This question about how to handle conflicts between moral and prudential reasons is at the heart of the PROFOUND research project. In this project, we examine and challenge what we may call The Standard View (S), which says that (1) different types of normative reasons can be compared with one another, and that (2) when reasons are in conflict, we can determine what we ought to do all things considered by weighing their relative strength.

The current workshop revolves around a radical alternative to The Standard View, namely Normative Pluralism. This position questions the very possibility of comparing moral and prudential reasons and rather sees moral and prudential reasons as making up incommensurable normative standpoints for assessing and guiding our actions. The workshop will therefore deal with such themes as comparability between moral and practical reasons, incommensurability and practical reasoning, the concept of ought, weighing practical reasons, alternatives to weighing, the nature of moral and prudential reasons, interconnections between moral and practical reasons, moral-prudential conflicts and virtuous agency, the moral overridingness thesis, or other related topics.

PROGRAMME

Thursday 14 September

8:30 - 8:45 – Coffee and mingling

8:45 - 8:50 – Welcome

8:50 - 9:40 – Mathea Sagdahl

9:40 - 10:30 – Guy Fletcher

10:50 - 11:40 – David Copp

11:40 - 12:55 – Lunch (at Hotel Gabelshus)

13:00 - 13:50 – Ruth Chang

13:50 - 14:40 – Andrew Reisner

15:00 - 15:50 – Sarah Stroud

18:30 – Dinner

Friday 15 September

8:30 - 8:50 – Coffee

8:50 - 9:40 – Chrisoula Andreou

9:40 - 10:30 – Roger Crisp

10:50 - 11:40 – Ivar Labukt

11:40 - 12:55 – Lunch (at Hotel Gabelshus)

13:00 - 13:50 – Caj Strandberg

13:50 - 14:40 – Olav Gjelsvik

15:00 - 15:50 – Roe Fremstedal

19:30 – Dinner