in to unmask] Phone: 9953 3160
SYDNEY LECTURE:
Tuesday 18th August
5.30pm for 6.00pm
Dixson Room, Mitchell wing, State
Library of NSW
Cost: $15 (Friends, student
concessions), $20 (seniors) $22, includes light refreshments
Bookings Essential on 02 9273 1770 or b[log in to unmask]
LECTURE ABSTRACT:
When someone speaks but is not heard because of their
accent, or their sex, or the colour of their skin, they suffer a distinctive
form of injustice—they are undermined as a knower. This kind of
injustice, which I call testimonial injustice, is not only an ethical problem
but also a political one; for citizens are not free unless they get a fair
hearing when they try to contest wrongful treatment. I shall argue that not
only individuals but also public institutions need to have the virtue of
testimonial justice. If our police, our juries and our complaints panels lack
that virtue, then some groups cannot contest. And if you can’t do that,
you do not have political freedom.
Special Seminar with
Miranda Fricker Melbourne & Sydney
For Academics and Postgraduate Students
MELBOURNE SEMINAR:
“Can Institutions Have Virtues and Vices?”
Thursday 13th August
6.30pm – 8.30pm, Australian Catholic University,
Melbourne (St Patrick’s Campus)
Seminar Room 5.29 Level 5, 115 Victoria Parade,
Fitzroy
Limit of 30 people – Free but Bookings Essential
Email: [log in to unmask]
or Phone 9953 3160
MELBOURNE SEMINAR ABSTRACT:
There surely is such a thing as collective virtue. We often
talk as though groups and collectives of various kinds—teams,
appointments panels, juries, police forces—can display virtues or indeed
vices. We might, for instance, describe a jury as ‘fair-minded’, or
a research team as ‘scrupulous’, or a police force as
‘institutionally racist’. But what exactly are we doing when we say
these things? Are groups and collectives virtuous only insofar as their
individual members have the virtue; or is there an irreducibly collective way
in which groups can possess virtues? I shall adapt Margaret
Gilbert’s idea of a ‘plural subject’ to explain how collectives
can have virtues, and then explain the possibility of virtuous or vicious
institutions in terms of the virtues/vices of the individuals and collectives
whose activities realize the procedures that define the institution.
SYDNEY SEMINAR:
“The Relativism of Blame”
Monday 17th August
6:00pm - 8:00pm, Sumitomo Room,
level 3, Macquarie St Wing, State Library of NSW
Limit of 14 People – Free
but Bookings Essential
Email: b[log in to unmask] or Phone: 02 9273 1770
Sydney seminar:
SYDNEY SEMINAR ABSTRACT:
Bernard Williams is a sceptic about moral objectivity
(embracing instead a certain qualified moral relativism); and his attitude to
blame too might be described as sceptical (he thought it often involved a certain
‘fantasy’). I shall explore some of the prima facie
motivations within Williams’ philosophy for his relativism of distance,
including his view of blame; and while I will conclude that there is nothing in
his work that independently imposes moral relativism, there is something
powerfully relativistic implicit in his remarks about blame. I will give my own
account of quite what this is, arguing that blame has its own internal
relativity: blameworthiness displays a relativity to the moral epistemic situation
of the agent. This relativism of blame fits most naturally, however, in a moral
objectivist frame, and should not be taken as motivating any wider moral
relativism. Finally, I will make some open suggestions about forms of moral
resentment we may properly hold in respect of historically distant
agents—forms of moral disappointment.
ABOUT THE SPEAKER:
Miranda Fricker is Reader in Philosophy at
Birkbeck, University of London. She is the author of Epistemic Injustice: Power and the
Ethics of Knowing (OUP, 2007). She co-edited The Cambridge Companion to Feminism
in Philosophy with Jennifer Hornsby (2000), and co-author of Reading Ethics,
(Wiley-Blackwell, 2009). Miranda is highly respected for her contribution
to ethics and feminist philosophy and is deeply interested in issues of power, social identity, and epistemic authority.
Leonie Martino
PA to Professor
Raimond Gaita
Australian
Catholic University Limited
Melbourne Campus
(St Patrick's)
Level 4, 250
Victoria Parade
Locked Bag 4115
Fitzroy VIC 3065
Phone: +61 3
9953 3160
Fax: +61 3
9953 3325
Email: [log in to unmask]
ABN 15 050 192 660
/ CRICOS Registration: 00004G, 00112C, 00873F, 00885B