Michael Rabenberg. Areas of Specialization Ethics (including Normative Ethics, Metaethics, and Bioethics), Metaphysics

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1 Michael Rabenberg Areas of Specialization Ethics (including Normative Ethics, Metaethics, and Bioethics), Metaphysics Areas of Competence Ancient Philosophy, Epistemology, Philosophy of Action, Political Philosophy Contact Emerson Hall 25 Quincy Street Cambridge, MA Education Ph.D.,, Philosophy, 2011 present (completion expected May 2018) Dissertation: Matters of Life and Death Committee: Frances Kamm (primary advisor),, Thomas Scanlon A.B., Kenyon College, magna cum laude, Philosophy and English, Dissertation Summary (See page 5 for full dissertation abstract) Why is death bad for the victim, and why is it as bad for the victim as it is? Is it rational to be concerned about death despite not being concerned about pre-generation nonexistence (i.e., the period of nonexistence before one came into existence)? And, other things being equal, are you always morally required to save more rather than fewer other people from death, given an exclusive choice between the two? In my dissertation, I address these three questions. I argue that death is typically very bad for the victim, but not for the reason that most philosophers think; that we are typically justified in being concerned about death despite not being concerned about pre-generation nonexistence; and that you are not always required to save more rather than fewer other people from death, even when other things are equal. Published Work Harm, Journal of Ethics & Social Philosophy 8 (2015), Presentations Wishing and Hoping and Living and Dying Meeting of the Eastern Division of the American Philosophical Association, Baltimore, MD, January 2017 Conference of the International Association for the Philosophy of Death and Dying, Syracuse University, May 2016 Philosophy Colloquium Series, Kenyon College, March 2015 (invited talk) Against Superstitious Process Worship Austin Graduate Ethics and Normativity Talks, University of Texas at Austin, October

2 Academic Honors, Prizes, and Fellowships Philosophy Department Fellowship, fall 2017, Semester-long research fellowship Graduate Student Fellowship, AY Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics, Year-long research fellowship Certificate of Excellence and Distinction in Teaching (for Bioethics Seminar), fall 2014 Derek Bok Center for Teaching and Learning, Awarded for an average overall score of at least 4.5 out of 5 on one s student evaluations Phi Beta Kappa, May 2010 Beta of Ohio, Kenyon College Virgil C. Aldrich Prize in Philosophy, April 2010, Kenyon College Awarded to one senior per year for excellence in the study of philosophy Teaching and Other Academic Employment Research Assistant for Gerard Vong, AY Provided Prof. Vong with feedback on several of his papers in progress while he was a Fellow-in-Residence at the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics Departmental Writing Fellow, AY , Writing tutor for undergraduates taking philosophy courses Teaching Fellow The Responsibilities of Public Action, Frances Kamm, spring 2015 Bioethics Seminar, Frances Kamm, fall 2014 Saints, Heretics, and Atheists, Jeffrey McDonough, spring 2014 Moral Reasoning about Social Protest, Susanna Siegel, fall 2013 Journal Refereeing Ethical Theory and Moral Practice Reading Languages Latin (good), Ancient Greek (fair), German (fair), Spanish (fair) 2

3 Coursework in Graduate School ( * indicates an audited course) Bioethics Seminar* 1 Frances Kamm Method, Essence, and Intuition in Contemporary Metaethics* John Bengson Plato s Republic* Topics in Political Philosophy* Thomas Scanlon Philosophy of Action* Richard Moran Normative and Meta-Normative Questions*, Derek Parfit The Ethics of Belief* Susanna Rinard Metaethics* Greek Reading Group* (multiple semesters) Kant s Ethical Theory* Kant s Critique of Pure Reason* Matthew Boyle Aristotle s Ethics* Philosophy and Law Richard Fallon, Frances Kamm Metaphysical Grounding: Seminar* History of Modern Moral Philosophy Epistemology Medieval Philosophy* Jeffrey McDonough Latin Reading Group Jeffrey McDonough Nonconsequentialist Ethical Theory Frances Kamm Plato on the Value of Knowledge Subjectivism Cheryl Chen First-Year Colloquium Part II Plato and Aristotle on Love and Friendship* Cartesian Man Alison Simmons Frege, Russell, and the Early Wittgenstein Warren Goldfarb First-Year Colloquium Part I Mark Richard, Susanna Siegel Summer Seminars Attended (competitive) Aquinas and Contemporary Ethics, Witherspoon Institute, August 2015 Instructors: Sarah Broadie, Thomas Cavanaugh, Jason Eberl, John Haldane, Candace Vogler Metaphysics and the Soul in St. Thomas Aquinas, Lumen Christi Institute, June 2015 Instructor: Fr. Stephen Brock 1 This course is different from the course entitled Bioethics Seminar for which I was a teaching fellow in fall

4 References ( R indicates a research reference; T indicates a teaching reference) Frances Kamm (R, T) Littauer Professor of Philosophy and Public Policy Professor of Philosophy, Faculty of Arts and Sciences frances_kamm@hks.harvard.edu (R) Professor sberker@fas.harvard.edu Thomas Scanlon (R) Alford Professor of Natural Religion, Moral Philosophy, and Civil Polity, Emeritus scanlon@fas.harvard.edu Susanna Siegel (T) Edgar Pierce Professor of Philosophy ssiegel@fas.harvard.edu Gerard Vong (R) Director Master of Arts in Bioethics Program Assistant Professor Center for Ethics Emory University gerard.vong@emory.edu 4

5 Dissertation Abstract My dissertation comprises three chapters, each of which is concerned with a different normative question having to do with death. Chapter 1, Against Deprivationism, is concerned with the question whether, why, and to what extent death is bad for the one who dies. By far the most popular answer to this question is the deprivationist thesis that very roughly speaking death is bad for the victim if and only if, and because and to the extent that, it makes the victim s life worse overall than it otherwise would have been. I argue that deprivationism is false, by arguing that any well-motivated version of deprivationism will imply either that many deaths are much less bad for their victims than they in fact are or that many deaths are much worse for their victims than they in fact are. In the process of defending this negative argument, I defend a positive proposal: Any account of the badness for the victim of death must accommodate the claim that although death is at least typically very bad for the victim, it is never astronomically bad (as bad as a 50-year torture session, say) for the victim. I conclude the essay by articulating a non-deprivationist view of the badness for the victim of death that accommodates this claim. According to this non-deprivationist view, two facts about death that contribute to its badness for the victim are the following: (a) the fact (when it is a fact) that death makes it the case that the victim s life had less overall goodness than is typical for a life of a member of the victim s kind; and (b) the bare fact that death extinguishes the victim forever. Chapter 2, Wishing and Hoping and Living and Dying, addresses Lucretius Puzzle, the question whether our typical combination of concern about death and lack of concern about pre-generation nonexistence (i.e., the period of nonexistence before we came into existence) is rationally justified. I argue (pace many philosophers who have discussed Lucretius Puzzle) that the core of our typical concern about death and lack of concern about pre-generation nonexistence is the combination of a hope that we actually will die further rather than less far in the future and the lack of a hope that we actually came into existence further rather than less far in the past. I argue that this combination of hope and lack of hope is typically rationally justified by defending the following claim: We are typically rationally justified both in hoping that we came into existence no earlier than we believe we did and in lacking a hope concerning any particular time or time-interval that we will die no later than this time or time-interval. Chapter 3, Numbers, Ratios, and Parity, takes up a moral question having to do with death. (The question can be extended to harms other than death, as well.) Suppose you can prevent some group of people from dying, or you can prevent a larger group of different people from dying, but you cannot aid both groups. Are you morally required, ceteris paribus, to aid the larger group? I argue that you are morally required, ceteris paribus, to aid the larger group if and only if the ratio size-difference between the two groups is sufficiently large. For example, although you are required, ceteris paribus, to prevent the deaths of two people over the death of one other person if you can prevent the two deaths or the one death but cannot prevent all three, you are not required, ceteris paribus, to prevent the deaths of 1,001 people over the deaths of 1,000 other people if you can prevent the 1,001 deaths or the 1,000 deaths but cannot prevent all 2,001; 2:1 is a sufficiently large ratio size-difference, I argue, but 1,001:1,000 is not. I argue for my view by defending a package of evaluative claims that jointly support it, the most important of which is the claim that the deaths of different people, ceteris paribus, are not equally bad but on a par (i.e., comparable with respect to their badness but neither better nor worse than one another and not equally bad as one another). 5

Curriculum Vitae Contact Harvard University Department of Philosophy 25 Quincy Street Cambridge, MA

Curriculum Vitae Contact Harvard University Department of Philosophy 25 Quincy Street Cambridge, MA JEREMY DAVID FIX Curriculum Vitae 07.21.16 Contact Department of Philosophy jdfix@fas.harvard.edu 25 Quincy Street Cambridge, MA 02138 908.902.0804 Education 2008-2016 HARVARD UNIVERSITY PHD 10.2016 1