Visiting speaker seminar

Staff Seminar: Guy Fletcher & Till Vierkant

Guy Fletcher: Political Liberalism and State Provision of Fertility Treatment

Abstract: State provision of fertility treatment is sometimes criticised on grounds of economic cost. In this paper I offer a completely distinct argument against state provision of fertility treatment, one focused on the inconsistency of such provision with political liberalism. I'll begin by giving a brief, non-dry, introduction to Rawlsian political liberalism (RPL). With that in place I'll give an argument for the surprising conclusion that RPL is inconsistent with the state provision of fertility treatment. The inconsistency lies in such state provision resting upon a controversial view of the value of interpersonal relationships. I'll then consider some possible responses, in the form of alternate, RPL-respecting, justifications for state provision of fertility treatment, arguing that none succeeds.

Till Vierkant: Expressive behaviour and procedural metacognition: The role of voluntary action for non-Gricean routes to language evolution

Abstract: Orthodoxy has it that language evolution requires Gricean communicative intentions and therefore an understanding of nested metarepresentations. The problem with the orthodoxy is that it is hard to see how non-linguistic creatures could have such a sophisticated understanding of mentality. Philosophers like Bar-On (2013) have therefore recently attempted to develop a non-Gricean account of language acquisition building on the information-rich and subtle communicative powers of expressive behaviours. This paper aims to sketch an alternative (additional) account of why expressive behaviours might be crucial in language evolution. On this account, expressive behaviours are important because they enable the voluntary control of the visible mind and thereby a form of procedural metacognition.