As tradicionais Gifford Lectures sediadas nas universidades escocesas de Edimburgo, St. Andrews, Alberdeen e Glasgow, contaram como conferencista convidado de 2015 o filósofo neo-zelandês Jeremy Waldron (NYU). Fundadas em 1888 e tendo como objetivo original a "promoção e difusão do estudo da Teologia Natural", as Giffords tem produzido ao longo dos últimos 50 anos um conjunto impressionante de obras dedicadas à natureza dos valores morais e do seu papel no mundo contemporâneo. Filósofos como Hilary Putnam, Charles Taylor e G. A. Cohen produziram algumas de suas melhores obras a partir das Giffords. Jeremy Waldron, por sua vez, escolheu por tema o princípio da igualdade fundamental - expresso na fórmula de Bentham "todos contam por um e ninguém por mais de um" - e as diferentes interpretações desse princípio na filosofia contemporânea. A primeira das seis conferências e os links para as demais encontram-se abaixo:
Prof. Jeremy Waldron - More Than Merely Equal Consideration (Gifford Lecture)
Professor Jeremy Waldron, University Professor at the New York University Law School, delivers the first in the 2015 Gifford Lecture series, entitled "More Than Merely Equal Consideration, - the Rev. Hastings Rashdall"
In 1907, an Anglican clergyman teaching at New College, Oxford elaborated a theory of human inequality in Volume 1 of his book, The Theory of Good and Evil: A Treatise on Moral Philosophy.
Hastings’ theory is highly offensive to modern ears: for it is a form of philosophical racism.
But we will examine it — first, because it gives us a very clear picture of the position that basic equality has to deny; and second, because it hints at insidious ways in which rejections of basic equality might be revived.
- Waldron: "Everyone to Count for One"
Professor Jeremy Waldron, University Professor at the New York University Law School, delivers the second in the 2015 Gifford Lecture series, entitled "Everyone To Count For One - The Logic of Basic Equality"
In this lecture, Professor Waldron will distinguish basic equality from various normative positions - both egalitarian and non-egalitarian - that are built up on it.
Professor Waldron will seek to make sense of Jeremy Bentham’s maxim. That maxim, 'Everyone to count for one', is tantalizingly close to tautological: for what exactly does 'no one [counts] for more than one' rule out? And is basic equality just a negative position, denying significance to certain kinds of descriptive inequality? Or is it an affirmative position based on the positive significance of certain descriptive properties?
- Waldron: "Looking for a Range Property: Hobbes, Kant and Rawls"
Professor Jeremy Waldron, University Professor at the New York University Law School, delivers the third in the 2015 Gifford Lecture series, entitled "Looking for a Range Property: Hobbes, Kant, and Rawls"
In 'A Theory of Justice' Rawls introduced the idea of a 'range property' - a sort of threshold-based approach to the significance of variations in a certain range. Professor Waldron explores this idea, which Hobbes and Kant also implicitly relied on.
- Waldron: "A Load-Bearing Idea: The Work of Human Equality"
Professor Jeremy Waldron, University Professor at the New York University Law School, delivers the fourth in the 2015 Gifford Lecture series, entitled "A Load-bearing Idea: The Work of Human Equality"
Defending basic equality is not just a matter of ‘coming up with’ some suitably shaped property that all humans share. The description must be relevant to the work that basic equality has to do. That work is comprehensive and foundational, across all aspects of morality.
- Waldron: "Human Dignity and Our Relation to God"
Professor Jeremy Waldron, University Professor at the New York University Law School, delivers the fifth in the 2015 Gifford Lecture series, entitled "Human Dignity and Our Relation to God".
In this lecture Professor Waldron will relate our intimations about a transcendent basis for human equality to the work that was done in the previous lectures about the basic logic of the position.
- Waldron"Hard and Heart-Breaking Cases: The Profoundly Disabled as our Human Equals"
Professor Jeremy Waldron, University Professor at the New York University Law School, delivers the sixth in the 2015 Gifford Lecture series, entitled "Hard and Heart-breaking Cases: The Profoundly Disabled As Our Human Equals".
In this lecture, Professor Waldron explores ways of thinking about these aspects of the human condition that allow us to maintain the integrity of basic human equality.
