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February 18th: Aaron Bentley, “Social Ontology as a Normative Project”

Please join us for the first workshop of the Spring 2016 Term:

Social Ontology as a Normative Project

Aaron Bentley, The Graduate Center, CUNY
Thursday, February 18th, 2016, 12:30-2:00pm
Location: GC Philosophy Dept. Thesis Room

Please see the abstract for the talk below.

Social Ontology as a Normative Project

In this paper I will propose an alternative approach to certain kinds of questions in social ontology and social metaphysics. This represents a reaction to a trend in contemporary social ontology which uses social ontological theories to defend certain positions in normative political philosophy. I will argue that many social ontological claims are themselves essentially normative claims and that the relationship between social ontology and normative political and social theory cannot be one of grounding the political in the metaphysical. To do so, I will describe and defend what I will call the ethical approach to social ontology and apply it to a contemporary debate over the structure of collective intentions. I will defend the coherence of adopting the ethical stance by defending two claims: (1) that the social world and the means we have of producing it are not fixed and are produced through human activity; (2) that social objects and our means of producing them are subject to ethical evaluation. Following this, I will apply this approach to the debate over collective intentions and discuss the implications of the approach for future work in social ontology.