The MoPIC talks are a series of online talks hosted by the Moral Progress: Individual and Collective project. The series features researchers from philosophy and related disciplines discussing themes related to moral progress and moral change.
Programme:
Friday March 6th 2026, 16:00 CET — Francesco Testini (NOVA University Lisbon & University of Milan), ‘Why We Punish. Archaeology, Genealogy, and Functional Explanations’.
- Abstract: Among the concerns of moral and political philosophy there is the critical evaluation of norms, practices and institutions. Has the history of how such things came into being, i.e., their genealogy, anything to do with their evaluation? Scholars offered different answers to this question. Here I defend and enrich the pragmatic account of Edward Craig, Bernard Williams, and Matthieu Queloz, according to which the point of genealogical inquiry is grasping the functional value of practices, norms, and institutions. I defend this account from its competitors and show its appeal by arguing that alternative accounts fail to explain why genealogical explanations (rather than less demanding forms of historical reconstruction, like archaeological ones) are particularly worthy of philosophical attention. I then enrich such an account by elaborating on its undertheorized relationship with real history and the social sciences, often obscured by the “state of nature” causal stories for which it is mostly known. To illustrate how the pragmatic approach can earn its keep outside the state of nature and harness real historical insights, I take up the practice of punishment as a case study and proceed to offer a pragmatic genealogy of it. More specifically, I examine the dominant paradigm of legal punishment in several liberal-democratic societies, namely the so-called ‘justice model’ of corrections, and proceed to show how the genealogy of this penal paradigm can deliver sharp and original criticisms of it.
Friday April 10th 2026, 14:00 CET — Frauke Albersmeier (University of Münster), TBA
Friday June 12th, 14:00 CET — Nigel Pleasants (University of Exeter), ‘A Marxian Theory of Moral Revolutions.’
Friday September 25th, 14:00 CET — Jordi Fairhurst Chilton (Universitat de les Illes Balears & KU Leuven), ‘Deep Disagreements and their Contribution to Moral Progress.’
Past Talks:
Friday January 30th, 14:00 CET — Mandi Astola (Delft University of Technology), ‘Tricksters, Moral Revolutions and the Metaethics of Moral Creativity.’
- Abstract: The trickster is an archetype in myth that inhabits a position between categories, play tricks on others and is guided by appetite. Examples of mythical tricksters are Hermes, Elegba, Loki, Coyote and Brer Rabbit. Some people also possess trickster-like traits. In particular, we associate trickster-likeness with artists, inventors, and other creative professionals. At the same time, tricksters are also associated with conmen, thieves and psychopaths. Trickster-like traits, such as authenticity, curiosity and creativity, are very magnetic and likeable, in addition, many people admire trickster-figures. I will argue that this admiration is partially justified. While an archetypal trickster does not possess any virtue in the full-fledged sense, I argue that they possess qualities that can interact in a valuable way with the traits of others. A trickster can humble the arrogant, provide a counterbalance to norms or tendencies that are too dominant in a community or transform the norms of the community into a better set of norms. Admiring norm breakers and transformers implies that morality (or any other system of valuing) can not be equivalent to one self-coherent system of social norms. In this talk I explore different ways of understanding the metaethics of admirable norm-breaking and what it reveals about the relationship between morality and norms.