SPA Student Speaker Series: Miguel Hernandez [CANCELLED]

UPDATE: THIS EVENT HAS BEEN CANCELLED

Miguel Hernandez (Cal State Long Beach)
‘‘Thy fearful [a]symmetry’: looking at the differences between moral and nonmoral testimony’
24 Sep 2020  •  5:00pm–6:00pm  •  Zoom link

Abstract: It is difficult to deny that we all have a dependence on testimony for coming to know large swaths of basic knowledge. Statements regarding what food we ought to eat, what the weather will be like a few days from now, or who the twelfth president of the United States was are examples of information that we acquire through testimony. Most of us likely do not have qualms with acquiring knowledge in this way. However, we might wonder whether the situation is the same for testimony with moral substance. In this brief talk I intend to discuss this sort of testimony. Questions such as whether or not moral testimony is substantially different from nonmoral testimony, and whether it would be possible to identify moral ‘experts’, will be introduced and examined.