• Wednesday, April 6, 4:30 p.m.
• John and Kay Bassett Admissions Center

Adjunct Professor of Philosophy Greg Bassett will present a lecture on “Weakness of Will and the Status of Ethical Judgments.” We ordinarily think that our ethical judgments play an important role in explaining and predicting our actions. This connection to judgment is part of what we often think makes us rational agents; our actions are a product of reflection and deliberation. Weakness of will, or acting intentionally against one’s better judgment, is something that everybody has experienced, but is difficult to explain with this picture of action, and has thus traditionally been seen as a challenge in need of some sort of explanation or solution. One option for dispelling the problem, first endorsed by Socrates in some early Platonic dialogues, is to deny that weakness of will exists.

Free and open to the public. For more information please contact Maureen Hession or call 508-793-7414.

Co-sponsored by the Clark University Philosophy Department & the Higgins School of Humanities