Personality and Morality
HYBRID EVENT see website link below for both online and in-person registration
I will explore the mutual relationship between morality and personality. While these two concepts are certainly related – who else needs morality but human persons, and how could someone be a person without being concerned with morality? – there are also tensions between them. First, while morality (like law) aspires toward a universal application and validity, personality necessarily involves an element of uniqueness; what happens when what my unique personality prompts me to do is in conflict with the general norms of morality? Second, personality is something dynamic and every personality must develop: while the focus on morality seems to be what a person does, the focus on personality seems to be on who or what a person wants to become. To explore these issues further, I will consider four possible models of their mutual relationship: 1. Their initial union, in which neither concept is fully developed; 2. Their initial separation, when the concept of morality becomes objectified into a moral law and dominates over the concept of personality [reflecting most of the Western history]; 3. A reaction to 2., which led to a further development in favor of the relative independence of individuality [which mostly captures the human condition in the last 150 years]; 4. A possible reintegration of morality and personality through which they could enhance each other and better serve a further development of humanity.
Date: 2 November 2023, 17:00 (Thursday, 4th week, Michaelmas 2023)
Venue: St Cross College, St Giles OX1 3LZ
Venue Details: St Cross Room
Speaker: Professor Predrag Cicovacki (The College of the Holy Cross)
Organising department: Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics
Organiser: Dr Hazem Zohny (University of Oxford)
Part of: New St Cross Special Ethics Seminar Series
Booking required?: Required
Booking url: https://www.practicalethics.ox.ac.uk/event/mt23-st-cross-seminar-professor-predrag-cicovacki
Cost: Free
Audience: Public
Editor: Rachel Gaminiratne