Date:
Tuesday, November 26, 2013 - 5:30pm to 7:00pm
ABSTRACT
The past is full of terrible tragedies, including slavery, World War I, and the Holocaust. Morality would clearly appear to support the claim that it would have been preferable for the victims of those calamities to have lived free and peaceful lives. And yet, a Zeno-like puzzle or even a paradox appears to be lurking here. Moral evaluation can be either personal or impersonal, yet neither one of these two perspectives nor any other prevalent moral evaluation of events appears to yield the morally expected conclusion. To the best of my knowledge, this puzzle has not been discussed before.
Key words: moral evaluation; the past; moral puzzles