Where do right and wrong come from?

Where do right and wrong come from?

Are there objective moral truths? If so, where do they come from, and how can we know what they are? Or is morality entirely subjective—simply an expression of individual or cultural attitudes? This talk will explore influential responses to these central meta-ethical questions about the nature and grounds of moral practice, ranging from moral realism to moral nihilism.

Dr Caroline West is a Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Sydney. She received her PhD in philosophy from The Australian National University in 1997. She lectured at Monash University and Macquarie University, before joining the department in 2002.

Caroline’s main areas of teaching and research interest are metaphysics (especially personal identity); ethics; political philosophy; philosophy and psychology of well-being; applied ethics and political philosophy (including bioethics, corporate social responsibility, free speech, institutional design and wellbeing) and feminist philosophy. Among other projects, she has written a book on happiness.