Adam has interests throughout ethics (meta, normative, and applied), social-political philosophy, philosophy of law, metaphysics, and philosophy of mind. His current research focuses on understanding how long-standing issues in ethics and value theory play out in the phenomena of pain. His published work includes the monograph Pain and Value, and the articles “Pains’ Evils” in Utilitas (2009) and “Privation Theories of Pain” in International Journal for Philosophy of Religion (forthcoming). He the editor of the blog Pain for Philosophers.

Related Links:

• Adam Swenson’s dissertation: Pain and Value
• The pain blog: Pain for Philosophers
• The Center for Sex and Gender Research at CSUN

This event is hosted by the Center for Sex and Gender Research in collaboration with the Department of Philosophy.

Free and open to the public.  Parking on the Cal State Northridge campus costs $5.

For more information, please email Prof. Jacob Hale.

The Center for Ethics and Values presents: Bioethics in the 21st Century.

Speakers and Topics

This talk is co-sponsored by the Distinguished Visiting Speakers Program, Office of Graduate Studies.

Communication services (sign languages interpreters, note takers, realtime captionists or assistive listening devices) are avaliavle for this event.  Contact Donald Lilly for information.  Requests for services must be submitted at least seven (7) working days in advance.

This lecture is free and open to the public.  Parking on campus costs $5.  For more information, please email Julie Tannenbaum.

How exactly should we define torture?  Can torture be morally justified, and if so, in which cases?  Can torture be used as an effective tool in times of war?  Should torture be either legalized or institutionalized?  Is there any difference between doing torture and merely allowing torture?  What do some of the various moral theories have to offer us with regard to these questions?

Some links you might want to visit before the meeting:

• The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy article on torture:
  http://www.seop.leeds.ac.uk/entries/torture/
• Text of the U.N. “Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment”:
  http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/h_cat39.htm
• Information on the “Stanford prison experiment”:
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_prison_experiment
• Information on the “Milgram experiment”:
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment

Hope to see all of you there!

The Student Philosophy Society is holding the first meeting of the semester this Thursday, October 2, 2008.

All are invited to join and talk about the philosophical topics of war including: Is war justifiable?, What are the pros & cons of pacifism?, What are the pros & cons of realism?  What about just war theory?

Some websites you may want to check out before the meeting:

• http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/war/
• http://www.iep.utm.edu/w/war.htm
• http://www.iep.utm.edu/j/justwar.htm

We hope to see you there!