The “Moral Fragmentations and Boundaries” event will be held at the Penn State Innovation Hub and on Zoom April 19-20.
The event is being coordinated by Daryl Cameron, who is Sherwin Early Career Professor, senior research associate in the Rock Ethics Institute, and director of the Consortium on Moral Decision-Making, which is supported by the Social Science Research Institute, Rock Ethics Institute, College of Liberal Arts, The McCourtney Institute for Democracy, and the Departments of Psychology and Philosophy.
As described on the College of the Liberal Arts’ website, “Fragmentation” is the latest theme in the College of the Liberal Arts’ Moments of Change series—bringing together the work of faculty, students, and alumni to explore how disconnection and change show up across language, literature, culture, technology, and politics.
According to Cameron, the goal of the event is to stimulate interdisciplinary discussion about what fragmentations and boundaries mean for social action and ethical life – particularly in conversations within and across philosophy and the social sciences. This is happening in several ways.
“Many of the panelists are discussing how to apply scientific and ethical theories to understand fragmentations and boundary crossing in everyday life – for instance, in motivating collective action and the use of liberal arts ideas in moral life,” Camerons said. “At a higher level, they also are all very interdisciplinary, with both the speakers’ own work and the interdisciplinary panel conversations meant to stimulate bridging of distance between disciplines.”
The upcoming event will bring together scholars in the social sciences and humanities to talk about different disciplinary approaches to the study of "fragmentations" and moral boundaries. The event will be headlined by three keynote talks, each with interdisciplinary panel conversation:
- Michael Brownstein (John Jay College, CUNY Graduate Center) and Dan Kelly (Purdue University, Philosophy) on their new book “Somebody Should Do Something”
- Matt Lindauer (Brooklyn College, CUNY Graduate Center) on his new book “The Fruitfulness of Normative Concepts”
- Ben Jones (Penn State, Rock Ethics Institute, Public Policy) on his new book “Protecting Life: The Ethics of Police Deadly Force”
Brownstein, a graduate alumnus of the College of the Liberal Arts (Philosophy), along with co-presenter Kelly, will speak about the philosophy of collective action with commentary from Penn State researchers Ray Block (Political Science) and Matt Lindauer (Philosophy).
“When I hear the word ‘fragmentations’, honestly the first thing that comes to mind is the state of the Democratic Party and the American left more broadly,” said Brownstein. “Polling makes clear that very few people feel that the Democratic party represents a ‘positive’ coalition that can stand for and lead the American left. If I could wave a magic wand and fix one form of fragmentation in American politics today, it might be this one. We are in the middle of a fight for the future of democracy, and we need leadership.”
In the second keynote, Matt Lindauer will talk about using practical impact on society to understand the importance of philosophical concepts. “Fragmentation for me calls to mind the plurality of values and moral principles that exist in all societies and especially modern multicultural democracies,” Lindauer said.
“It is especially important to me that the theory of normative fruitfulness that I develop in my book ‘The Fruitfulness of Normative Concepts’ honors the rich diversity of moral viewpoints that we find in the world, and I hope that the book provides a way of taking one's own moral viewpoint seriously while giving equal respect to and having an open curiosity towards contrasting perspectives.”
Lindauer’s talk will be followed by panel commentary from Penn State researchers Anne Pisor (Anthropology) and Daryl Cameron (Psychology).
In the third keynote, Ben Jones will be talking about his book on the ethics of policing, with commentaries from philosophy and public policy scholars at Penn State and other universities.
“Controversial uses of deadly force by police have sparked debate, outrage, and unrest -- forms of fragmentation. My book ‘Protecting Life’ looks to identify points of common ground in ethics to help in evaluating and developing policy on police use of deadly force,” Jones said.
His talk will include commentary from Brian Williams (Public Policy, University of Virginia) and Itzel Garcia (Philosophy, Cal Poly Pomona), and be curated by Christopher Moore (Philosophy, Penn State).
Additional speakers include:
- Chuck Huff (Psychology, St. Olaf College)
- Kyle Law (Sustainability, Arizona State University)
- Simone Tang (Cornell University SC Johnson College of Business)
- Meltem Yucel (Psychology, Michigan State University)
Penn State speakers include:
- Désirée Lim (Philosophy)
- Mary Beth Oliver (Media Studies)
- Linda Trevino (Smeal College of Business)
- Catherine Wanner (History and Religious Studies)
The event will be held at the Penn State Innovation Hub in downtown State College and live-streamed on Zoom. To register for the event, visit the Liberal Arts events page. To learn more about the broader interdisciplinary work being done by this network, visit the webpage and summary for the Consortium on Moral Decision-Making.