This past weekend, we celebrated with graduating Philosophy Majors, Minors, and their families and friends. We are so incredibly proud of this group of graduates; they began college during the pandemic, are so talented, and have shown so much growth and enthusiasm over their years at Puget Sound! We look forward to following your journey after Puget Sound!
Graduating Majors (L-R): August Mueller, Mei Pacheco-Leong, Phoebe Bock, Wil Bloom, Alysiana SarSelfie with Wil, August, Mei, Phoebe and AlysianaGraduates and Faculty (L-R): Justin Tiehen, Phoebe Bock, Ophir Klein, Alysiana Sar, Mei Pacheco-Leong, Sara Protasi, August Mueller, Wil Bloom, Sam Liao, Ariela TubertPhilosophy Graduates (L-R): Phoebe, Ophir, Alysiana, Mei, August, Wil
Students from Professor Sara Protasi’s senior seminar PHIL 450 Topics in Value Theory: Philosophy of Disability and from her fall 2023 course PHIL 333 Philosophy of Emotions presented their work on Monday, April 22nd. Students discussed their projects centered around disability, ethics, artificial intelligence and emotions. The event was well attended, with many students and faculty stopping by to learn from and appreciate the original, interesting, and meaningful projects.
The poster presentations were as follows:
“Irrational Morality: Mad Pride and Feminist Ethics” – Emma Cole
“The Value of Negativity in Disability Positive Spaces” – Harry Gers
“Too Cool for Cringe: Autistic Aesthetics and Authentic Autistic Embodiment” – Mei Pacheco-Leong
“Disability and Race as Steamed Layer Cake: Examining the Layers of Asian American Perceptions of Disability” – Alysiana Sar
“Constructivism and Naturalism: A Separation of the Ethical from the Real” – Julien White
“AI + Emotions” – Micah Beardsly, Jesus Gutierrez, Mei Pacheco-Leong, Alysiana Sar
Please enjoy some photos from the event!
Students intently listening to poster presentationsEmma Cole presenting poster: “Irrational Morality: Mad Pride and Feminist Ethics”Harry Gers presenting poster: “The Value of Negativity in Disability Positive Spaces”Julien White presenting to student: “Constructivism and Naturalism: A Separation of the Ethical from the Real”Alysiana Sar presenting poster: “Disability and Race as Steamed Layer Cake: Examining the Layers of Asian American Perceptions of Disability”Emma Cole presenting to studentsMicah Beardsley, Alysiana Sar, Mei Pacheco-Leong and Jesus Gutierrez with poster: “AI + Emotions”Mei Pacheco-Leong presenting to group of students: “Too Cool for Cringe: Autistic Aesthetics and Authentic Autistic Embodiment”Sara Protasi with Philosophy students
The Puget Sound Ethics Bowl team competed at the Northwest Regional Ethics Bowl on November 18th, 2023 at Pacific Lutheran University here in Tacoma. This year’s team included Mei Pacheco-Leong ’23, Alysiana Sar ’24, Natalie Worthy ’25, and Holland Hauskins ’27 and was coached by Professor Tubert.
Alysiana Sar ’24, Natalie Worthy ’25, Holland Hauskins ’27, Mei Pacheco-Leong ’23, Prof. Ariela Tubert
With mostly a new team, the Fall 2023 ethics bowl students had to work extra hard to get ready for the competition. Mei Pacheco-Leong, the veteran team member, did an awesome job taking the lead and helping the rest of the team prepare. Prof. Tubert said, “I am incredibly proud of the work the team did this semester! Their presentations improved each round with each of the members of the team going well out of their comfort zone during the competition. It was so fun to watch them and be part of their process, I know this group has a bright future ahead!”
The cases for Fall 2023 involved the ethics of banning some books from schools, balancing posthumously the wishes of art collectors and accessibility to the works of art, ethical engagement with governments with a record of human rights abuses, the ethics of using artificial intelligence for approving and denying health insurance claims, and more.
Some of the students reflected on their work during the fall semester and being part of the competition:
Alysiana Sar ’24: Being part of Ethics Bowl ‘23, for the first time, has definitely been an experience. Though there were 4 of us, I could proudly tell others like ‘yeah, I was one of the four!’ It was hard because of external factors that were out of our control, but it didn’t stop us from continuing forward. I’ve learned so much as a participant, a team member and a student. I learned how to cooperate with my team in ways that were different from just inside the classroom. I learned how to present information and apply my knowledge to real life scenarios and being able to discuss it through a lens of deeper understanding. Alongside, I’ve gained the skills that Ethics Bowl provided me and friends!!! I would recommend E.B for the experience because reflecting (now that it’s over) I am so happy that I took it because I ended the semester with fun memories, new friends, and more knowledge!!!!!
Mei Pacheco-Leong ’23: It was only a couple of years ago that I joined Ethics Bowl for the first time, outwardly quiet, internally anxious but opinionated, especially ethically. My first competition, I tried to squirrel out of competing, citing performance anxiety and performance-based forgetfulness (I did not, at that point, even contribute to class discussions, even when cold-called). I loved the prep work and I loved the discussions and debates between our team, but I was terrified of giving arguments in front of an audience– even my peers. Unfortunately for me, my team saw me with kinder eyes than I saw myself and supported me through the anxieties of public speaking. That first bowl, I performed timidly but I did perform, introducing the moral considerations of our cases and our ethical framework in as few words as I could get away with.
This last bowl has been my third and final year on Ethics Bowl and I would like to say I’ve grown since that initial competition. Though between now and then, I have also taken more philosophy classes and completed a philosophy capstone course, it’s Ethics Bowl in particular where I really developed confidence both in my ideas and in sharing them. Talking through ethical considerations and intuitions with a team is such a fun way of applying philosophy to real-world events. We learn to think about how to balance what is ethical with what is practical, how to think through complicated ethical issues, and how to further the discussion without attacking people’s views. I have been delighted to watch my teammates grow as philosophers and as people, developing skills like public speaking, getting better at breaking down and talking through arguments, and learning how to support each other even when we disagree. This year, I took on the role of giving our main argument, the role I watched all the seniors before me perform so well thinking I would never do that. Just as the years before, we lost, but I am so proud of our team and I can’t wait to see how they grow as/(if) they continue onwards.
Natalie Worthy ’25: This was my first year in Ethics Bowl and coming into it with no philosophy experience was challenging, but so fulfilling. As a Vocal Performance Major, I didn’t feel very prepared to take on ethical debates, but I really wanted to experience something new while utilizing my public speaking skills. After competing with this team, I can confidently say that my time in Ethics Bowl has been so valuable. I gained great experiences, ethical knowledge, and lovely friendships throughout the semester!
Sophomore Chloe Ivy-Curwen was chosen as The Trail’s “Artist of the Issue” and was interviewed about their art and artistic background. Chloe is a double major in Art and Philosophy with a minor in Bioethics, and their preferred artistic medium is gouache paint.
One question that the interviewer asked was about how Chloe’s broad range of academic pursuits intersect with each other. Here is their response:
I’ve been extremely passionate about ethics and philosophy since taking a philosophy class in high school, but again, I hadn’t found a way to overlap these interests until I took classes here. I’ve been really interested in the need for art in life and/or society, and also the new problems that Artificial Intelligence has been creating for art making. Last semester, I took a class on philosophy of mind, where we learned a little about A.I. “art”, and this is something I would love to continue studying, or at least the philosophy behind creativity and art.
Chloe also talks in the interview about their dad and how he inspired them to pursue art, as both he and his father are artists as well. They also describe their favorite art-piece they’ve done, and what they are currently working on.
Students in prof. Protasi’s Spring 2023 Philosophy of Film and Performing Arts class (Phil 353) worked collaboratively on a final project for the course, and produced a short film titled Cinematic Utterances.
The film is composed of three shorter films: a horror, a comedy, and a drama respectively.
Each short film is followed by an interview with the director explaining the research question driving each of them. The class was inspired by theThe Five Obstructions, dir. by L. von Trier, so the overall film was produced in a documentary/mockumentary style, such that not only directors’ commentaries but also behind-the-scenes cuts are included in the film. The nature of documentary was one of the class topics, investigated through reading an article by Enrico Terrone.
The shorter films were also driven by research questions discussed in the class. The horror was inspired by a discussion of Cynthia Freeland’s “Realist Horror”; the comedy aimed to be a “good-bad movie” such as the ones discussed by Mathew Strohl in his book Why It’s OK to Love Bad Movies; the drama was motivated by discussions on cinematic realism (as famously defined by André Bazin) and on how emotional engagement with movies is possible (as analyzed among others by Deborah Knight)–in the drama, one particularly powerful scene was an homage to the ending scene of Vive L’Amour dir. by Tsai Ming-liang. The whole project was also a way of deepening understanding of the vexed question of who is the author of a film. The title itself, Cinematic Utterances, alludes to an article by Paisley Livingston on cinematic authorship. Several students reflected on how working on the film production shifted their previous views on the topic.
In some cases, however, the process solidified and provided further evidence for their views, and also allowed students to put into practice what they had thought about in the abstract. Ainsley Feeney, who starred in all three short movies, wrote:
when we talked about auteur theory, I was a big proponent of the actor taking a significant portion of the authorship. A film wouldn’t be what it is without the actors and the specific choices they make. […] All in all, my philosophy of acting centers around […] experiencing the characters. It’s important to me to be as real and true-to-life as possible, and feel what the characters would feel. […] Acting is a window into reality, and I brought as much of my real self into my characters as I could.
The movie was shot with no additional funding and only using resources available on campus on short notice so students had to be creative and adaptive. Nevertheless, important learning goals were achieved as highlighted by Emma Cole:
Stylistically I had a vision that, while mostly unable to achieve, I attempted at doing in our film. A pivotal feature in a lot of cult classic or good bad films is a specific stylistic utterance, one that is distinctly campy. Susan Sontage, in her Notes On Camp, acknowledges that camp is often found in bad films. It is a naive art that comes out of unintentional absurdity and extravagance. I attempted to pull from this idea when doing set dressing for the date scene taking time to fill the table up with colorful objects and leaning into maximalism. While in classic low budget fashion I was unable to go as far as I wanted, I think the absurdity of having a fully set dressed table with flowers, candles, and a table cloth in an otherwise empty hallway added to the campiness.
The film was shared with the Puget Sound community during a showing in Wyatt Hall on May 9th. The showing was followed by a talk-back with the cast. (Unfortunately not everyone could be present at the showing, but the whole cast is listed in the credits at the end of the film.)
Students from the class present at the showing: Harry Gers, Phoebe Bock, Joseph Alvarez, Jules Obbard, Emma Cole, Annika Freeling, Ainsley Feeney, Mei Pacheco-Leong, Emmet O’Connor, Mia Holbert.
The Philosophy Department had a chance to celebrate a great group of philosophy majors this past weekend. Echoing her words at the reception for graduates and their guests, Prof. Ariela Tubert, chair of the department, said:
This is a very special group of graduates that Philosophy Faculty and fellow students will miss a lot. Academically, as a group, they are among the, if not the, strongest graduating class of philosophy majors in recent memory. But they were also instrumental in rebuilding the philosophy community on campus after over a year of remote learning due to Covid. In these past two years back on campus, they became a close knit group and their enthusiasm and camaraderie was felt in and out of the classroom.
Prof. Tubert continued, speaking to the graduates on behalf of the philosophy faculty,
We are proud of each of you and all you have accomplished. We will miss you terribly and yes, we noticed how much you have done during your time at Puget Sound, complicated as it was by the pandemic and other things. We noticed and appreciated your contributions, your talent, and your enthusiasm each step of the way. We wish you all the very best as you continue on your path beyond Puget Sound!
Zoe Brinner ’23, Emma Sintz ’23, Ismael Gutierrez ’23, Jules Obbard ’23, Ember Reed ’23
Prof. Justin Tiehen, Prof. Ariela Tubert, Ember Reed ’23, Emma Sintz ’23, Jules Obbard ’23, Prof. Sara Protasi, Lauren Rice ’23, Zoe Brinner ’23, Ari Zainsberg ’23, Ismael Gutierrez ’23, Prof. Sam Liao
J.J. Alvarez ’23, Prof. Sara Protasi, Ember Reed ’23
Students in Professor Justin Tiehen’s senior seminar PHIL 450 Topics in Value Theory: Artificial Intelligence and the Problems of Value Alignment presented their work in the 2023 Philosophy Poster Presentations on Monday April 24th. The presenters received a great deal of interest in their work on such timely and interesting issues related to ethics and artificial intelligence and were asked some tough questions that they are working to address in their final projects. Students and faculty attending the event appreciated the interesting topics and arguments, students’ clear explanations of their projects, and the enthusiasm of the presenters.
The poster presentations were as follows:
“When Is Algorithmic Discrimination Wrongful Discrimination” – JJ Alvarez
“Anthropic Alignment” -Ember Reed
“Consciousness in AI” -Wil Bloom
“Mom…I Want You To Meet My Robot Boyfriend: A Look Into Machine and AI-Human Relationships” – Emma Sintz
“Does AI Mean What It Says?” -Zoe Brinner
“The Decision Directive: Who Gets To Decide?” – Ismael Gutierrez
“Algorithmic Injustice” -Augie Mueller
“Longtermism and Racial Bias”- Jules Obbard
“Information, Knowledge, Wisdom, and AI” – Mei Pacheco-Leong
“Evolution to Revolution: The Pitfalls of Allowing Artificial Intelligence Into Veterinary Medicine” -Aiden Bicknell
“Artificial Intelligence and Legal Personhood” -Lauren Rice
“Evil AI” – Phoebe Bock
“How Powerful Is AI? Well, The Presidents Are Playing Video Games: What Does That Mean?” -Ari Zansberg
Here are some pictures from the event, which was philosophically enriching for everyone and also lots of fun!
(JJ Alvarez with Poster Presentation “When Is Algorithmic Discrimination Wrongful Discrimination?”
(Ember Reed with poster presentation “Anthropic Alignment”)
(Wil Bloom with Poster Presentation “Consciousness in AI”)
(Emma Sintz with poster “Mom…I Want You To Meet My Robot Boyfriend: A Look Into Machine Love and AI Human Relationships”)
(Zoe Brinner standing with poster “Does AI Really Mean What It Says?”)
(Ismael Gutierrez presenting “The Decision Directive: Who Gets To Decide?”)
(August Mueller with poster “Algorithmic Injustice: An Overview of the Value-Free Ideal and Inequality in Modern Society”)
(Jules Obbard presenting “Longtermism, Existential Risk, and Racial Bias”)
(Mei Pacheco Leong with poster “Information, Knowledge, Wisdom, and AI: The Loss of Wisdom In the Age Of Information”)
(Aidan Bicknell presenting Evolution to Revolution: The Pitfalls of Allowing Artificial Intelligence Into Veterinary Medicine”)
(Lauren Rice with poster “Artificial Intelligence and Legal Personhood”)
(Phoebe Bock with poster “Evil AI”)
(Ari Zansberg with poster “How Powerful is AI? Well, The Presidents Are Playing Video Games: What Does That Mean?”)
(Three photos showing the crowd of attentive students and faculty interacting with the presenters)
Puget Sound’s Philosophy Department was well represented at this year’s Pacific University Undergraduate Philosophy Conference. Four Puget Sound students presented their work at the conference held in Forest Grove, OR on April 28th and 29th, 2023. Students reported having a great time, receiving good feedback on their work, and being motivated to continue to revise their papers. Congratulations to all for the great work and thanks for sharing your abstracts and photos!
Mei Pacheco-Leong ’23 presented their paper “On Accidentality: An Exploration of the Contingency of Values.” Here is the abstract for the paper:
Those with hegemonic identities are often able to take their social and cultural norms for granted. Those with marginalized identities, however, are often forced to reckon with social and cultural norms they may find confusing, or even senseless. In his paper “The Philosophy of Accidentality”, Manuel Vargas draws on Emilio Uranga to offer an analysis of Mexican identity where he introduces the concept of accidentality to describe the reckoning of values one has when they realize that the cultural norms they are expected to assimilate towards don’t map onto the values they hold to be important (Vargas 2020). First, I will talk a bit about what led to my own interest in this project, which will hopefully also give some context for a sense of the factors that might lead one to experience accidentality. Then, I will talk about Mexican philosophy and the dialectic around the ontology of what it means to be Mexican. In my positive argument, I move from ontology to epistemology, arguing that accidents are epistemically advantaged in that those who experience accidentality are more primed to see the world as it is. Through recognizing that cultural norms and thus values are contingent, we can better find our footing in an inherently ungrounded experience.
Lauren Rice ’23 presented her paper “Accountability and Fully Autonomous Weapons.” Here is the abstract:
Fully autonomous weapons systems (FAWS) maintain strict control over targeting and engaging with a target; the only human interaction is the act of giving a goal to the system. Through the defining lack of human intervention and control, these FAWS inherently present a lack of accountability. The importance of accountability as it relates to FAWS resides in the notion of just warfare, as accountability deters violence and promotes the resolution of conflict. Accountability is highlighted as a necessary aspect of the just implementation of FAWS. This paper defines FAWS, evaluates differing viewpoints surrounding the ethics of FAWS, and ultimately argues and defends that there is a gap in accountability with FAWS which should impede their implementation.
Ember Reed ’23 presented their paper “Nuclear Fine-Tuning.” The presentation was based on Ember’s summer research project which can be found on Sound Ideas and here is the abstract for the paper:
Recent existential-risk thinkers have noted that the analysis of the fine-tuning argument for God’s existence, and the analysis of certain forms of existential risk, employ similar types of reasoning. This paper argues that insofar as the “many worlds objection” undermines the inference to God’s existence from universal fine-tuning, then a similar many worlds objection undermines the inference that the historic risk of global nuclear catastrophe has been low from the lack of such a catastrophe has occurred in our world. A version of the fine-tuning argument applied to nuclear risk, The Nuclear Fine-Tuning Argument, utilizes the set of nuclear close calls to show that 1) conventional explanations fail to adequately explain how we have survived thus far and 2) the existence of many worlds provides an adequate explanation. This is because, if there are many worlds, observers are disproportionately more likely to reflect upon a world that hasn’t had a global nuclear catastrophe than upon one that has had a global nuclear catastrophe. This selection bias results from the catastrophic nature of such an event. This argument extends generally to all global catastrophic risks that both A) have been historic threats and B) would result in a significantly lower global population.
Jules Obbard ’23 presented their paper “Defining Knowledge as True Belief.” Here is the abstract:
It is commonly believed in the field of epistemology that knowledge is Justified True Belief (JTB). In this paper, I defend a more controversial stance held by Crispin Sartwell, that knowledge is solely True Belief (TB). I provide an overview of the Classic Analysis and Gettier’s cases which are meant to challenge the justification aspect of the Classic Analysis. I argue that the condition of justification is not necessary or well-defined, and therefore the Gettier cases do not necessitate adding something to JTB, but rather subtracting something. I advocate for a broader philosophical use of the Correspondence Theory of Truth, which states that truth is correlated to facts as they are in the real world.
A tradition for the Philosophy department here at the University of Puget Sound that was held regularly until COVID had to put the tradition on pause. 2023 is the first year that booted the tradition back up with the 2023 Puget Sound Undergraduate Philosophy Conference held on campus on March 31 – April 1. It was a very exciting semester for the department but even more so among the students. Professor Ariela Tubert and Professor Sara Protasi supervised and engaged with a handful of students to collaborate and provide students with the experience of planning a conference.
Though they knew about the conference from the very beginning, the majority of the conference couldn’t have been done alone. Most of the blood, sweat, and tears came from the committee who made this event a success. Leading up to the conference, this group of students worked together to decide on the selection of papers, reviewing them and concluding which papers could make it to the conference.
Conference Organizing Committee (students in PHIL 497: Public Philosophy, left to right): Micah Beardsley ’25, Jules Obbard ’23, Mei Pacheco-Leong ’23, Alysiana Sar ’24, Ember Reed ’23, J.J. Alvarez ’23, Ismael Gutierrez ’23
In organizing this conference, I learned a lot about planning things with a very vague initial understanding of the structure. It was interesting to see where we all fell in terms of our interests and how our opinions on the papers varied. A challenging part of this project was time management, in terms of grading papers and then separately managing the conference. It was exciting to have some sort of leadership position in our department as a group and build connections with friends and professors.
-Jules Obbard ’23
I learned so much from organizing this conference! I really enjoyed reading the submissions and getting to see what other philosophy students are interested in.
Mei Pacheco-Leong ’23
audience at the keynote address by Eric Schwitzgebel
Guest speaker Eric Schwitzgebel gave this year’s keynote address, “Does Studying Ethics Make You More Ethical?” His study was trying to find a correlation between professors’s research and whether this impacted their life and decision making. It was a unique study done and quite fascinating how he was able to measure morality in that aspect.
Something that I didn’t fully expect when I attended this talk was how empirical it would be. I think that mostly has to do with my presuppositions about how philosophy studies are conducted and talked about. But I found it incredibly interesting that there is a larger connection between the sciences and philosophy than one might think.
-Micah Beardsley ’25
Listening to the presentations and hearing the authors explain their claims and arguments was exciting, and listening to other opinions from a variety of schools seemed to broaden the perspective that I am usually exposed to.
-Ismael Gutierrez ’23
Ubuntu was my favorite. However I enjoyed the range of topics and they were all engaging/ interesting
-Anonymous
I was really proud of how professionally our students were when they commented on papers and chaired sessions.
-Prof. Sara Protasi
I was really happy to see the quality of the comments delivered by people on the planning committee and I was also happy to see the level of engagement that the audience had with the speakers during question sessions. I also think both the reception and student after party went exceedingly well as it seemed like everyone enjoyed themselves. Overall, despite any slip ups that may have occurred, I think the conference went exceedingly well!
-J.J. Alvarez ’23
I was really proud to see Puget Sound philosophy students do such a great job serving as commentators for the papers delivered at the conference, writing and delivering high quality commentary on topics one is not an expert in is hard and I was really excited to see how well everyone did. I also was happy to see students step up to organize the event, which was a great success.
-Prof. Ariela Tubert
For this being the first conference since COVID, I would like to say it was a success. From our participants sharing their papers more in depth, to engagement between audience members and the engagement within the keynote address, it was an eventful two days. As a committee member, it’s really rewarding watching everything fall into place. However, life happens and sometimes the plan doesn’t always work out. It caused a bit of trouble for the committee but, hey, that isn’t going to stop the show from continuing. In the end, a handful of those who attended the event, quite enjoyed it and found it to be more engaging and more casual than they thought. And regardless of the obstacles that stood in our way, as they say, the show must go on!!
Students will be presenting their projects from the PHIL 450 Seminar, Topics in Value Theory: Artificial Intelligence and the Problems of Value Alignment.
Come to see the students posters, hear about their interesting projects, and as always engage in informal and fun philosophical discussions.
Monday April 24, 5:30-6:30pm Wyatt Courtyard (Ferguson Plaza) New York style pizza will be served
PUGET SOUND PHILOSOPHY 