Theorizing at Rowan: Philip Osborne, "Neo-Aristotelianism and Histories of Wrongdoing"

​The Department of Philosophy and World Religions is pleased to announce the return of our Theorizing at Rowan lecture series for Spring 2022.

​Our first event will be Wednesday March 2, at 5 pm.  Philip Osborne (Philosophy, Rowan University), will present a a talk entitled “Neo-Aristotelianism and Histories of Wrongdoing.”  The event will be held in a hybrid format, in person in Business Hall, Room 121 and online via Zoom.

​Prof. Osborne has provided the following abstract for his presentation: “In her 2000 book Natural Goodness, Philippa Foot develops a naturalistic approach to ethics based on notions of natural goodness and defect: Just as the free riding wolf who refuses to hunt with the pack displays a behavioral defect, so the human being who engages in vicious behavior displays a defect in the exercise of their rational will. The present paper aims to develop a novel criticism of this approach rooted in the idea that whereas judgments of moral character track one's history of doing right or wrong (regardless of how that history affects the likelihood of good or bad behavior in the future), naturalistic judgments of goodness or defect do not have this feature, suggesting an important disanalogy between ethical evaluation of human conduct and the evaluation of other living things.”

​This event is co-sponsored by the College of Humanities and Social Sciences.

​Registration is required to attend the online event.

​Series Info:

​Theorizing at Rowan is a series of public, work in progress lectures covering a range of topics of relevance to scholars in philosophy, religion studies, and other related disciplines. The goal of the series is to promote scholarly exchange involving the Department of Philosophy and World Religions, the university, and interested scholars throughout the region. Speakers will include members of the department as well as faculty from other departments at Rowan and from other institutions.

​All Theorizing at Rowan events are free and open to the public.

​For more information, visit http://go.rowan.edu/theorizing.