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Paulina A. Sliwa

hello.

I'm a philosopher at the University of Cambridge and a Fellow of Sidney Sussex College. I work (mostly) on ethics, epistemology, and their intersection. 

From September 1, 2021 I will be professor of moral and political philosophy at the University of Vienna.

I received my PhD from MIT in 2012. Before that I read Physics & Philosophy at Balliol College in Oxford.  

When not doing philosophy, I like to sing, run, and eat. I also like this guy. 

You can find my CV here. 


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Research

My main interests are in ethics and moral epistemology. I am currently working on two projects.

The first is a book about moral knowledge, provisionally titled "Telling Right from Wrong", which has been funded by the Leverhulme Trust. It considers whether we can acquire moral knowledge by testimony, the role moral knowledge plays in attributing praise and blame, the relationship between moral understanding and moral knowledge, and the nature of moral advice. 


The second is on excuses: what they are, what they do, how they do it, and how they fit into our practices of blaming and forgiving. 


More recently, I have been interested in the nature and ethics of labour and labour division. Together with Arathi Sriprakash, Tyler Denmead, and Ella Whiteley, I have thought about labour in the academy. Tom McClelland and I have been thinking about how perception can contribute to inequalities in labour division.

I also have interests in (regular) epistemology, moral psychology, philosophy of mind, and philosophy of physics.  

Papers

In Progress: 

Telling Right from Wrong: Moral Testimony and Moral Knowledge.
Book manuscript under contract with OUP.

Taking Responsibility
Email for a draft. For Chang, Ruth (ed). Normative Philosophy: Conversations in Moral, Legal, and Political Philosophy. Oxford University Press.

Hermeneutical Advice
Down for revisions. 

Gendered Affordance Perception
With Tom McClelland. Email for a draft. 

Published and Forthcoming: 

Reverse-Engineering Blame.
Philosophical Perspectives 33 (1):200-219. (Published version here.)

The Power of Excuses.
Philosophy and Public Affairs. Online First, July 2019. (Published version here.)
​
Excuse without Exculpation: The Case of Moral Ignorance.
In Shafer-Landau, Russ (ed.) Oxford Studies in Metaethics. pp. 72-95. 2020

Faith and Know How. 
In Benton, Matthew,  Hawthorne, John & Rabinowitz, Dani (eds.) Knowledge, Belief, and God: New Insights in Religious Epistemology. Oxford University Press. 

Moral Understanding as Knowing Right from Wrong.
Ethics 127 (3):521-552. (Published version here) 
Featured at PeaSoup with Précis by Kieran Setiya. 

​On Knowing What's Right and Being Responsible (Draft). 
In Robichaud, Philip and Wieland, Jan Willam (eds.) Responsibility: The Epistemic Condition. Oxford University Press.

Moral Knowledge and Moral Worth.
Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 93 (2):393-418. (Published version here)

Respecting All the Evidence (with Sophie Horowitz). 
Philosophical Studies 172 (11):2835-2858. (Published version here)

Expecting the Unexpected (with Tom Dougherty and Sophie Horowitz).
Res Philosophica 92 (2):301-321. (Published version here)

Understanding and Knowing.
Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 115 (1pt1):57-74. (Published version here)

Praise without Perfection: A Dilemma for Right-making Reasons. 
American Philosophical Quarterly 52 (2). (Published version here)

In Defense of Moral Testimony. 
Philosophical Studies vol. 158  no. 2  (2012): 175-195. (Published version here)  

Teaching

I lecture in Philosophy of Mind, Ethics, Metaphysics, and Epistemology. I supervise in Ethics, Epistemology, Philosophy of Science, Philosophy of Mind, Metaphysics, and Set Texts. 







paulina sliwa : faculty of philosophy : university of cambridge : Sidgwick Avenue : Cambridge : CB3 9DA : pas70 at cam dot ac dot uk
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