Philosophy at Cambridge Newsletter of the Faculty of Philosophy
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Philosophy at Cambridge Newsletter of the Faculty of Philosophy Issue 4 May 2007 The Human Touch From the Chair Michael Frayn A few facts to welcome you to Most of the books I’ve written have book takes its rise from what the fourth issue of the Faculty’s been fiction. The Human Touch, I first learned and discussed there, Newsletter. though, is something else. It’s an and I remain immensely indebted In 1953 there were 13 candidates exploration of what seems to me to to the people who taught me for Part II of the Moral Sciences be the central oddity of the universe (especially to Jonathan Bennett, my Tripos (among them Pat Crossman, we live in, and of our relations with supervisor in my last year). Some as she tells us on p.6). In 1957 there it. The oddity is an obvious one — slight acquaintance with the subject, were 19 (among them Michael Frayn, so obvious that you might go though, makes me wary of claiming who writes opposite about how the through a whole lifetime without to be practising it (particularly in a subject gripped him). By 1968 (when even registering it, just as you might publication issued by my old Faculty the present author sat Part II) there without ever consciously taking in itself). I know enough to understand were 24, and in 2006 the number was the staggering complexity of what that professional philosophy these 56. And in the 1950s the Faculty had you see when you look at the back days is a very specialised and often a mere handful of graduate students. of your own hand. highly technical subject, and to Today we have 40. It’s this simple paradox. The understand how little I know The number of those teaching in universe is very large and very old. about it. the Faculty has risen over the same Humankind, by comparison, is only It seems to me, though, that there period from 5 in 1953 (Broad, a tiny disturbance in one small is still sometimes — sometimes — Wisdom, Braithwaite, Ewing and corner of it — and a very recent one. a place for philosophy in a more old- Lewy) to today’s 12. In 1953 the Yet the universe is only very large fashioned and non-specialised sense library was housed in one room in the and very old because we are here to of the word, as a quite general north-west corner of the Old Schools, say that it is. Without us to see it speculation about the nature of the the Faculty had no office base of its from our one tiny viewpoint, and to universe, and about the nature of own and lectures took place in talk about it and attempt to measure human beings and their place in it. Mill Lane or the Music School. The it and formulate the principles on move to the Sidgwick site in 1961 which it works, it isn’t large and it initiated changes in the Faculty’s isn’t old. It doesn’t have a size. There accommodation, the latest stage in are no principles on which it works. which is recorded on p.8. It isn’t anything. It would be good to put some life And yet, of course, we all know on these dry bones. What shifts of perfectly well that it is what it is content and style have there been in whether we are here or not. It was lectures over the decades? How do here long before we were, and it will supervisions compare? Are meetings go on being here long after we have of the Moral Sciences Club now the all departed. same in atmosphere as they were This paradox (it seems to me) is at half a century ago? The memories of the root of all philosophy. It’s at the our alumni cover from the Second heart of all the problems that have World War to the present. So been puzzling philosophers for at perhaps we will be able to bring you least two thousand years now — answers to these questions, and about the nature of perception and other similarly intriguing ones, in ethics, of language and mathematics, future issues. and of man himself. It’s the central puzzle of life. Jane Heal FBA So is this book philosophy? Well, Professor of Philosophy I read philosophy at Cambridge, and Chair of the Faculty Board it was one of the most formative experiences of my life. A lot of the Philosophy at Cambridge page 1 May 2007 There is still sometimes an at it itself, you discover what a glimpse some small corner of the opportunity for some idiot who bizarrely confused place it is. And if battlefield through the smoke, I’ve doesn’t know too much about you manage to stand back far enough written down what I thought I could anything in particular to put his head to get a glimpse of your own see. And in the last few years I began above the parapet for a moment, and interactions with it — and with all the to think that perhaps the time had risk getting it shot off while he takes a other people around you who are also come, before I got any older and look around at the battlefield. trying to relate to it — you might see found it even harder to think straight, Stupidity and ignorance aren’t how elusive they are. You might even to set out all this material in some qualities to boast about, but they do come to understand something about sort of ordered form. This book, for occasionally have their point. Not the elusiveness of your own self. better or for worse, is the result. knowing what everyone else knows I suppose that questions like this might just offer the chance to look at have formed the background to most Michael Frayn (Emmanuel) is an things as if they’d never been looked of the fiction I’ve written over the last author, playwright and honorary at before, and to be astonished at the forty or fifty years. On and off, member of the Faculty. The Human sheer strangeness of them. If you don’t though, for all that time, I’ve also Touch is published by Faber and know what’s already been said about been struggling to confront them Faber, 2006. ISBN 0571232175. the world, and you have to try to look directly. Every time I thought I could The First Routledge Lecture system with an alternative one, which would align the incentives of the pharmaceutical industry more closely with the interests of the global poor. Under this alternative system, pharmaceutical companies would receive extra benefits for the first twenty years of the product life of their new drugs, but not by giving them monopoly power over these drugs, as is the case with the current patent system. Rather, they would be paid economic rent in proportion to the reduction in the global disease burden achieved by their new drugs. Pogge argued that this new system would (a) incentivize the development of drugs for neglected diseases, such as malaria, that account for one third of global deaths, (b) encourage Jane Heal and Thomas Pogge generic drug manufacturers to drive down prices so that new drugs become affordable to the poor, and On a rainy afternoon in November, name on developing countries. (c) smoothen the delivery of drugs to Thomas Pogge (Columbia and ANU) Pogge has put forward a host of the poor by using well-oiled inaugurated the new annual lecture ‘feasible and politically realistic’ corporate machines. series sponsored by Routledge. proposals to reform these institutions In the lively discussion following Professor Pogge is known for his and frameworks, so that we no his lecture, Professor Pogge fleshed fine work on Kant and Rawls, but longer cause harm to people in these out his proposal — how it will be perhaps more famous for his tireless countries; see e.g. his book World financed and implemented. He efforts to make us realise the extent Poverty and Human Rights (Polity, admitted that there are still some issues of the deprivation faced by the poor 2002). that need to be addressed, especially in developing countries and the In the lecture Pogge demonstrated with respect to measurement and gravity of our moral responsibility once more his imagination and administration. The lecture and for their plight. According to Pogge, ingenuity in tackling the difficult subsequent discussion proved to be a we are obliged to eradicate this question of how to implement our stimulating and timely reminder of poverty not so much because of our moral obligations within the our obligations to distant others in positive duty to assist, but because framework of real life politics. His need. of our negative duty not to harm. topic was specifically the international He argues that the root causes of intellectual property rights system global poverty are the international as it applies to pharmaceutical Fabian Freyenhagen institutions and legal frameworks companies. He proposed to Temporary Lecturer in Philosophy that our governments impose in our supplement the current patent Philosophy at Cambridge page 2 May 2007 Metaethics Exaggerated Conference Reports On 18 November 2006, a one-day conference was held in of My Death King’s College on Metaethics, organised by Fabian Freyenhagen. Six talks were given by philosophers at the forefront of this vast and vibrant area. The day started Philosophy is supposed to reconcile us to death, and even with a debate on moral realism between Russ Shafer-Landau to reported death.