[SydPhil] SYMPOSIUM: RATIONALITY, AGENCY AND RESPONSIBILITY IN SOCIAL GROUPS (Canberra)

[Walker, Mary]

SYMPOSIUM: RATIONALITY, AGENCY AND RESPONSIBILITY IN SOCIAL GROUPS

1:00pm to 5:00pm , 13th November 2015.



Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics (CAPPE) Charles Sturt University

Room G.09, 10 -12 Brisbane Avenue, Barton, ACT 2600



This symposium is a launch of CAPPE's newly formed 'Rationality, Agency and Responsibility in Social Groups,' which looks at issues related to social epistemology, judgement, group agency and collective responsibility as well as the application of these.



The symposium features three papers with discussion as outlined below. Replies to two papers will also be given.



Everyone is welcome and the symposium is free of charge, however space is limited. To reserve your space, please email Dr Kylie Bourne at kbourne at csu.edu.au<mailto:kbourne at csu.edu.au> or call on (02)6272 2678. A limited number of visitor car spaces are also available.



Program



1:00 pm to 1:05pm           Opening and Welcome

Prof. Suzanne Uniacke, Director CAPPE, CSU

1:05pm to 1:45pm            "Unifying Group Rationality"

                                                Dr Matt Kopec, Research Fellow, CAPPE



Different authors in the burgeoning field of social epistemology often use very distinct notions of group rationality or justified group belief. In this essay, I offer an account of group rationality that unifies the dominant notions present in the literature. I argue that if we employ a teleological account of epistemic rationality, and allow that there are many different epistemic goals that are worth pursuing for various groups and individuals, we can then see how those seemingly divergent understandings of group rationality are all intimately related. I close by showing how the view allows us to generate normative suggestions when applied to real life groups.



This paper will be followed by 20 minutes discussion



1:45pm to 2:05pm            Reply by Professor Seumas Miller, Professor of Philosophy, Charles Sturt University



2:05 pm to 2:45pm           "Experimentation by industrial selection"

                                                Dr Justin Bruner, Post-Doctoral Research Fellow, School of Philosophy, Australian National University.



In recent years the social structure of scientific inquiry has generated considerable interest.  Yet prior work on the topic tends to ignore the fact that in broad swaths of science unscrupulous characters (pharmaceuticals, tobacco companies, etc.) often have incentive to promote a claim regardless of the underlying facts.  We consider two ways industry can guide group inquiry and explore a few means honest communities of truth-seekers can resist the influence of biased agents.



This paper will be followed by 20 minutes discussion



3:05pm to 3:35pm             Afternoon Tea break



3:35pm to 4:15pm             "In what ways are acts of cyberaggression collective?"

                                                Dr Kylie Bourne, Research Associate, CAPPE



Victims of acts of cyberagression talk about their experiences of online bullying, trolling and shaming in ways that suggest these acts were performed by groups of people. How are we to make sense of such talk? In this paper I argue that although some cases of cyberaggression are aggregations of individual actions such that terms like 'they' and 'the group' make sense as kinds of linguistic shorthand for large amounts of people, other cases involve actions performed by agential collectives. I advance a taxonomic distinction between these 'aggregative' and 'cohesive' groups and argue that in some instances the actions of these online cohesive groups can be morally evaluable in the same way that we evaluate some groups in the physical world.



This paper will be followed by 20 minutes discussion



4:35pm to 4:50pm             Reply by Professor Seumas Miller, Professor of Philosophy, Charles Sturt University



4:50pm to 5:00pm             Thank you and close, Prof Suzanne Uniacke, Director CAPPE



After the closure of the symposium all are welcome to join us as we adjourn to the Walt and Barley, Kingston Foreshore for (self-funded) refreshments.




Mary Walker
Research Assistant
Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics

T: +61 (0)2 6272 6277
E: marwalker at csu.edu.au<mailto:marwalker at csu.edu.au>
P: Locked Bag 119, Kingston ACT 2604, Australia
Hours: Monday & Tuesday 9am-5pm, Wednesday 1.30pm-5pm


[Charles Sturt University]<http://www.csu.edu.au/>

|   ALBURY-WODONGA   |   BATHURST   |   CANBERRA   |   DUBBO   |   GOULBURN   |   MELBOURNE   |   ONTARIO   |   ORANGE   |   PORT MACQUARIE   |   SYDNEY   |   WAGGA WAGGA   |

________________________________
LEGAL NOTICE
This email (and any attachment) is confidential and is intended for the use of the addressee(s) only. If you are not the intended recipient of this email, you must not copy, distribute, take any action in reliance on it or disclose it to anyone. Any confidentiality is not waived or lost by reason of mistaken delivery. Email should be checked for viruses and defects before opening. Charles Sturt University (CSU) does not accept liability for viruses or any consequence which arise as a result of this email transmission. Email communications with CSU may be subject to automated email filtering, which could result in the delay or deletion of a legitimate email before it is read at CSU. The views expressed in this email are not necessarily those of CSU.

Charles Sturt University in Australia<http://www.csu.edu.au> The Grange Chancellery, Panorama Avenue, Bathurst NSW Australia 2795 (ABN: 83 878 708 551; CRICOS Provider Number: 00005F (National)). TEQSA Provider Number: PV12018
Charles Sturt University in Ontario<http://www.charlessturt.ca/> 860 Harrington Court, Burlington Ontario Canada L7N 3N4 Registration: peqab.ca.

Consider the environment before printing this email.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mailman.sydney.edu.au/pipermail/sydphil/attachments/20150928/577c6972/attachment-0002.html>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: csu-logo_74f41715-4530-4005-a285-3280d58d5de0.bmp
Type: image/bmp
Size: 37976 bytes
Desc: csu-logo_74f41715-4530-4005-a285-3280d58d5de0.bmp
URL: <http://mailman.sydney.edu.au/pipermail/sydphil/attachments/20150928/577c6972/attachment-0002.bmp>