Title: Why be Moral?
Lecturer: CHENG Lian (Professor, School of Philosophy, Wuhan University)
Commentator: ZHANG Zhilin (Professor, School of Philosophy, Fudan University)
Chairperson: GE Siyou (Professor, Department of Philosophy, East China Normal University)
Date: 3 pm, December 9th, 2016 (Friday)
Venue: Room 5303, Building of School of Humanities, Minhang Campus, ECNU
Sponsor: Si-mian Institute for Advanced Studies in Humanities, ECNU
Abstract of the Lecture:
The question “Why be moral?” is now conventionally understood as the question the answer to which must meet the amoralist challenge. The amoralist is someone who doesn’t care about morality. He might believe that a certain action is morally required, but he denies that this gives him any reason to do it. A successful demonstration of the incoherence or irrationality of amoralism has been called the holy grail of moral philosophy. The common attempted accusations of irrationality are usually based on some would-be facts about the amoralist, e.g., that he is blind to some important reasons acting morally, or that he fails to recognize the nature of moral reasons. I’ll show that such accusations cannot be directly made. I’ll also suggest an indirect alternative which may induce a leap in faith in the committed amoralist.