Sean Laurent of the psychology department will be delivering a talk titled “When 'not caring' makes little sense: The role of desire in moral character judgments for side-effect effects."

"When a person acts to achieve a goal they are pursuing, this pursuit can sometimes lead to a favorable or unfavorable outcome for some system, institution, or person (the side effect). In these cases, the person pursuing the goal might be aware that this outcome is likely to occur, but decide to act anyway, because they don't really care about this side-effect outcome; what they care about is achieving their goal. The talk I will give focuses on perceptions of goal-pursuing agents' desire for the side-effect outcome, and the role this plays in evaluations of the agents' attitudes, beliefs, and moral character."

After Tuesday's Consortium meeting we will be hosting a casual Grad Meet and Greet from 2:00–4:00 p.m. where graduate students in various disciplines associated with the Consortium can drop by. This is a great chance to meet others interested in work related to ethics and moral decision making.