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Greetings everyone,
Hong
Kong Ethics Lab would like to invite you to our first online talk of the academic year featuring Professor Samuel Dishaw from UCLouvain, Belgium and Professor Michael Klenk from TU Delft, Netherlands. This event is open to everyone—regardless of location—so
join us from anywhere in the world!
Perspectives
on Morality: Internalism and Moral Inquiry (Online)
Date: November 28, 2025 (Fri)
Time: 16:30 – 18:30 (HK Time, GMT +8)
Abstract:
A central focus of moral philosophy involves contesting the conceptual and methodological foundations of morality. Proceduralists—represented by utilitarians and deontologists—seek to develop justifiable moral principles to address issues arising in the regulation
of society, interpersonal interactions, and individual moral decision-making. In contrast, the empirical turn in moral philosophy emphasises insights from anthropology, psychology, literature, and other types of social studies as important sources of moral
theorising. This rising trend stresses an internalist perspective on morality, moving the focus from establishing well-grounded moral rules to understanding the internal moral lives of individuals and social groups and their implications for human wellbeing.
This online seminar—titled “Perspectives on Morality: Internalism and Moral Inquiry”—brings together philosophers from diverse traditions, all contributing to an internalist reflection and analysis of morality. Through talks and discussions from historical,
theoretical, and empirical angles, the speakers will highlight how shifting from a proceduralist conception of morality to one that recognises morality as an internally construed social experience fundamentally transforms our understanding of human moral struggles
and the pathways to human flourishing.
Title: Justifiability and the Other’s Point of View
Abstract:
Other people deserve our respect. But what is it to respect another person? According to the contractualist, to respect another person is to be moved to act only in ways that we could justify to them. Other influential accounts of respect share the same structure:
respect is understood in terms of a hypothetical conversation between ourselves and others. I argue that these accounts all leave out something crucial: a concern for the other person’s actual attitudes about our conduct towards them. After motivating such
actualism about respect, I defend it against two important objections: that it invites moral conformism, and that it essentially self-regarding. Finally, I argue that actualism about respect illuminates the central idea that morality concerns our relations
to other people.
Title: Lesson from The Ethical Turn in Cultural Anthropology
Abstract:
In this talk I will begin by questioning the merits of arm-chair philosophical methods in normative ethics, then explore three significant empirical developments: the rise of moral psychology, research into empirically informed moral progress, and evolutionary
debunking of moral belief. I’ll critique each for focusing too narrowly on one-to-one interactions and argue for a renewed attention to cultural anthropology’s “ethical turn” in studying moral life. Drawing on my paper, I show how this anthropological insight
challenges standard ethical theorising, reframes the definition of morality, and raises open questions about whether ethics should aim at analysis or explication.
Moderator: Dr. Heng Ying, Department of Philosophy, HKU
With Best Regards,
Department of Philosophy
The University of Hong Kong
