The Emergence of Ethics

Lecture 1: Friday 6th March 1.30 - 3.30pm, Springbank Room, Crawford Building From Language to Commitment Lecture 2: Wednesday 11th March 3.00 - 5.00pm, Springbank Room, Crawford Building From Commitment to Morality At some point in the history of our species words became second nature to us. We learned to make conversation and to become conversable creatures. And with that shift in our habits, ethics became inescapable. We couldn¹thelp but develop mutual expectations and hold one another, with whatever measure of success, to shared standards. Ethical empathy became an imperative, not just an instinct. PHILIP PETTIT is L.S.Rockefeller University Professor of Politics and Human Values at Princeton, and Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the ANU. His books include Republicanism (1997), The Economy of Esteem (2004), with G.Brennan; Group Agency (2011) with C. List; On the People’s Terms (2012); Just Freedom (2014); and The Robust Demands of the Good (2015). He is a Fellow of the Australian Academies of Humanities and Social Sciences as well as the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the British Academy and the Royal Irish Academy. Common Minds: Themes from the Philosophy of Philip Pettit, ed G.Brennan, R.Goodin, F.Jackson and M.Smith, appeared from OUP in 2007.