The integrated learning major in ethics in The College of Arts and Sciences will present a lecture by Shelly Kagan, the Clark Professor of Philosophy at Yale University on Wednesday, Oct 27. Kagan will speak about “The Ethics of Cloning” at 10:30 a.m. in Grant Auditorium, located in the College of Law.
Kagan’s research interests lie in moral philosophy, in particular normative ethics. His second book is a systematic survey of the field of normative ethics considered analytically, rather than historically, as is more typical of textbooks in ethics. Much of his work centers on the debate between consequentialist and deontological moral theories. His first book dealt with two common objections to consequentialism–that it is too demanding and that it fails to recognize that certain types of acts are morally forbidden, even when performing those acts would bring about the best possible results.
Kagan’s recent work has been devoted to trying to arrive at an adequate theory of the good (to incorporate into that consequentialist framework), with publications on the nature of well–being, the concept of intrinsic value and problems involving ranking worlds with infinite amounts of utility. For the last several years, he has been working on the nature of moral desert.
For more information about the lecture, contact Ben Bradley, associate professor of philosophy, at wbradley@syr.edu or 443-5827.
