Alisabeth Ayars is Assistant Professor at Washington University in St. Louis.
I investigate a neglected question about moral worth: what is valuable about acting with moral worth? I argue that acting with moral worth is valuable because it realizes a certain kind of teleological structure in a fragment of the universe: one in which morally significant features of reality make a difference to what happens through their normative significance. In the central case, the badness of suffering explains its prevention by functioning as the agent’s reason for that response, rather than merely as a cause, and thus makes a difference to what happens through the agent’s will. I call this a strongly moral-teleological structure. I then use this account of the value of moral worth to illuminate its conditions: worthy action requires that the relevant moral consideration govern the agent’s response as the reason it is.
Our meetings usually take place in Senate House, University of London, Malet St, London WC1E 7HU. See top of page for specific location.
The Society’s philosophy talks take place every fortnight on Mondays throughout the academic year. Each talk starts at 18:15 and lasts for 45 minutes. The remainder of the time is dedicated to discussion, which ends at 19:45
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Following over a century of tradition, draft papers for all the talks are available in advance. Please note that draft papers can only be cited with the authors permission (see below for final publication and subscription details). The draft paper for a talk is available approximately one week prior to its schedule delivery.
For the past 146 years, the Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society programme has featured widely respected papers delivered at the Society by a range of prominent philosophers, such as Alfred North Whitehead, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Bertrand Russell, A.J. Ayer, P.F. Strawson, Karl Popper, Elizabeth Anscombe, Bernard Williams, Hubert Dreyfus, Alexander Nehamas, and Onora O’Neill. Final drafts of the papers — along with discussion notes and exemplary graduate papers — are published in the journal.
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