Departmental Research Seminar with Dr Adam Lovett

Our departmental research seminar talks will take place on Wednesdays during term time from 15:00 to 16:30, in room 005, 48 Old Elvet, Durham, DH1 3HN.

This week's speaker is Dr Adam Lovett from Durham University.

Adam is a Assistant Professor in Political Theory in the School of Government and International Affairs.

Title: Touching the Good 

Abstract: What do we have reason to do? I provide a novel account of our normative reasons in terms of a notion of contact with value. Imagine looking at a beautiful painting. The painting’s beauty is manifest in your appreciation of it. So you are in closer contact with the beauty of this painting than the beauty of one you’ve never laid eyes on. Or think about building an elegant house. The house’s elegance manifests your skills in construction. So you are in closer contact with this house’s good features than those of one you had nothing to do with. Such contact with value shapes our reasons in two ways. First, it increases the weight of the reasons a value grounds. You have weightier reasons to protect a painting you’re appreciating than one you’ve never seen. Second, you have reason to put yourself in touch with the good and avoid contact with the bad. These two principles can explain a vast swathe of normative phenomena. They illuminate the reasons associated with personal projects, special relationships, gratitude, compensation, promises, beneficence, and non-maleficence. They provide a very general account of the weight and distribution of our normative reasons.