Chair: Daniel Garland, Ohio Dominican University

9:30 am

Presenter: Michael Wiitala,  Cleveland State University
"Diotima, Aspasia, and Socrates: The Philosopher Appearing as Sophist, Stateswoman, and Madman"

Plato’s Sophist begins with Socrates comparing genuine philosophers to gods who appear in the guise of strangers (Odyssey XVII.484-88; Sophist, 216a-d). He says that just as it is difficult to discern such gods, so it is nearly as difficult to discern genuine philosophers, who also appear under certain guises due to people’s ignorance. Philosophers, explains Socrates, “appear sometimes as statesmen, sometimes as sophists, and at still other times in some they might produce the opinion that they are completely mad” (216c8-d2). Socrates himself sometimes appears to people in these ways in various dialogues, the most obvious example being the Apology. Yet beyond Socrates, are there other philosophers in the Platonic dialogues who appear as sophists or statesmen? I argue in this paper that Plato presents Diotima as a philosopher in the guise of a sophist and Aspasia as a philosopher in the guise of a stateswoman. Diotima is the only philosopher in the dialogues that Socrates himself describes as a sophist in the good sense of the word. Likewise, I argue that in the Menexenus Aspasia not only appears as Socrates’ teacher of rhetoric, but also as a philosopher appearing as stateswoman.

Commentator: Colin Smith, The Ohio State University

10:45 am

Presenter: Myrna Gabbe, University of Dayton
"Testes, Temperance, and Aristotle's Scala Naturae"

This presentation aims to demonstrate that Aristotle correlates the capacity for sexual pleasure with the capacity for temperance (or, in the case of animals, a disposition analogous to the virtue of temperance). The greater the capacity a male member of a species has for sexual pleasures, the lesser the violence and the slower the return of his sexual urges; the lesser the capacity for sexual pleasures, the more violent are the male’s sexual urges and the quicker is their return. I argue that the capacity for sexual temperance and pleasure has a common cause: the presence and position of the testes. Male animals with external testes have, in Aristotle’s view, less violent desires, slower returning urges, and enjoy greater sexual pleasure. Male animals that, he believes, lack testes have more violent urges, quicker returning desires, and enjoy only brief pleasure. This is a story of nature’s distribution of goods, as Aristotle’s theory of pleasure and temperance correlates with his scala naturae. I argue, moreover, that Aristotle’s biological account of sexual temperance informs his claim that women are “softer” when it comes to the resistance of pleasures. Women’s inability to experience pleasure like a man contributes to their moral weakness.

Commentator: Errol Katayama, Ohio Northern University

Chair: Paul Gregor, Ohio Dominican University

9:30 am

Presenter: Danielle Ravitzki, Independent Scholar
“Family, Forgiveness, and Justice: Challenging the Moral Obligation to Forgive in Families”

This paper argues that the family operates under a normatively binding moral expectation to forgive family members who committed wrongful acts, a demand I term the Forgiveness Imperative. The Forgiveness Imperative is the unyielding moral demand to forgive kin, irrespective of harm, apology, or change of behavior. Unlike friendships, civic ties, professional associations, or even marriage (which can be entered into and dissolved voluntarily), family membership imposes the moral duty to forgive all its members. Familial forgiveness is not incidental but acts as a normative requirement within the moral life of a family. I argue that since the Forgiveness Imperative can perpetuate cycles of harm by denying victims moral recourse, individual choice, or legitimate grievance, it suppresses dissent, obscures injustice, and can exacerbate abusive dynamics. Therefore, we should seriously revise the legitimacy of this moral norm and its binding normative force within families, and reconceptualize forgiveness as a supererogatory act rather than an obligatory one.

Commentator: Joe Phelan, The Ohio State University

10:45 am

Presenter: Erik J. Alvarado Quinteros, University of Cincinnati
“Romantic relationships, abuse, and non-compliance”

Romantic relationships involve associative duties, yet their persistence in abusive dynamics could vanish. This paper intervenes in the debate between Berit Brogaard and Christine Korsgaard regarding whether these duties require mutual love. Brogaard argues that duties vanish in abusive cases like “Lucy and Rick” because they lack intrinsic care. I contend this risks a reciprocity gap, potentially absolving abusers of duties they failed to uphold.

I propose a nuanced thesis: associative duties arise from the social practice of partnership rather than purely emotional states. Drawing on Tamar Schapiro’s (2003) framework, I interpret romantic relationships as rule-governed activities with constitutive norms. By distinguishing between transgression and subversion, I argue that Rick’s systematic abuse subverts the relationship’s integrity, transforming it into a “sham.”

My argument proceeds in two stages: first, challenging Brogaard’s reliance on emotional reciprocity; second, applying Schapiro’s framework to show that Lucy’s duties dissolve to avoid complicity in her own exploitation. This practice-based approach explains how abusers incur duties through participation while victims are released via the practice’s collapse, grounding exit decisions in a deontological refusal to uphold corrupted norms.

Commentator: Mark C. Vopat, Youngstown State University

Chair: Darrin Snyder Belousek, Ohio Northern University

9:30 am

Presenter: Nadia Jeelani-Socia, University of Cincinnati
“Feminist Approach to Ethical Duties in Healthcare”

Healthcare professionals and healthcare systems have an ethical duty to promote actively assessing (i) their own different moral, political, and social understandings or identities of a patient and (ii) the different moral, political, and social understandings or identities a patient has that can affect a patient's health outcome. To explain the roots of the argument, healthcare professionals should in every case promote actively assessing patients with their moral, political, and social glasses on when treating a patient or looking at a medical case. Understanding how the different moral, political, and social beliefs or identities you hold as a healthcare professional or administrator helps eliminate harmful biases that can reinforce epistemic harms like systematic racism and testimonial injustice. Recognizing the different moral, political, and social beliefs or identities a patient has can help identify patterns that are affecting their overall health outcome, like social determinants of health (SDOH) or recurring experiences with epistemic harms like testimonial injustice and systematic racism. Actively promoting egalitarian feminist models over individualistic hierarchical models in healthcare, I argue, is an ethical duty for healthcare professionals, administrators, and systems.

10:45 am

Sunny Lloyd, Ohio Northern University
“Animals Deserve More Legal Rights: The Future of Animal Ethics”

In animal ethics, many theories and approaches agree that animals deserve more rights, but they disagree on which rights animals deserve, which animals deserve rights, and how those rights should be achieved. This paper examines three approaches to animal rights: (i) the abolitionist approach, defended by Gary Francione, (ii) the animal welfare approach, popularized by Peter Singer, and (iii) the capabilities approach, advanced by Martha Nussbaum. The abolitionist approach believes that all sentient beings ought to have a singular, robust right: the right not to be treated as property. The welfare approach aims to minimize suffering and maximize pleasure for all sentient beings. The capabilities approach focuses on giving animals substantive freedoms and opportunities for flourishing based on each animal’s own specifications. I will explain each approach and illustrate its impact by applying it to a recent New York State Court of Appeals hearing concerning the rights of a zoo elephant. Although the approaches may reach similar conclusions, their differing rationales create confusion about the future of animal rights. I argue against reliance on any single approach and instead suggest a strengthening unification of the approaches to achieve the most effective course of action to secure more rights for animals.

Chair: Myrna Gabbe, University of Dayton

2:15 pm

Presenter: Ryan Pollock, Texas A&M University-San Antonio
“Artificial Lives and Artificial Philosophy: The Centrality of Hume's Wide View of Virtue”

Hume’s catalogue of virtue includes traits ranging from traditional staples like justice and benevolence to mundane qualities like cleanliness and wit, as well as heroic traits like greatness and stoic indifference. Critics have attacked this “wide view of virtue” for its lack of coherence and suggested that Hume could have avoided such critiques with a few classificatory modifications. According to this view, nothing philosophically important hangs on adhering to the wide view.

I contend that the inclusiveness of Hume’s catalogue is not merely a classificatory quirk, but a central element of his moral philosophy. By rejecting the constraints imposed by artificial doctrines, Hume grounds morality in the natural sentiments of the human mind in its “perfect state and condition.” Religion and theology are often sources of artificial intrusion upon our natural moral sentiments. Thus, Hume singles out the eccentricity of Pascal’s “artificial life” and his “monkish virtues.” However, no matter the source, views which rely upon some artificial doctrine fail as accounts of human morality precisely because they arbitrarily narrow the scope of what humans admire and value. Hence the need for a wide view of virtue in which morality serves as a unifying basis for the “party of humankind.”

Commentator: Jacob Koval, Florida State University

3:30 pm

Presenter: Jacob Moldover, Brown University
“Injustice in Kant’s State of Nature”

In §44 of the Doctrine of Right, Kant writes that “the state of nature need not… be a state of injustice… But it would still be a state devoid of justice.” In §60 of the Doctrine of Right, Kant writes that “a state of nature is itself a condition of injustice.” These two assertions, just sixteen sections apart, seem to directly conflict.

In this paper I explicate this challenge, which has seemingly gone unnoticed by the contemporary literature. I consider the discussions of Ripstein, Byrd and Hruschka, and Varden, showing that they only account for §44. Conversely, Williams acknowledges §60, but fails to consider the contradiction with §44. And while Rosen seems to notice that these two sections are in tension, he does not recognize the extent of the challenge faced.

I then argue that by differentiating between the state of nature between individuals and that between nations, it is possible to reconcile the two sections. Because states are public rightful conditions, there may be injustice in the state of nature between nations. However, it would be a matter of public injustice, internal to a state, rather than a matter of the right of nations. 

Commentator: Amanda Goins, Independent Scholar

Chair: Ram Elsaidi, Texas Tech University

2:15 pm

Presenter: Wes Siscoe, The Ohio State University
“Speaking of Virtue”

Many virtue ethicists take how we talk about virtue at face value. But this is surprising on multiple counts. To begin with, we often speak in ways that suggest the virtues can be moral flaws, that we would be better off if we were less virtuous. And furthermore, Aristotle himself does not always take virtue talk literally. Instead, in the Nicomachean Ethics, he accepts that how our virtue talk intersects with the actual virtues is far more complex. Along with accepting that there are many virtues and vices for which there are not natural language terms, Aristotle also thought that there are words that pick out what we will call borderline traits–character traits that significantly overlap with particular virtues without being identical to them. These insights can help us come to terms with the challenges raised by everyday virtue talk.

Commentator: Larry Masek, Ohio Dominican University

3:30 pm

Presenter: Sabrina Little, The Ohio State University
“Developmental Considerations of Perseverance”

Perseverance is the virtue of persisting long in something good until it is accomplished. This virtue is critical in a good life because it enables someone to commit to worthy objectives and see them through to completion. Interestingly, there is a rich empirical literature on improving endurance, full of valuable insights for virtue educators concerning how to develop perseverance, but this work has been insufficiently employed for this purpose. This article places the endurance sports literature in conversation with Aristotelian character education. It examines developmental patterns, such as periodization of training and structured rest, and evaluates the role that practical principles of endurance training might play in developing the virtues.

Commentator: Brianna Larson, University of Cincinnati

Chair: Kevin Bethell, Ohio University

2:15 pm

Presenter: Remi Morris, Fordham University
“Experience is Everything: Farkas’s Internalism and Clark’s Predictive Processing”

The goal of this paper is to defend the position of an internalist conception of the mind, in which the mind has a unique and subjective perspective of the world that can be supported through predictive processing. Predictive processing holds that one’s mind predicts the world it perceives based on past experiences. In this paper, in order to lay the groundwork, I will first outline the current debate between internalism and externalism. Next, I will introduce the concept of internalism as it is argued by Katalin Farkas and establish her internalist responses to externalist objections. Subsequently, I will present Andy Clark’s research on predictive processing and the current scientific understanding of perception. Lastly, I will discuss how these two theories work together to support internalism as a more viable conception of the mind, as opposed to rigid externalism.

3:30 pm

Presenter: Gretchen Sahr, Ohio University
“Justice as the Stabilizer of Human Cooperation”

Human cooperation is a defining feature of social life, yet it remains fragile without shared standards that make interaction predictable and enforceable. This paper argues that justice plays a central role in stabilizing cooperation by grounding social interaction in relations of equal authority and accountability. Drawing on Mark LeBar’s virtue-based account of justice, I treat justice as a feature of persons rather than institutions, rooted in the mutual recognition of each individual’s authority to obligate, object, and demand reasons. Michael Tomasello’s evolutionary account helps explain how early dyadic cooperation structured by joint intentionality developed into group-level norms that support large-scale coordination, including cooperation with strangers. Stephen Darwall’s second-person standpoint discusses why these norms remain upheld even in the absence of external enforcement by showing how moral obligation involves being answerable to others from a shared normative perspective. By combining these accounts, I aim to show how justice makes cooperation reliable rather than unstable, allowing it to persist as a basic feature of human social life.