The Group is hosted by the Philosophy Department at UiT and consists of philosophers at UiT, as well as a network of external collaborators and affiliated members.
We devote ourselves to some of the most fundamental and vexing issues in ethics, moral philosophy and meta-ethics by battling with questions like: How should we live our life? Why should we be moral or ethically virtuous? Is morality/ethics objective and universal? What makes for a good life?
Our main focus is different theoretical challenges and problems pertaining to the normative authority of ethics and morality and the role morality/ethics may have in our lives. The aim of all ethical inquiry is an ambitious one: namely, to answer the issue of how one should live one's life.
Our aim is to contribute to this fundamental question by addressing its theoretical underpinnings. As a research group, we approach these questions from a wide range of theoretical perspectives, both contemporary and historical. More narrowly, we focus on five interrelated topics of ethical-cum-meta-ethical inquiry:
Value theory (aexiology) and theory of normativity
Action theory and moral psychology
Moral metaphysics
Moral semantics and -epistemology
Quality- and meaning of life
Given that the aim of all ethical inquiry is the question of how one ought to live, an important aspect of our work is also to apply theories and results to normative- and ethical issues: thereby contributing to both normative ethics and -theory construction, more generally, as well
From CRISTIN (Norwegian publication database). Please click on the names to get access to publication lists and more.
Hans Christian Nordtveit Kvernenes
For several years, we have been organizing various reading groups related to research in ethics. We are currently hosting the Metaethics Reading Group (see below), and in the past we have organized reading groups focusing on the first volume of “On What Matters” by Derek Parfit, “Justice for Hedgehogs” by Ronald Dworkin. We have also read works on epistemic justice.
LIST OF EVENTS
We place great emphasis on bringing together experts from all over the world in Tromsø as well as on engaging with the wider public. Here you can find a list of our past and future events. You can find out more about the particular event by clicking on the title of the event.