Programme
15:30-17:00 – Playing along with bad norms
Eline Gerritsen (University of Hamburg)
Abstract: It is undeniable that the web of social norms guiding our behaviour includes morally bad ones. Yet, following the norms we have is required to maintain important social structures. How can we reconcile this? Do we have an obligation to follow bad norms? In this talk, I sketch an obligation to comply with social norms based on the need to collectively play along with the practices in place to organise life in a society. Then, I consider the implications for how we should deal with bad norms. While we would prefer to say that a woman has no obligation to play along with sexist norms, for example, this view is at odds with our lived reality. As an alternative option, I suggest that we can be morally required to comply with morally bad norms, and that this is itself part of the injustice of such norms.
17:00-17:30 – Break with Piano music
by Tjeerd Fokkens, University of Gothenburg
17:30-19:00 – Changing Social Norms,
Lina Eriksson (University of Gothenburg)
Abstract: Social norms sometimes change, but it is infamously difficult to make them do so. Our knowledge about how to succeed has so far been fragmented. This paper suggests a theoretical framework for social norm change: drawing on different aspects of how social norms work in a systematical way, we can more easily identify ‘levers to pull’ for changing social norms. None of these levers will work in all cases, but taken together, they provide us with a toolbox of strategies for changing social norms.
On the same day before lunch, there will also be two pre-read seminar sessions for those who are interested in a deep dive into Eline's and Lina's current research. Please write an e-mail to Markus Tschögl if you wish to participate and check out the following link for more information.
Seminar sessions 7 October
A metanormative perspective on social oughts, Eline Gerritsen (University of Hamburg):
Ethical problems of governing through social norms, Lina Eriksson (University of Gothenburg)T
