Feb
7
Fri
Ethics in the Shadow of Love. Quinn White (MIT) @ NYU Philosophy Dept. rm 202
Feb 7 @ 3:30 pm – 5:30 pm

One of the central questions facing human beings is how we should respond to the humanity of others. Since the enlightenment, secular Western ethics has gravitated towards two kinds of answer: we should care for others’ well-being, or we should respect them as autonomous agents. Largely neglected is an answer we can find the religious traditions of Judaism, Christianity and Buddhism: we should love all. Analytic philosophers have started to pay more attention to love. But unlike those working within religious traditions, for whom an ideal of love for all serves as the central, organizing ideal in ethics, most of these philosophers see love as confined to the domain of intimate relationships between friends, family, romantic partners and the like. This paper argues that an ideal of love for all, of agape, can be understood apart from its more typical religious contexts and moreover provides a unified and illuminating account of the the nature and grounds of morality. Against challenges to the idea that love for all is possible, I offer a novel account of what it would be to love all. I go on to argue that while it is possible to love all, most of us should not, as doing so would rule out the possibility of loving particular friends and families. Instead, we should approximate love for all. I argue that the minimal approximation of love for all is, surprisingly, respect, deriving the basic, structural features of deontological ethics (including anti-welfarism and anti-aggregation) from my account of love for all.

Reception to follow.

Sep
29
Thu
I feel it in my fingers, I feel it in my toes: Imaginative Meditation and Experience of Love in Medieval Contemplative Philosophy. Christina Van Dyke, Barnard @ 716 Philosophy Hall
Sep 29 @ 4:10 pm – 6:00 pm

Thursday, September 29th, 2022
Christina Van Dyke (Barnard College)
Title “I feel it in my fingers, I feel it in my toes: Imaginative Meditation and Experience of Love in Medieval Contemplative Philosophy”
4:10-6:00 PM
716 Philosophy Hall

Feb
14
Tue
What is Love? Thinking Across the Humanities on Valentines’s Day @ McShane Center 311
Feb 14 @ 4:00 pm – 5:00 pm

Thinking Across the Humanities on Valentines’s Day

Tuesday, Feb. 14 of course! 4pm, McShane Center 311

A fun student-faculty roundtable discussion on topics related to love in all of its fabulous variety: erotic love, unrequited love, love and justice,  love of friends, love of the Divine, sanctioned and unsanctioned love, personal and political love, and so much more! What insights can we, along with some of our favorite artists and thinkers, offer on love?   Come for a roundtable where a small group of faculty and students will jump off with brief prepared remarks, followed by a discussion, food, and fun!

RSVP here

Apr
13
Thu
The Avoidance of Intimacy: A Reorientation in the Moral Philosophy of Love. Vida Yao (Rice University) @ Columbia U, Philosophy 716
Apr 13 @ 4:10 pm – 6:00 pm

The Avoidance of Intimacy: A Reorientation in the Moral Philosophy of Love

Presented by Columbia University Dept. of Philosophy

Nov
10
Fri
Love and Friendship. Eighteenth Annual NYU Conference on Issues in Modern Philosophy @ NYU Philosophy Dept.
Nov 10 – Nov 11 all-day

riday, November 10

9:30–9:55        Check–in and Coffee

9:55                 Welcome

10:00–12:00    Adam Smith

Speaker: Ryan Patrick Hanley (Boston College)

Commentator: Samuel Fleischacker (University of Illinois Chicago)

12:00–2:00      Lunch Break

2:00–4:00        Immanuel Kant

Speaker: Marcia Baron (Indiana University Bloomington)

Commentator: Kyla Ebels–Duggan (Northwestern University)

4:00–4:30        Coffee Break

4:30–6:30        German Romanticism

Speaker: Frederick Beiser (Syracuse University)

Commentator: Owen Ware (University of Toronto)

6:30–7:30        Reception

Saturday, November 11

9:30–10:00      Check–in and Coffee

10:00–12:00    Friedrich Nietzsche

Speaker: Andrew Huddleston (University of Warwick)

Commentator: Claire Kirwin (Northwestern University)

12:00–2:00      Lunch Break

2:00–4:00    Simone De Beauvoir

Speaker: Michelle Kosch (Cornell University)

Commentator: Susan J. Brison (Dartmouth University)

4:00–4:30        Coffee Break

4:30–6:30    Contemporary

Speaker: Simon May (King’s College London)

Commentator: Alecxander Nehamas (Princeton University)

6:30–7:30        Reception