Tuesday 25th March 2025, 7.00 pm

Various ticket prices (see website)

Barnes Philosophy Club - Narrativity in ethics: Professor Sophie Grace Chappell

Supported by the Royal Institute of Philosophy 

"How, indeed, could a subject of action give an ethical character to his or her own life taken as a whole if this life were not gathered together in some way, and how could this occur if not, precisely, in the form of a narrative?" Paul Ricoeur: Sophie Gracesuggests that there is something right about both a narrative and an anti-narrative view of ethics, and that to get things right, we need to discard something in both; to learn something from both; and to move beyond both.

Sophie Grace Chappell is a philosopher whose main research concern is the relation between objectivity and history. She wants to understand what it is for ethical truths to be both objective, and also the product of long and often haphazard historical processes. Given that ethics always aspires to universal truth, and yet always has specific cultural and historical roots, can there be true epiphanies--manifestations to us of genuine ethical insight? Are there any character-traits that are always "virtues", ways of being that are always valuable and admirable? Can there be true ethical progress, steps whereby moral understanding makes real advances, rather than just changing?

Free places available to those unable to pay