About the 2000-2001 Lectures
The University of California, Berkeley will host the prestigious Tanner
Lectures on Human Values, a three-day event to be held from March 19
to March 21, 2001. This year, the lectures will focus on values and
social practices.
Oxford University moral and political philosopher Joseph Raz will deliver
the 2000-2001 Tanner Lectures, marking the establishment of this lecture
series as one of Berkeley's academic traditions. The lecture series
is entitled “The Practice of Value” and Professor Raz will
speak on “The Social Dependence Thesis” on Monday, March 19
and “Understanding and Change” on Tuesday, March 20. Both
lectures start at 4:10 p.m. and will take place at the Toll Room of
the Alumni House.
Following his lectures, Raz will participate in a discussion seminar
about his lectures on Wednesday, March 21, 2001, at 4:10 p.m. at the
Alumni House. Commentators will be Harvard University philosophy professor
and renowned ethics scholar Christine Korsgaard, University of Chicago
philosophy professor and prominent German idealism, ethics and political
philosophy scholar Robert Pippin, and distinguished University of California,
Berkeley philosophy professor and ethics scholar Bernard Williams.
In his lectures, Raz will address the relation between values and social
practices. He plans to expand on some of the issues discussed in Chapters
6-9 of his recent book "Engaging Reason" (2000), considering
such questions as whether social practices explain values, and whether
social change engenders the creation of new values.
The lectures and the seminars are free and open to the public.
Lecture Schedule
Lecture One: The Social Dependence Thesis
Monday, March 19, 2001 4:10-6:30 p.m.
Toll Room, Alumni House
With commentary by Bernard Williams
Lecture Two: Understanding and Change
Tueday, March 20, 2001 4:10-6:30 p.m.
Toll Room, Alumni House
With commentary by Christine Korsgaard and Robert Pippin
Reception to follow lecture in the Bechtel Room
Seminar and Discussion
Wednesday, March 21, 2001 4:10-7:00 p.m.
Toll Room, Alumni House
With commentary by Christine Korsgaard, Robert Pippin, and Bernard Williams
About Joseph Raz
Joseph Raz is a Professor of the Philosophy of Law and Fellow of Balliol
College at the University of Oxford, and a Visiting Professor at Columbia
University. He has made major contributions to jurisprudence, political
philosophy, ethics and practical reason, and is considered to be one
of the most distinguished moral and political philosophers of our time.
Raz has written numerous books including and "Engaging Reason"
(2000), "Practical Reasons and Norms" (1999), "Ethics
in the Public Domain" (1995), "The Concept of a Legal System"
(1980), " The Authority of Law" (1979). His book entitled
"The Morality of Freedom" (1986) won the W. J. M. Mackenzie
Book Prize from the Political Studies Association of the United Kingdom
and the Elaine and David Spitz Book Prize from the conference for the
Study of Political Thought in New York.
Raz first taught at Hebrew University where he joined the Faculty of
Law and the Department of Philosophy in 1967. In 1972, he was appointed
Fellow and Tutor of Law at Balliol College at the University of Oxford
and has been a member of the sub-faculty of philosophy since 1977. In
1985 he was appointed ad hominem chair of the Philosophy of Law. Raz
has been a visiting professor at a variety of prestigious universities
including The Rockefeller University, University of California at Berkeley,
Yale, University of Southern California, Princeton, and the University
of Michigan.
Raz is a Fellow of the British Academy and a Foreign Honorary Member
of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He also holds several
editorial and consultative appointments with a wide variety of scholarly
journals including Law and Philosophy and The American Journal of Jurisprudence.
Raz earned his Magister Juris summa cum laude from the Hebrew University
of Jerusalem in 1963, and his Ph.D. from the University of Oxford in
1967.
About the Commentators
Christine Korsgaard
Arthur Kingsley Porter Professor of Philosophy and Chair of the Department
of Philosophy at Harvard University
Christine Korsgaard is the Arthur Kingsley Porter Professor of Philosophy
and Chair of the Department of Philosophy at Harvard University. Her
work focuses on moral philosophy and its history, as well as the theory
of personal identity.
She has recently written two books: "The Sources of Normativity"
(1996), which was an expanded version of her 1992 Tanner Lectures, and
"Creating the Kingdom of Ends" (1996), a collection of her
previously published papers on Kant's moral philosophy and approaches
to issues in contemporary moral philosophy.
Korsgaard has held positions at Yale, UC Santa Barbara, and the University
of Chicago, as well as visiting positions at Berkeley and UCLA. She
is a member of the American Philosophical Association, the North American
Kant Society, the Hume Society, and the American Society for Political
and Legal Philosophy. She received her B.A. at the University of Illinois
in 1974 and her Ph.D. at Harvard in 1981.
Robert Pippin
Raymond W. and Martha Hilpert Gruner Distinguished Service Professor
in the Committee on Social Thought, the Department of Philosophy, and
the College at the University of Chicago
Robert Pippin is the Raymond W. and Martha Hilpert Gruner Distinguished
Service Professor in the Committee on Social Thought, the Department
of Philosophy, and the College at the University of Chicago. His areas
of specialization include Kant, German Idealism, Hegel, Nietzsche, Twentieth
Century European Philosophy, Ancient Philosophy, and Ethics.
He has authored numerous books and articles including "Henry James
and Modern Moral Life" (2000), "Modernism as a Philosophical
Problem" (1999), and "Idealism as Modernism" (1997).
He is currently working on a book entitled "The Realization of
Freedom: Hegel's Practical Philosophy." Pippin has held positions
at the University of California, San Diego and Pennsylvania State University.
He received his B.A. from Trinity College in 1970, and his M.A. and
Ph.D. from Pennsylvania State University in 1972 and 1974, respectively.
Bernard Williams
Monroe Deutsch Professor of Philosophy at the University of California,
Berkeley
Bernard Williams is the Monroe Deutsch Professor of Philosophy at the
University of California, Berkeley. His philosophical endeavors have
been wide-ranging, but particularly influential in contributions to
moral philosophy. He has written numerous books including "Shame
and Necessity" (1993), "Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy"
(1985), "Moral Luck" (1981), "Utilitarianism: For and
Against" (1973), and "Morality: An Introduction to Ethics"
(1972).
Williams has held many visiting positions at various universities throughout
the United States, Great Britain, Australia, and Africa. He chaired
the Committee on Obscenity and Film Censorship, which produced the Williams
Report in 1979, and was elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts
in 1993. Williams was educated at Chigwell School, Essex, and Balliol
College, Oxford.
