Eunice Belgum Memorial Lectures
2008-2009


Barbara Herman
Griffin Professor of Philosophy and Professor of Law, UCLA
Lecturer

Sources of Moral Content
Monday, April 27
7:00-8:30 p.m.
Holland Hall 501
This lecture argues against a postulate of modern moral theory that motive has nothing to do with the rightness (or wrongness) of action.  It aims to show, using the example of Kant's moral theory, that there is a sound notion of motive that is both the source of moral content (explaining what we are obligated to do or avoid) and whose presence is required for morally correct action.

Acting Against Principle
Tuesday, April 28
3:30-5:00 p.m.
Holland Hall 501
This lecture considers the old problem of ends justifying means: whether and how we might justify actions that are normally wrong when they are means to good ends.

Booksigning will take place after each lecture • Books are available in the St. Olaf Bookstore • Parking is available for visitors, faculty, and staff in the Holland Hall parking lot, the overflow Pump House parking lot (across the street), and the Buntrock Commons parking lot.
Map and directions to campus

About the Lecturer

Professor Barbara Herman is the Griffin Professor of Philosophy at UCLA and Professor of Law at the UCLA law school. She teaches and writes on moral philosophy, Kant's ethics, and the history of ethics, as well as social and political philosophy. She served as President of the Pacific Division of the American Philosophical Association from 1999 to 2000.

She has presented the prestigious Tanner Lectures (1997) and the Whitehead Lectures at Harvard University. Her books include Moral Literacy, (Harvard University Press, 2007) and The Practice of Moral Judgment, (Harvard University Press, 1993).  She is the editor of John Rawls: Lectures on the History of Moral Philosophy (Harvard University Press, 2000) and Topics on Moral Theory (Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, Vol. 66, Nos 1 & 2) and co-editor of Reclaiming the History of Ethics: Essays for John Rawls (Cambridge University Press, 1997). Her dissertation, Morality and Rationality: A Study of Kant’s Ethics, was published by Garland Publishing in the series Harvard Dissertations in Philosophy (1990). She has also published numerous articles in moral philosophy.

About the Belgum Lectures

The Belgum Lectures, now in their 29th year, honor the memory of Eunice Belgum, who graduated from St. Olaf College in 1967. The lecture series was established in the hope that Eunice's tragic death in 1977 would not end her impact on the profession, teaching, and scholarship she loved so much. While the lectures may be on any topic, the philosophy department makes a special effort to choose topics in areas of special interest to Eunice, namely ethics, philosophy of mind, and feminism.

Eunice received a Ph.D. in philosophy from Harvard University. Her dissertation, "Knowing Better: An Account of Akrasia," was published posthumously by Garland Publishers. Upon leaving Harvard, Eunice began an exceptionally promising career in philosophy, teaching at Trinity College and the College of William and Mary. She was one of the original members of the Society for Women in Philosophy.

The lectures are supported by a fund established by Eunice's family and friends.


Eunice Belgum with her disertation director, Hilary Putnam, and colleague Georges Rey