Centrum pro etiku srdečně zve magisterské, doktorské studenty a kolegy na kurz Home. Moral Objectivity, Relativity and Moral Change, který organizuje částečně jako přípravu ke konferenci Ethics of Home (1-3. června 2022).
Kurz se koná každou středu od 10 do 12 v alfě, s možností distančního připojení a má podobu přednáškového cyklu, v němž se střídají jako přednášející členové Centra. V případě zájmu pište doc. Niklasu Forsbergovi (Niklas.Forsberg@upce.cz), který poskytne detailní syllabus kurzu s on-line odkazem.
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Home. Moral Objectivity, Relativity and Moral Change
A course organized by the Centre for Ethics, for PhD and Master Students, Spring 2022
Wednesdays 10—12, Room “Alpha,” G Building (and, occasionally, online)
General Description
The central focus of this course is the concept of home, the kinds of transitions that this concept is currently undergoing, its relevance for thinking and understanding in general, and for moral and political thought in particular. The course gives an introduction to questions of relativism, objectivism and historical change in morality in (mainly Anglophone) ethics and points out paths of contemporary inquiry that seek to mediate between these opposites, in light of a particular and concrete problem area: home.
The past century has brought with it fast and unprecedented globalization in which the meaning and significance of the concepts of home and belonging are constantly renegotiated and redefined. Cosmopolitanism, pluralism, multiculturalism and post-colonialism contra protectionism, nationalism and patriotism constitute the usual polarities in the political dialogue – and the recent resurgence of populism and xenophobia make exploring these issues perhaps more acute than ever. In addition, the current pandemic changed our perception of physical presence and distance, transferring most relationship to virtual space, eroding borders between work space and public space and between what is private and public.
The aim of the course is to explore the underlying ethical and political aspects of rootedness, belonging and home in an increasingly internationalizing and virtualising world. How do we understand ”home” and related concepts as a central, orienting image for the development of identity and value in the midst of such change and contestation? What are the political, social and moral consequences of a communal loss of a sense of belonging? And what do the experiences of exile, of being a refugee, of displacement and relocation entail for our communal life and a sense of identity?
Course Programme
- February 23 Growing Roots in a Changing and Mobile World 1 ONLINE!! (Nora Hämäläinen)
We will approach this topic from two angles: the need for migrants to grow roots and what enables or prevents this; and the need of people to stay rooted or grow new roots through changes in social conditions and communal ethical conceptions. I would argue that the processes of growing roots and retaining rootedness are not so different from each other, and that that some of the challenges of migration and right- wing populism and extremism could be better understood with this in mind.
Readings: Simone Weil, The Need for Roots (in selection).
- March 2 Conversations Between Different Forms of Life (Niklas Forsberg)
One philosophical temptation that has grown stronger in recent years as an effect of globalization and multiculturalism is the idea that moral values and ways of understanding are dependent on one’s present cultural setting. Things that are close to home are thus easy to understand, whereas ways of thinking that are far from home are not. In this lecture, we will discuss the difficulties of communication and understanding that may arise where people from different “forms of life” seek to convene, as well as the idea that different cultures have “different logics.”
Readings: Wittgenstein “Remarks on Frazer’s Golden Bowl”, Luria, A. R. Cognitive Development, Its Cultural and Social Foundations (in selection), tba
- March 9 Homelessness (Ondřej Beran)
Some notes about the situation of the homeless people – structural aspects of the absence of “home”. Further: what kinds of moral and political framing of homelessness are the most common; what their philosophical presumptions are. Attempts at a lecture plus attempts at talking about the issue plus attempts at talking about what we have read.
Readings: Kathleen Arnold: Homelessness, Citizenship, and Identity, selection from chapters 3 and 4 (to be specified later).
March 16—18 Intensive Seminar with Stephen Mulhall
- March 23 Philosophy and the Uncanny (Niklas Forsberg)
This lectures explores the notion of the “uncanny” – that is, the phenomenon where what is homely and familiar starts to look strange and sometimes somewhat frightening and unclear – and that experience’s relevance for philosophy.
Readings: tba
- March 30 Growing Roots in a Changing and Mobile World 2 ONLINE!! (Nora Hämäläinen)
Readings: Nora Hämäläinen: “Inconsistency in Ethics”
- April 6 Becoming Native (Laura Candiotto)
In this session we discuss the feeling of belonging to a place. By analysing Freya Matthew’s panpsychist account of a loving encounter with a place, we focus on the ethical dimension that permeates this feeling of belonging in terms of “becoming native”. Being a native is not necessarily a character one acquires by being born in a place — neither by owning it as a property. Instead, one can become native by inhabiting a place with love. And this also means to grow with it and within it. For Matthews, inhabiting a place with love enables one to communicate with the place. The final upshot is that becoming native is a practice that implies a profound moral change.
Readings: Matthews, F. (2005). Reinhabiting Reality: Towards a Recovery of Culture. Sidney: Suny Press. Chapter 3: pp. 49-83.
- April 13 Wilderness and Civilization (Antony Fredriksson)
Are we at home in nature? Or should nature be understood as wild and non-human, something that has to become cultivated in order for us to feel at home? During the lecture we will investigate these questions and the concept of wilderness: how our understanding of nature has developed during modernity with thinkers like Kant, Thoreau and Nietzsche. Before the lecture we will read William Cronon’s essay “The Trouble with Wilderness”.
Readings: William Cronon (1996), The Trouble with Wilderness: Or, Getting Back to the Wrong Nature. Environmental History, Vol. 1, No. 1, pp. 7-28
- April 20 Language and Place (Antony Fredriksson)
How do our words and expressions connect with the world that we inhabit? How can we understand a place that is not familiar to us? How do we get to know and to feel at home in a place? These are some of the questions that Norwegian philosopher Jakob Melöe deals with in his article: “The Two Landscapes of Northern Norway“. We will read the text before the lecture. During the lecture, I will give a short introduction to Melöe’s philosophy and his interpretation of Wittgenstein’s understanding of language as a practice. The main idea for Melöe is that our concepts originate in what we do: The fisherman’s concepts come from the practice of fishing, the raindeer herder’s concepts come from the action of herding. We will also have a common discussion about the text during the lecture.
Readings: Jakob Melöe (1988), The Two Landscapes of Northern Norway. Inquiry, Vol. 3, pp. 387-401.
- April 27 Belonging and Displacement (Laura Candiotto)
Becoming native is an ethical opportunity. It opens up paths for finding roots in a place, establishing positive relationships with the other inhabitants. But becoming a native should not be a privilege. Unfortunately, this is still a privilege today. For people who have been banished from their land, indigenous people, refugees, and migrants.In this session, we will discuss what I call the feeling of “displacement” that is suffered by the people that cannot find roots in a place because they are displaced by their homeland or because they live in a hostile environment. Far from being an inner feeling of estrangement and alienation, feeling displaced is dependent upon how we find ourselves in the world. I will then discuss it along with the Heideggerian conceptual framework of “existential feelings” and provide them an intrinsic political meaning.
Readings: Ratcliffe, M. (2012). “The Phenomenology of Existential Feeling”. In Feelings of Being Alive, eds. J. Fingerhut and S. Marienberg. De Gruyter; Slaby, J. (2020). “The Weight of History: from Heidegger to Afro-Pessimism”. In Phenomenology as Performative Exercise, eds. L. Guidi and T. Rentsch. Brill.
- May 4 Roots, Then and Now (Silvia Caprioglio Panizza)
We will look at the concept of ‘roots’ and their role in making a home, particularly in times of change or upheaval, e.g. climate migration and climate change, and the way they shape our sense of rootedness even within the same territory. Looking at human and non-human animals, we will ask: are there timeless roots, time-bound roots, and how does our sense of home now relate to the actual relationship to the soil?
Readings: Bruo Latour: Down to Earth (in selection); Simone Weil: The Need for Roots (in selection).
- May 11 The Destruction of The Planet (Ondřej Beran)
The idea of the impending doom – all of us will face the loss of our overarching home as we used to know it; including a lot of people losing their lives and even more suffering a lot. Some options: (cynically) positive thinking, (deluded?) techno-optimism, calls for a revolutionary transformation, embracement of the end? Attempts at a lecture plus attempts at talking about the issue plus attempts at talking about what we have read.
Readings: Rupert Read, “This civilization is finished: Time to build an ecological civilization.” The Ecological Citizen 3: 157–62, and/or Parents for a Future, UEA Publishing Project 2021, Introduction, and/or “Some thoughts on ‘civilisational succession’”, http://www.truthandpower.com/rupert-read-some-thoughts-on-civilisational-succession/, and/or any of the endless stream
- June 1—3 Conference: The Ethics of Home: Patriotism, Cosmopolitanism and Alienation
Examination
Course examination consists of writing an essay of approximately 10 pages + 80% attendance at lectures and seminars. (If one misses more lectures and/or seminars, one will get an extra assignment.) Students are also expected to actively engage in the discussion during the seminars.. The essay should be approximately 10 pages long, written in English, in a neutral font (e.g. Times New Roman), size 12. The topic for your essay is free of choice, but it must engage with the course material.
For BA and MA students, papers will be graded according to the normal scale A—F. (For PhD students, the grade options are pass/fail.) Apart from the ability to correctly account for the arguments and the philosophical contents of the material under discussion, critical discussion of the material will be awarded. We want to encourage our student to reason with the material in a clear and independent way.
Welcome!