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New Faculty Profile: Bruno Guindon
尤物视频鈥檚 (SFU) Department of Philosophy is very pleased to welcome new faculty member Bruno Guindon as a lecturer this term. Bringing teaching experience from the University of British Columbia and McGill, Guindon returns as one of our philosophy alumni. He completed an MA in the department in 2008 before heading to McGill to complete a PhD in 2015.
Guindon鈥檚 primary areas of research are metaethics and normative ethics. This includes interests in normative questions related to the treatment of animals, the value of nature and justificatory appeals to conscience in health care.
In Conversation 鈥� Philosophers in their Own Words
You list your areas of interest as normativity, akrasia, and rationality 鈥� what are these and how do they apply in real life?
鈥淎ll of these have crucial application in real life! I don鈥檛 think I鈥檇 be so concerned with them if they didn鈥檛. The philosophy of normativity is the study of oughts or shoulds鈥攐r, more fundamentally, the study of reasons. For example, I think there鈥檚 good reason to believe that anthropogenic climate change is a very real phenomenon, and that fact is a good reason to take serious and direct steps to mitigate its effects. That is, I think we ought to believe what the science is telling us about our role in the current climate crisis, and that there are certain things that we ought to do in light of this."
"Having said that, the relation between normativity and rationality might seem obvious: many people鈥攎any philosophers, at least鈥攖hink that what it is to be rational is to simply believe and act as one ought. I think that rationality, or being rational, is a special kind of cognitive achievement, but I don鈥檛 think things are quite as simple as that. Part of my work involves trying to explain what being rational amounts to, if not believing and acting as one ought."
"My interest in akrasia鈥攐r weakness of will鈥攅merged from thinking about the nature of rationality. To be akratic is to fail to intend to do what you believe you ought to do. Many philosophers think that akrasia is a failure of rationality. I鈥檓 skeptical. I don鈥檛 think it鈥檚 irrational to fail to intend to do what one believes what one ought to do鈥攁t least not obviously. That鈥檚 not to say that I think there鈥檚 nothing wrong with being akratic: we definitely should not be akratic! But I don鈥檛 think akrasia is a rational failure. If hard pressed, I would say that akrasia is a moral failure.鈥�
Bruno Guindon is teaching the following courses:
This instructor is currently not teaching any courses.