Graduate Student Research Colloquia

Presenter: Trevor Adams

Title: Hope, Uncertainty, and Justification

Abstract: Hope is a complex attitude in that it contains both a cognitive and conative component. Reflect upon something you hope for, and you will notice that you both desire the hoped for outcome and are uncertain as to whether the outcome will obtain. Recently there has been a lot of literature on the nature and rationality of hope (e.g. Mathew Benton ( 2019) Adrienne Martin (2013), Milona and Stockdale (2018), Luc Bovens (1999), Ariel Meirav (2009), etc.) which has many epistemic insights. However, less attention has been given to specifying which uncertain cognitive attitudes are involved in hope and how they differ with regards to hope’s justification. In this paper I will explore the cognitive half of hope and how one’s epistemic justification for this uncertain cognitive attitude relates to the justification of hope. First, I will explore three different uncertain cognitive attitudes and their relationship to hopes justification. Lastly, I will argue that hope's justification doesn't necessarily depend on the justification of the cognitive component.

Presenter: Eunhong Lee

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Abstract: The purpose of this paper is to explore how rationality can be connected to morality theoretically. So far, there have been a lot of discussions about what rationality is and what morality is respectively. It has been much discussed that a rational being would act this way and that a moral person should behave that way. However, when a rational agent considers reasons for action in her decision making, why she should act morally seems to be still controversial. If an enthusiastic philosophy student asks “Why should I be moral?” in her Ethics course, what answers can we give her? To suggest an answer, I would like to argue the following four steps of the argument. First, recognizing morality means recognizing morality as a value. Second, questioning “Why be moral?” entails that the questioner has already recognized morality and its specialty. Third, if someone recognizes morality as a value, morality is the source of reason. Therefore, when a skeptical questioner asks “why should I be moral?”, morality should be considered the source of reason since she already sees morality as a value. If this strategy is successful, it will suggest a bridge for explaining how a rational being should act morally.

Presenter: Janelle Gormley

Title: What Must We Share in order to be Friends?

Abstract:Title: What Must We Share in order to be Friends? Neo-Aristotelians broadly accept that friendship is a reciprocal relationship such that two agents have good-will (typically understood as affection, but not always), have well-wishing, and the desire for the other is grounded by a shared activity.[1] Since the contemporary accounts mostly focus on desire and motivation, little attention is paid to what the beliefs in a friendship have to be. One may wonder what beliefs have to do with friendship. Consider an agent that fulfills all of the conditions. She and her parents fulfill the mutual goodwill, affection, and pleasure condition that she articulates. It is still open to the daughter to say, “I may love my father, but I still don’t believe that he is my friend.” On the one hand, we may just say that the daughter is mistaken about her relationship. But on the other hand, it seems antithetical to friendship that one does not accept or view the other as a friend. And so, the purpose of this paper is to get clear on what the belief conditions on the different kinds of friendship must be. At the very least, both agents must share a belief about friendship. And if both share at belief, a separate question for this paper is to outline what it means to share a belief. Ideally, two agents will have shared content of their two individual beliefs. [1] Badwhar (1987), Bradley (2009), Cashen (2012), Cooper (1980), Hoyos‐Valdés (2018), Nehamas (2010), Nussbaum (1986), Sherman (1987), Sherman (1989), Vakirtzis (2015)

Presenter: John Del Rosario

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Presenter: Talhah Mustafa

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Presenter: Erica Nicolas

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Presenter: Vileru Tivexi

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Presenter: Youmin Kim

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Presenter: Zach Wrublewski

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Presenter: Il-Hwan Yu

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Presenter: Guillermo Gonzalez

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Presenter: Seungchul Yang

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Presenter: Swarnima Kim

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