Philosophy Speaker Series

Please join us for our first speaker of the year!

Date: Friday, October 1, 2021

Time: 4:00 p.m. - 6:00 p.m.

Contact kdyck@wlu.ca for Zoom link

Dr. Kathy Behrendt - 

The Future is Not What it Used to Be: Boredom, Longevity, and the Curmudgeonly Attitude to Change

Boredom has dominated discussions about longevity thanks to Bernard Williams’ influential “The Makropulos Case.” I reveal the presence, in that paper, of a neglected, additional problem for the long-lived person, namely alienation in the face of unwanted change. Williams gestures towards this problem but does not pursue it. I flesh the problem out on his behalf, connecting it to what I call the curmudgeonly attitude to change. This attitude manifests itself in the tendency, amongst those getting on in years, to observe that some, many, perhaps most, things are getting worse. Curmudgeonliness is typically met with derision or dismissal, because it often concerns changes that don’t directly or radically inhibit the curmudgeon’s well-being or autonomy. I believe that taking the curmudgeonly attitude more seriously will provide insight into the longer-lived self and its relation to the future. Using Williams’ approach to longevity as the framework, I contend that—as with boredom—a sense of alienation born of curmudgeonliness can become terminal for the subject, rendering her unable to envision the future as a site of worthwhile, valuable, or meaningful activity. However, I uncover various ways in which this agential stasis is significantly distinct from boredom and constitutes a different worry and a different risk for the long-lived individual. 

Dr. Byron Williston

Friday, November 5, 2021

Time: 4:00 - 6:00 p.m. 

Contact kdyck@wlu.ca for Zoom link

Deep Decarbonization and the Geopolitical Future 

The only way for the world to reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2050 (a target endorsed in principle by many national governments) is to engage in what has been called “deep decarbonization.” This involves at a minimum halving global emissions by 2030 and every decade thereafter until net-zero is achieved. But international climate diplomacy has gotten us nowhere near an agreement on how to do this. Indeed, philosopher Dale Jamieson has referred to international climate diplomacy, embodied most prominently in the 26 largely useless COP meetings held since 1995, as a “zombie exercise.” Perhaps we should eschew the path that has been pursued so doggedly in those settings, that of trying to secure a voluntary and universal agreement among states concerning carbon reduction targets? In the spirit of this suggestion a new geopolitical model is emerging. Its earliest manifestation is the idea of a “climate club,” a group of states able to coerce global free-riders into compliance with the goals of deep decarbonization through punitive carbon tariffs. What does this proposed model portend for possible future geopolitical formations? In this paper, I make a two-pronged argument: (a) that there are effectively just two choices here, neoliberalism and green-Keynesianism; and (b) that we should work to establish a global order instantiating green-Keynesian principles. This is the Climate Leviathan, a construct described and criticized by Mann and Wainright in their arresting 2016 book, Climate Leviathan: A Political Theory of our Planetary Future. Most of my analysis here defends this geopolitical form from their attacks against it.