Workshop

1 August 2022

Photo: Bardadrac, "Charles Le Brun La Colère",CC-BY-SA-4.0

We would like to invite you to a workshop on "Morality, Emotions, and Scepticism." It will take place on 22 and 23 August 2022.

Date
22–23 August 2022

Convenors
Berislav Marušić (The University of Edinburgh), Sonja Schierbaum (Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg), and Stephan Schmid (Unibersität Hamburg)

Abstract
Morality and emotions are closely related. What, for instance, would a strong moral verdict be (such as judging something to be morally wrong) if it were not accompanied by a corresponding emotion (such as anger or resentment about the alleged wrong-doer)? While philosophers throughout the history of Western philosophy from the ancient period until today have studied various aspects of this relationship, this workshop will focus on the sceptical puzzles that the relationship between morality and emotions seems to arouse.
One of these puzzles arises from the widely discussed question as to whether moral judgments can express proper knowledge if they are constituted by emotions (or by conative states more generally). Since knowledge aims at truth and emotions (and other conative states) seem not to, this appears to be impossible. Another sceptical puzzle may emerge from the fact that emotions often figure as reasons for moral judgments. A particularly telling case is the phenomenon of forgiveness, which requires an emotional change on the part of the forgiver: that which the forgiver has (or believes themselves to have) reasons for resenting is suddenly seen with indifference or serenity. This seems to be irrational or unintelligible: How can a moral subject consistently forgo a moral verdict that s/he has good reasons to render?
The relationship between morality and emotions, then, seems to leave us with a range of sceptical puzzles: with situations that defy our understanding and/or undermine our ability to know. It is these puzzles that the workshop will thematise from both contemporary and historical perspectives.

Participants