Dr. Tamar Schapiro
The Spetnagel Ethics Lecture Series series presents Dr. Tamar Schapiro discussing “What Are You Doing When You Are Controlling Yourself?” on Friday, April 13, at 4 p.m. in Scripps 111.
Schapiro is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
This event is free and open to the public. It is presented by the Philosophy Department and the Institute for Applied and Professional Ethics at Ohio University.
Abstract: Self-control is a virtue. At least, there is some conception of proper self-control, according to which it is a virtue to be a self-controlled person, rather than a person lacking in self-control. Conceived as a virtue, self-control contrasts with two vices: the vice of excess consists in controlling ourselves too much, or too rigidly, and the vice of defect consists in controlling ourselves too little, or too loosely. Still, to understand more precisely what the virtue of self-control consists in, we have to ask, “what, exactly, are we doing when we are striving to control ourselves in the right way?” Whatever we are doing, we are in some sense relating to our inclinations. But what is it to relate to our inclinations? In this paper I want to show you that answering this question is harder than you might think.
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