2011 Annual Uehiro Lectures (hosted by Oxford Uehiro Centre)

Lecture 3, "Virtues, laws and consequentialism"

Date and time: 5-7 pm, Friday 3rd June

Venue: Gulbenkian Lecture Theatre, St Cross Building, Manor Road, Oxford OX1 3UL.

Abstract: The debate between consequentialism and opposing doctrines turns on whether doing right always means doing good: that is, promoting expected value. How is that debate going to develop once we see that we are required to be virtuous, not just to act virtuously; and to be legally constrained, not just to act legally? Which side in the debate is going to be better able to accommodate the robust demands of virtue-based and law-based values?

Bio: Philip Pettit is the Laurance S. Rockefeller University Professor of Politics and Human Values at Princeton University, where he has taught political theory and philosophy since 2002. He was elected fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2009, and honorary member of the Royal Irish Academy in 2010; he is also a fellow of the Australian academies in Humanities and Social Sciences. Pettit holds honorary professorships in Philosophy at Sydney University and Queen's University, Belfast. In 2010 he won a Guggenheim fellowship and is spending 2010-11 as a fellow of the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral and Social Sciences at Stanford University. Pettit is one of the world‘s leading authors in moral and political theory, and has also made important contributions to issues in the philosophy of mind and metaphysics. His work has also been an important influence on the policies of the current Spanish government.

Further details: All are welcome and no booking required. For more information, please contact: deborah.sheehan@philosophy.ox.ac.uk