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| Funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council
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Part of the Institute for Science & Ethics
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A programme of the Oxford Martin School
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Linked with the Oxford Centre for Neuroethics and the Oxford Uehiro Centre
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SRC in brief:
SRC will use the latest developments in cognitive science, neuroscience, evolutionary biology and social psychology to understand how moral judgements and intuitions differ among different groups in society, with particular attention to their role in religious conflict. |
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2013 Events Talk: Using Religion to Justify Violence Date and time: 5.30 - 6.30pm, Thursday 13 June 2013 Speaker: Dr Stephen Clarke Venue: Graduate Training Room, Ground Floor, Radcliffe Humanities, Woodstock Road, Oxford OX2 6GG Further details: Booking not required, all welcome. Much has been written about the relationship between religion and violence, and much of what has been written is aimed at trying to determine whether, how and why religion causes violence. In my forthcoming book The Justification of Religious Violence (Wiley-Blackwell), I pursue a different goal, which is to understand if and how religion can be used to justify violence. Followers of many different religions, who commit violent acts, seek to justify these by appealing to religion. I argue that religious believers are able to incorporate premises, grounded in the metaphysics of religious world views, in arguments for the conclusion that this or that violent act is justified. In the book I examine various different ways in which the metaphysics of religious world views can be used in justifications of violence. In this presentation I concentrate on appeals to the importance of the afterlife to justify violence, focusing specifically on arguments that have been developed in the Christian and Buddhist traditions. Book Launch: Religion, Intolerance and Conflict: A Scientific and Conceptual Investigation Date and time: 6.45pm, Thursday 13 June 2013 Speaker: Professor Nigel Biggar Venue: New Ryle Room, First Floor, Radcliffe Humanities, Woodstock Road, Oxford OX2 6GG. Further details: All are welcome, but booking is required. RSVP to rachel.gaminiratne@philosophy.ox.ac.uk . Wine and light refreshments will be provided. "Religion, Intolerance and Conflict: A Scientific and Conceptual Investigation", edited by Steve Clarke, Russell Powell, and Julian Savulescu. Introduction by Professor Nigel Biggar, Regius Professor of Moral and Pastoral Theology and Canon of Christ Church. About the book:
The relationship between religion, intolerance and conflict has been the subject of intense discussion, particularly in the wake of the events of 9-11 and the ongoing threat of terrorism. This book contains original papers written by some of the world's leading scholars in anthropology, psychology, philosophy, and theology exploring the scientific and conceptual dimensions of religion and human conflict. Authors investigate the following themes: the role of religion in promoting social cohesion and the conditions under which it will tend to do so; the role of religion in enabling and exacerbating conflict between different social groups and the conditions under which it will tend to do so; and the policy responses that we may be able to develop to ameliorate violent conflict and the limits to compromise between different religions. The book also contains two commentaries that distill, synthesize and critically evaluate key aspects of the individual chapters and central themes that run throughout the volume. The volume will be of great interest to all readers interested in the phenomenon of religious conflict and to academics across a variety of disciplines, including religious studies, philosophy, psychology, theology, cognitive science, anthropology, politics, international relations, and evolutionary biology. Pre-order on OUP website here: http://ukcatalogue.oup.com/product/9780199640911.do 2012 Events Seminar: The moral argument in the light of evolutionary ethics On 8 May 2012, SRC visitors Johan De Smedt and Helen De Cruz delivered a seminar at the Oxford Martin School. The idea that religion and morality are inextricably linked has been proposed in philosophy, cultural anthropology, and more recently, cognitive science of religion. In natural theology, moral arguments for the existence of God take this assumed connection between the religious realm and morality as a starting point: they hold that if objective binding moral norms exist, then God exists. Recent debates in evolutionary ethics have also focused on the connection between metaphysical naturalism and moral truth: does an evolutionary origin of morality entail moral scepticism? In this paper, we review the implications of evolutionary ethics for the moral argument. First, can a metaphysical naturalist maintain some form of moral realism? Second, why is there an assumed connection between morality and God’s existence, and is this assumption warranted? 2011 Events SRC researcher Joanna BB presents talks at Princeton Joanna Burch-Brown headed to Princeton this month (December) to give two talks on applied ethics and strategy consequentialism, coming out of work that she is doing for the Science and Religious Conflict project. The first talk was for the Ira W. DeCamp Seminar Series, led by Peter Singer, and was on the subject of "Strategy Consequentialism and Neuroscience", with response from Princeton PhD student Richard Chappell. The talk gave an account of how neuroscience might by used to inform a substantive version of strategy consequentialism, namely by helping us to refine some of our psychological constructs, giving us tools through which to imaginatively improve our understanding of what makes things go well for creatures with minds, and improving our understanding of our capacities and propensities. This paper arose out of work she is doing in Oxford looking at how some of the cognitive and social sciences might help us understand more about how to engage with each other in conditions of conflict. The second talk was for the Princeton seminar series on Communicating Uncertainty: Science, Institutions and Ethics in the Politics of Climate Change, headed up by IPCC lead author Michael Oppenheimer, and involving Princeton academics Peter Singer, Melissa Lane, Marc Fleurbaey, Robert Socolow, Harold Shapiro, and Robert Keohane, amongst others. Joanna spoke on "Strategy Consequentialism and Climate Change", and the commentator was Marc Fleurbaey. The talk explained how wrong we can be while still managing to get our policy choices right, looked at sources of uncertainty in our decision-making on climate change (including uncertainty about the effects of possible mitigation and adaptation strategies) and proposed that we should focus considerable effort on identifying mitigation and adaptation strategies which enable us to diversify our risks. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Seminar of the Ian Ramsey Centre for Science and Religion Thursday 26th May 2011, 8:30pm, Old Dining Room, Harris Manchester College, Oxford Joshua Greene argues that ordinary moral judgment results from the interaction of two distinct neural subsystems which generate competing moral intuitions. One subsystem generates consequentialist intuitions and the other generates deontological intuitions. Greene suggests that our faculty for generating deontological intuitions developed in response to an evolutionary need to suppress 'up close and personal' harmful acts within communities and when such acts are under consideration deontological intuitions tend to predominate in moral judgment. When 'up close and personal harms' are not under consideration consequentialist intuitions tend to predominate. A key problem with this account is that many deontological strictures (e.g. 'though shalt not lie') are meant to apply beyond the range of the 'up close and personal'. Here, I seek to defend Greene's account of the evolutionary origins of deontological moral intuition in the face of this problem, showing how it can be supplemented with an account of the ways in which social organisations can expand the scope of deontological moral judgment. The social organisations that are most effective in expanding the scope of deontological moral judgment are religious institutions. I'll show why this is so, drawing on Durkheim's account of the sacred. I'll also consider the consequentialist normative arguments that Greene and Peter Singer build on Greene's descriptive account of moral judgment. Postgraduate Philosophy Conference: Science & Religion 17 May 2011, University of Birmingham This one-day conference is an attempt to bring together those working on the philosophy of science and the philosophy of religion to find areas of interaction or conflict between the two. Papers are welcome from graduate students working on either philosophy of science or philosophy of religion, but priority will be given to those that assess the affect of scientific on religious thought and visa versa. Papers should be suitable for presentation in 20-25 minutes, and will be followed by 10 minutes of questions. Short abstracts of approx. 200 words should be submitted to Naomi Thompson (nxt915@bham.ac.uk) by the 30th of April, and a decision will be made shortly afterwards. We will meet the travel costs of all graduate speakers coming from within the UK. Tea, coffee and lunch will be provided for all attendees. There is no cost to attend the event, but please register your interest by sending an email to Naomi Thompson (nxt915@bham.ac.uk) before 10th May 2011. HT11 Reading group: The Righteous Mind Dr Steve Clarke will be convening a graduate seminar/reading group in Hilary Term 2011, entitled The Righteous Mind. The aim is to read the manuscript of Jonathan Haidt's forthcoming book, The Righteous Mind, and provide him with feedback in advance of publication. This activity is a component of the Science and Religious Conflict Project. The intended audience is B.Phil. and D.Phil. students. Postdoctoral Researchers are also welcome. Please email Steve Clarke to receive reading material: stephen.clarke@philosophy.ox.ac.uk. For more information click here. Schedule: Tuesdays 16:00-18:00, Weeks 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, (25 January, 1, 8, 15, 22 February) Ryle Room, Faculty of Philosophy. 2010 Events Special Seminar: Can we talk of healing miracles at Lourdes? Blackfriars Hall, Oxford, 23rd November at 16:30. For more information click here. Entry is by invitation only and all interested should email secretary@bfriars.ox.ac.uk Reason, Theology & the Genome Conference 9 October, 2010, Christ Church College, University of Oxford, organised by the MacDonald Centre for Theology, Ethics & Public Life. For more information Explaining Religion Conference 2-3 September, 2010, University of Bristol 18th Conference of the European Society of the Philosophy of Religion 26-28 August 2010, Merton College, Oxford. http://users.ox.ac.uk/~theo0038/Conferenceinfo/General%20Trigg%202010.html This conference will attempt to bring together questions which are salient in the philosophy of religion with major issues in political philosophy. Contemporary liberalism often wishes to treat religion as a private matter, with no place in the public sphere. It considers religious reasons cannot be 'public' reasons. Yet is it justifiable to marginalise religion in this way? In contemporary pluralist societies this can create problems, but the Conference will examine how far law, and politics, should give greater recognition to the role of religion in human life. Professor Roger Trigg is a speaker at this event. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Building Peace Day Conference, 15 May, St John's College, University of Oxford For more information, please visit the Oxford Network for Peace Studies website, or contact the Administrative Assistant, Salih Solomon at Oriel College, salih.solomon@oriel.ox.ac.uk 077 174 16750. 2009 Events Conference: The Political Dimension of Sacrifice Jointly organised by the Oxford Centre for Theology and Modern European Thought and by the Humboldt University of Berlin Program on Religion and Politics. The conference will take place at Trinity College Oxford from 28 – 30 September 2009. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The 2009 Australasian Philosophy of Religion Conference University of Sydney, on the 16th and 17th of July. Keynote speakers: Kevin Hart (University of Virginia), John Bishop (University of Auckland). -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Concept of God and the Cognitive Science of Religion: An International Conference Sunday 14 - Tuesday 16 June, Birmingham. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- God in the Lab Saturday 21 March, Conway Hall, 25 Red Lion Square, London. A day with some of the World’s leading scientific researchers into faith, many from Oxford University.
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