It's "AI Week" in Philosophy

Computers are winning at Jeopardy, and driving cars, but can they think? Can they have conscious experiences? Can they be angry or afraid? Not yet, it seems — but this situation may change in our lifetimes. The Philosophy Department is hosting two events this week on broad issues in Artificial Intelligence.

Film: "2001: A Space Odyssey"
Tuesday 11/19 at 7:30PM at the Campus Theatre

Stanley Kubric's enigmatic science fiction epic, about a trip to investigate an alien monolith that is complicated by the intelligent computer HAL 9000 explores themes of progress, evolution, intelligence, and mystery. I will offer a brief introduction to the film to assist with its interpretation.

Panel Discussion: "Artificial Intelligence: An Interdisciplinary Conversation"
Thursday 11/21 at 4PM in Walls Lounge (Langone Center)

A panel Discussion with John Hunter (Comparative Humanities), Brian King (Computer Science), Jason Leddington (Philosophy), and Joe Tranquillo (Biomedical and Electrical Engineering) on technological, conceptual, and ethical issues concerning artificial intelligence.

Robert Audi talk on the Problem of Evil

EVENT: Robert Audi will be giving a talk this week at Bucknell entitled "The Problem of Evil as a Challenge to Philosophy and Theology: Can Theism Be Rational Given the Evils of History?"

TIME: Thurs. (Nov. 14), 7 pm

PLACE: Willard Smith Library (125 Vaughn Lit Bldg), Bucknell University.

Robert Audi is the John A. O’Brien Professor of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame. His research interests are in ethics, political philosophy, epistemology, religious epistemology, and the philosophy of mind and action. He has published 15 books, including most recently Democratic Authority and the Separation of Church and State (Oxford, 2011) and The Good in the Right: A Theory of Intuition and Intrinsic Value (Princeton, 2005). He has authored over 200 papers in journals such as Mind, Nous, Philosophical Studies, Synthese, Philosophy & Phenomenological Research, International Journal for Philosophy of Religion, Faith and Philosophy, Journal of Business Ethics and the Notre Dame Journal of Law, Ethics & Public Policy. He has served as the president of the American Philosophical Association and the Society of Christian Philosophers, and as general editor of the first and second editions (1995, 1999) of the Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy. He holds a B.A. from Colgate University and a M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Michigan.

This talk is sponsored by the Department of Philosophy, the Department of Religious Studies and the University Lectureship Committee, and is free and open to the public. Please join us for what looks to be a very interesting conversation!

Join us if you're so inclined! It should be interesting.

Special Halloween Lunch Chat (10/31): Horror, Evil, and the Uncanny

Finally a Philosophy Lunch Chat falls on Halloween! We're celebrating accordingly with an unprecedented three guest panel for discussion. In the mix, we'll have Professor J.T. Pracek (from Psychology), who will discuss psychopathic serial killers and the concept of evil, Professor Peter Groff (from Philosophy) on the uncanny, and Steve Gibson (Senior Video & New Media Developer at Bucknell), whose independent horror film, The Feed (trailer below), has been winning horror film festivals.

 

So come join us to talk about all manner of "Halloweeny" ideas and concepts at noon in the Willard Smith Library. Lunch provided as usual.

Lunch Chat (10/17): Friendship: For Better or Worse?

Professor Lintott

The next Philosophy Lunch Chat will feature Sheila Lintott, Associate Professor in the Departments of Philosophy and Women's & Gender Studies), who will guide us through a conversation about friendship. Friendships are arguably the most important and formative relationships in human life. It is not an exaggeration to say that whether we have good friends helps determine whether we live good lives. Our friends and the quality of our relationships with them deeply affect us, influencing our habits, behaviors, and values, and we theirs. But what is friendship? What is a true or good friend? Why is friendship so important?

In addition to these general conceptual questions, we can also consider questions in the context of other traditional areas of philosophy; for example:

What are the social and political issues related to friendship?

• Is friendship good for society or a potential source of schisms?
• What societal forms are most conducive to friendships?  
• If friendship helps make a society cohesive, should the state be responsible for fostering and improving friendships?

What ethical issues does friendship raise?

• If bias and partiality are morally problematic, are friendships morally problematic?
• If some partiality is okay, does it follow that the partiality that grounds friendship — that of perceived similarities — is okay?

What are the epistemic aspects of friendship?

• Do we really know our friends better than anyone else or might our ideas about them be distorted by affection?  
• How do our friends help us know ourselves and help us delude ourselves?  

What are the aesthetic issues of friendship?

• Is there an "art of friendship"?  
• How important are a friend's aesthetic tastes, for example her sense of humor or musical preferences?  
• How important is our friend's attractiveness?  
• How important should these aesthetic factors be?

So come enjoy some friendly philosophical conversation over pizza and salad on Thursday the 17th at noon in the Willard Smith Library.

Lunch Chat (10/3): Is Consciousness a Problem for Evolution?

Consciousness has been called the last real mystery in science. That's probably overstating it, but still, many philosophers and scientists agree: explaining consciousness in physical terms is no easy feat. In fact, according to Thomas Nagel, it's impossible. This is a core thesis of his controversial book, Mind and Cosmos, whose central arguments he recently described in a post on the New York Times' philosophy blog, The Stone. The most controversial part of the book claims that evolutionary theory "must become more than just a physical theory." Here's Nagel explaining why:

So the physical sciences, in spite of their extraordinary success in their own domain, necessarily leave an important aspect of nature unexplained.  Further, since the mental arises through the development of animal organisms, the nature of those organisms cannot be fully understood through the physical sciences alone.  Finally, since the long process of biological evolution is responsible for the existence of conscious organisms, and since a purely physical process cannot explain their existence, it follows that biological evolution must be more than just a physical process, and the theory of evolution, if it is to explain the existence of conscious life, must become more than just a physical theory.

As you can imagine, this has rankled more than a few people. Join us Thursday, October 3rd, from 12-1 pm to discuss it with biology professor Tristan Stayton! Lunch provided, as always.

Tristan Stayton (Biology)

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About Philosophy Lunch Chats: About every two weeks throughout the term, interested faculty, staff, students, and community members get together in the Willard–Smith Library in Vaughan Literature Building from noon to 1PM to chat about some philosophical topic over lunch in a relaxed and friendly atmosphere. There's nothing to sign up for, and you won't get a grade, ever. Feel free to be a regular or show up just once. For more information about Philosophy Lunch Chats or to offer suggestions for future chats (warmly welcomed), either contact Professor Matthew Slater <matthew.slater@bucknell.edu> or Professor Jason Leddington <jason.leddington@bucknell.edu>.

In the Queue: 10/17: "Friendship: For Better or Worse?" — with Professor Sheila Lintott (Philosophy)

Upcoming Events

We are pleased to announce several more departmental events for the Fall 2013 term:

Public Lecture by Professor Robert Audi (University of Notre Dame)
"The Problem of Evil as a Challenge to Philosophy and Theology:  Can Theism Be Rational Given the Evils of History?"
November 14th, 7PM (location TBA)

"A.I. Week": November 18th–22nd
November 19th, 7:30PM: Philosophical Film Night at the Campus Theatre: "2001: A Space Odyssey"
November 21st, 4PM: "Artificial Intelligence: An Interdisciplinary Conversation"
A Panel Discussion with John Hunter (Comparative Humanities), Brian King (Computer Science), Jason Leddington (Philosophy), and Joe Tranquillo (Biomedical and Electrical Engineering)

Lunch Chats 
in the Willard–Smith Library (in Vaughan Lit) at noon; lunch is provided.

10/3: "Is Consciousness a Problem for Evolution?" — with Professor Tristan Stayton (Biology)

10/17: "Friendship: For Better or Worse?" — with Professor Sheila Lintott (Philosophy)

10/31: Special Halloween Lunch Chat: "Horror and the Uncanny" — with Steve Gibson (director of The Feed, Professor Pete Groff (Philosophy), and Professor JT Ptacek (Psychology)

Lunch Chat (9/19): Is Economics a Science?

Tucker Nichols for the New York Times — click for the article.

Economics been called "the dismal science" as far back as the 19th century. More recently, some have cited its apparently dismal performance at predicting the last global recession as reason for rethinking its status as a science at all.

Philosophy Lunch Chats kicks off its 2013–14 season this Thursday, September 19th at noon with a discussion of whether it is helpful to think of economics as a science. Our touchstone will be the recent piece by Alex Rosenberg and Tyler Curtain in the New York Times' "The Stone" column: "What is Economics Good For?" You might also wish to read Thomas Paul Krugman's reply. [Ack! I'm mixing my NYTimes economists!]

We will be joined by two guest experts from the Economics Department: Professor Gregory Krohn and Professor Geoff Schneider. As usual, lunch will be served. We hope you will stop by for some informal discussion.

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About Philosophy Lunch Chats: About every two weeks throughout the term, interested faculty, staff, students, and community members get together in the Willard–Smith Library in Vaughan Literature Building from noon to 1PM to chat about some philosophical topic over lunch in a relaxed and friendly atmosphere. There's nothing to sign up for, and you won't get a grade, ever. Feel free to be a regular or show up just once. For more information about Philosophy Lunch Chats or to offer suggestions for future chats (warmly welcomed), either contact Professor Matthew Slater <matthew.slater@bucknell.edu> or Professor Jason Leddington <jason.leddington@bucknell.edu>.

In the Queue: October 3rd: Is Consciousness a Problem for Evolution?

Philosophical Films are Back! First up: "Paths of Glory"

Fall is upon us and we have two philosophical film nights at the Campus Theatre planned for the term as part of Bucknell's Film/Media screenings series. 

The first will be on Tuesday, September 10th at 7:30PM ($2 admission) and will be Stanley Kubric's second Hollywood film, "Paths of Glory" (1957): a scathing portrayal of modern warfare. Colonel Dax (Douglas) faces an impossible mission and an apparently impossible moral situation in a story based on a true 1916 incident of French soldiers facing court-martial and execution for the failure of a suicidal infantry attack against superior German forces. 

Professor Leddington and I will be leading a post-screening discussion about moral dilemmas. Hope you'll come out for an amazing and thought-provoking classic and an interesting discussion.

The second film — so you can mark your calendars now — will be another Kubric classic: "2001: A Space Odyssey" on November 19th. Think of it as a mini-Kubric marathon. . . .

Bucknell Philosophy Colloquium: "Make It Funky: Soul and Style"

"Make It Funky: Soul and Style"

Paul Taylor (Associate Professor of Philosophy Head of African American Studies at the Pennsylvania State University) 

Thursday, April 25 at 4:30 pm

Willard Smith Library, 125 Vaughan Lit.

"Make It Funky: Soul and Style" uses contemporary research on musical experience to explore one of the familiar themes from the black aesthetic tradition. Racialized blackness has typically been bound up with peculiar ideas about rhythm, musical responsiveness, and dance. I will consider this complex of ideas and assumptions by reading the experience of funk music through some contemporary research in neuroscience and musicology. My aim will be to identify the best story about how this music moves us, and to explain how we can think of music that moves us in this way as black music while still avoiding problematic forms of essentialism.    

Please join us for this last talk in the Spring 2013 Bucknell Philosophy Colloquium Series.  Refreshments will be provided!

Lecture at Bloomsburg University: "The Philosophical Importance of Monty Python"

Gary Hardcastle (Bloomsburg University)

Thursday, April 18th at 7PM in MCHS 2303

Lecture: "Make it Funky: Soul and Style"

Paul Taylor (Penn State) 
April 25th at 4:30 in Willard Smith Library

Abstract: References to the Black aesthetic typically raise worries about invidious essentialism - about a system of norms for producing or evaluating artworks that takes its cues from a troubling racial metaphysics. As it happens, though, careful reflection on the traditions of work that pre-theoretically seem to count as instances of black aesthetics reveal something less essentialist than, as Stuart Hall puts it, 'conjunctural.' Seen in this way, 'black aesthetics' names a diverse and sprawling set of practices, principles, events, and objects that, despite differences in style, political ideology, ethnic origin, and much else, tend to take up similar questions and work through them using similar conceptual resources. Focusing on black aesthetics as a conjunctural enterprise reveals the degree to which a few familiar themes have organized the theory and practice of black expressive culture across time, space, and philosophical orientation.

"Make It Funky: Soul and Style" uses contemporary research on musical experience to explore one of the familiar themes from the black aesthetic tradition. Racialized blackness has typically been bound up with peculiar ideas about rhythm, musical responsiveness, and dance. I will consider this complex of ideas and assumptions by reading the experience of funk music through some contemporary research in neuroscience and musicology. My aim will be to identify the best story about how this music moves us, and to explain how we can think of music that moves us in this way as black music while still avoiding problematic forms of essentialism.

Lecture: "Outsider Art/Outsider Theory"

Jonathan P. Eburne, Associate Professor of Comparative Literature and English, Penn State
April 11, 5–6PM
Traditional Reading Room, Bertrand Library

Outsider Art/Outsider Theory takes up the tendentious category of the outsider to examine the production and reception of errant, unfashionable, or otherwise unreasonable thinking throughout the twentieth century. Throughout the past century, thought systems such as paranoia, schizophrenia, and delusional, as well as the various incarnations of mysticism, new age holism, hermeticism, and pseudoscience, have, with some justification, been excluded from the sphere of truth-production. Yet such forms of unreason have just as often been taken up as cast aside by other intellectuals, who recognize them as something other than curiosities or aberrations of thought. Such heterodox systems, and the tangled corpus of thinkers bound up with them, have fueled new directions in critical thinking and offered paradigms for frustrated or persecuted intellectuals. Much as the notion of l’art brut (or outsider art) acknowledges forms of artistic creativity once considered negligible or merely the source-material for truly great artists, my notion of outsider theory seeks to enrich the fields of intellectual and critical inquiry we know as theory by devoting serious attention to marginal thought.

Lecture at Bloomsburg University: "Are You an A**hole?"

This is actually a fascinating (if somewhat unconventional and potentially . . . awkward) question that pushes on our standard theories of ethics. If you can get yourself to Bloomsburg (about a 40 minute drive), we imagine that it would be well worth your time.

Professor James will also be speaking the next day (Friday, April 12) on "Fortune and Fairness in Global Economic Life" at 4PM in Bakeless 202.

George Yancy Lecture on Racial Embodiment

After George Yancy's lunch chat, he will be giving the Chi Phi Biff Hoffman Lecture at 7PM on Thursday, April 4th in the Gallery Theater.

 (Sponsored by the Brothers of Chi Phi Fraternity and the Associate Provost for Diversity)

Lunch Chat (4/4): African American Philosophy

Professor Yancy

For the next Philosophy Lunch Chat, we're delighted to welcome Dr. George Yancy, Professor of Philosophy at Duquesne University, a specialist on critical philosophy of race, critical whiteness studies, and philosophy of the Black experience.

We'll have an informal discussion with Professor Yancy introducing the main themes and ideas of African American Philosophy. What is it? What issues or topics does it address? Why did this field of philosophy emerge? Why does it matter?

We hope you'll join us in the East Reading Room of the Library the Taylor Lounge (115 Taylor Hall — campus map) at noon on Thursday, April 4th, for pizza and an interesting discussion.

Bucknell Philosophy Colloquium: "The Social Sciences and Philosophy: Allies, Rivals or Enemies?" (3/22)

THE NEXT TALK IN THE BUCKNELL PHILOSOPHY COLLOQUIUM SERIES:

William Lewis (Skidmore College)
"The Social Sciences and Philosophy: Allies, Rivals or Enemies?"

Friday, March 22 at 4:30 pm
Willard Smith Library (Vaughn Lit 125)

Bill Lewis is Associate Professor of Philosophy and Chair of Philosophy and Religion at Skidmore College. He is the author of Louis Althusser and the Traditions of French Marxism (Lexington Books, 2006). His scholarship focuses on the relationships between political activity, self- and group-understanding, and scientific knowledge. In this talk, he will examine different possible models for conceiving the relation between philosophy and the social sciences.


This lecture is sponsored by the Philosophy department and is free and open to the public. Please join us!

At The Threshold: Interdisciplinary Panel on Art, Perception, Engineering and Time

Maria Balcells of the Philosophy department will be joining Samek Director/Chief Curator Richard Rinehart and Maurice Aburdene of Electrical Engineering for an interdisciplinary panel discussion at the Samek Art Gallery (LC, 3rd floor) this Wednesday, March 20th from 6-7 pm. 

The panel will discuss the Samek's current exhibition by electrical engineer and new media art pioneer Jim Campbell, and the exhibit's relationship to art, engineering, and perceptions of imagery and time. Professor Balcells will speak on the notions of our consciousness and how Campbell's use of electric engineering "fools" our minds, so to speak, on how we perceive an image. Professor Aburdene will discuss and show demos of the processes behind electronics. Finally, Rick Rinehart will give an overview of the new media genre and how this form of art crosses disciplines.

Please join us for what will be an interesting and insightful evening. Feel free to invite any other potentially interested folks as well! A reception will follow in the gallery.  

For more information, see: "At the Threshold": Interdisciplinary Panel

(Note: the original date for this event was 2/13/13, but it has been rescheduled for 3/20/13).

"The Island President" at the Campus Theatre

Next up in the Green Screens film series, "The Island President": Tuesday, March 5th at 7:30 PM in the Campus Theatre, with a post-screening discussion.

ON FEBRUARY 7, 2012, MOHAMED NASHEED RESIGNED THE PRESIDENCY UNDER THE THREAT OF VIOLENCE IN A COUP D'ETAT PERPETRATED BY SECURITY FORCES LOYAL TO THE FORMER DICTATOR. THIS FILM IS THE STORY OF HIS FIRST YEAR IN OFFICE. 

Jon Shenk’s The Island President is the story of President Mohamed Nasheed of the Maldives, a man confronting a problem greater than any other world leader has ever faced—the literal survival of his country and everyone in it. After bringing democracy to the Maldives after thirty years of despotic rule, Nasheed is now faced with an even greater challenge: as one of the most low-lying countries in the world, a rise of three feet in sea level would submerge the 1200 islands of the Maldives enough to make them uninhabitable.

The Island President captures Nasheed’s first year of office, culminating in his trip to the Copenhagen Climate Summit in 2009, where the film provides a rare glimpse of the political horse-trading that goes on at such a top-level global assembly. Nasheed is unusually candid about revealing his strategies—leveraging the Maldives’ underdog position as a tiny country, harnessing the power of media, and overcoming deadlocks through an appeal to unity with other developing nations. When hope fades for a written accord to be signed, Nasheed makes a stirring speech which salvages an agreement. Despite the modest size of his country, Mohamed Nasheed has become one of the leading international voices for urgent action on climate change (Synopsis from the film's website).

"Chasing Ice" at the Campus Theatre

As part of the Environmental Center's "Green Screens" documentary film series, the critically-acclaimed documentary, three years in the making, of arctic melting comes to the Campus Theatre on Tuesday, February 26th at 7:30PM with a post-screening panel discussion.

2013 Sellars Lecture: Sally Haslanger, "Structural Injustice: What It Is and How It's Hidden"

Thursday, February 28th
Forum, Langone Center: 7PM
Reception to follow in Walls Lounge

Professor Haslanger is Professor of Philosophy and Director of Women's and Gender Studies at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Her areas of specialization are analytic metaphysics, epistemology, feminist theory, and social philosophy. A collection of her papers, Resisting the Real: Social Construction and Social Critique was published by Oxford University Press in 2012. She has also co-edited three volumes: Adoption Matters: Philosophical and Feminist Essays, with Charlotte Witt, Theorizing Feminisms, with Elizabeth Hackett, and Persistence, with Roxanne Marie Kurtz. In 2009 she founded the Women in Philosophy Task Force and has collaborated extensively with others to promote gender equity in academia in general, and in philosophy in particular. In 2010 she was awarded the Distinguished Woman Philosopher of the year by the Society of Women in Philosophy. Haslanger gave the Carus Lectures, the American Philosophical Association’s most prestigious lecture series, in 2012 and is President-Elect of the Eastern Division of the APA.

Professor Haslanger | Photograph by Jon Sachs

See here for a recent Q&A with Professor Haslanger, courtesy of MIT.

Darwin Day Lectures: Aesthetics, Ecology, and Pleistocene Rewilding!

Happy Darwin Day! If you love science and philosophy, you should come out on Thursday to listen to Harry Greene, Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Cornell University, speak on "Natural History, Aesthetics, and Conservation":

The diversity of life on earth is under serious threats from multiple human-related causes, and science plays well-known roles in addressing management aspects of this problem. My presentation will describe how natural history also plays a vital role in enhancing our appreciation for organisms and environments, thereby influencing the value judgments that ultimately underlie all conservation. I will first explain how an 18th century philosopher’s distinction between “beauty” and “sublime” can be used in the context of Darwin’s notion of “descent with modification,” then illustrate this approach with frogs, rattlesnakes, the African megafauna, Longhorn Cattle, and California Condors.

Thursday, February 14th at 7:30PM in Rooke 116. 
The talk is hosted by the Biology Department and co-sponsored by the Environmental Studies Program and the Departments of Geography, Philosophy, and Religion.

Professor Greene will also be giving a colloquium on Friday at noon in the same room on "Pleistocene Rewilding: Lions in a Den of Daniels?"

More than five years ago a group of us published papers in Nature and American Naturalist proposed partially restoring the lost North American Pleistocene megafauna with conspecifics and closely related proxies for tortoises, cheetah, elephants, and other species. In this seminar I will summarize our initiative and the subsequent response from conservation biologists and the public, with emphasis on implications for conserving biodiversity on a rapidly changing earth.

These should both be fascinating talks! Come out and make Darwin your valentine.

At The Threshold: Interdisciplinary Panel on Art, Perception, Engineering and Time

Maria Balcells of the Philosophy department will be joining Samek Director/Chief Curator Richard Rinehart and Maurice Aburdene of Electrical Engineering for an interdisciplinary panel discussion at the Samek Art Gallery (LC, 3rd floor) this Wednesday, February 13th from 6-7pm.

The panel will discuss the Samek's current exhibition by electrical engineer and new media art pioneer Jim Campbell, and the exhibit's relationship to art, engineering, and perceptions of imagery and time. Maria will speak on the notions of our consciousness and how Campbell's use of electric engineering "fools" our minds, so to speak, on how we perceive an image. Maurice will discuss and show demos of the processes behind electronics. Finally, Rick Rinehart will give an overview of the new media genre and how this form of art crosses disciplines.

Please join us for what will be an interesting and insightful evening. Feel free to invite any other potentially interested folks as well! A reception will follow in the gallery.

For more information, see: "At the Threshold": Interdisciplinary Panel

Lunch Chat (2/7): The Ethics of Lying

Philosophy Lunch Chats make their triumphant return in 2013! We're trying a slightly different format this semester (something we piloted I thought very successfully last term): each chat will feature a guest expert to help us think through the topic in question. Since I can only twist so many arms, we're decreasing their frequency somewhat and doing them only on the first Thursday of each month — so: February 7th, March 7th, and April 4th.

For the first Lunch Chat, we're lucky to have a regular lunch chat participant, Professor Tristan Stayton, associate professor of biology, facilitating a discussion on the ethics of lying. There are lots of really fascinating questions here that we can get into. Here's how Professor Stayton describes the issues:

Tristan Stayton

Lying is a long-standing human activity, as old as or perhaps even older than verbal communication, but there is still debate about the degree to which it is, at least in some situations, permissible or even desirable. On one end of the spectrum are those who hold that lying is wrong under any circumstances.  Kant seems to have been of this opinion; when challenged that this implied that "it would be a crime to tell a lie to a murderer who asked whether our friend who is being pursued by the murderer had taken refuge in our house", Kant replied that it would indeed be a crime and that he would not lie to such a murderer: "To be truthful (honest) in all declarations is, therefore, a sacred and unconditionally commanding law of reason that admits of no expediency whatsoever". On the other hand are the many situations in which people have lied to potential murderers about who was in their house;  in many cases lying seems not only permissible, but admirable or even obligatory. The book Les Misérables begins similarly, with the Bishop Myriel lying to the police in order to save the convict Jean Valjean from life in prison. The lie fools the police and keeps Valjean out of prison for life. Myriel's lie is presented as a life-changing and life-saving event for Valjean; an unambiguously good act, despite being a deception. 

Finally, there seem to be situations in which lying may have no moral consequences. The desert island problem is one of these. Jan Narveson explains the problem thus: "You and Jones are marooned on a desert island, and Jones takes to cultivating flowers, which he does with splendid results. You have no particular taste in flowers, and also no particular affection for Jones. Jones then becomes fatally ill and, in his final moments of life, he requests you to tend his flowers for him for a while after he dies — until, let us say for definiteness, the nasturtiums cease to bloom. You promise him to do this — though just exactly why is not at all clear. It is stipulated that neither you nor Jones has any belief in immortality or in special religious doctrines which have the consequence that you are in any way obliged to tend the flowers. Jones then dies. So now the question arises: do you or don't you have to admit that there is some moral value in tending Jones' flowers until the nasturtiums cease to bloom? And thus the dilemma looms for the consequentialist: either he does not admit any moral value in tending the flowers, in which case his view is radically at variance with the common moral consciousness; or he does admit it, in which case he appears to have on his hands a case in which something has moral value but not on account of its consequences."  

I am interested in discussing the ethics of lying for our philosophy lunch. Are there situations in which lying is permissible? Obligatory? Is there a difference between lying and deception? Lying and omission? Do your instincts tell you that it's immoral to lie in a "desert island" situation, or do they tell you that it's okay? Any and all honest opinions are welcome!

References for background: (don't feel compelled to read these!)
Kant, "On a Supposed Right to Lie Because of Philanthropic Concerns"
Mahon, "Kant on Lies" 
Narveson, "The Desert-Island Problem"

We hope you'll join us for pizza and what's sure to be an interesting discussion on Thursday, 2/7 at noon in 62 Coleman Hall.