We spend much of our time making evaluations. We frequently express likes and dislikes about movies and art. We often disapprove of the way people behave. We have opinions about whether our teachers were any good, about whether assisted suicide should be legalized and about how animals should be treated.

Sometimes people claim that such value judgments – especially those about art and morality – are relative. But what does this claim mean? Is it that our evaluations are based on personal feelings? Or that they merely reflect the views of our society or culture?

This evening’s talk will look at these questions: what does it means to say that morality is relative? and is it true that morality is relative in some sense?

Famous existentialist philosophers include Soren Kierkegaard, Friedrich Nietzsche, Jean-Paul Sartre, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and Simone de Beauvoir. The common thread running through their work is the idea that human beings are free to choose how to shape their future. This lecture will deal specifically with Sartre’s existentialism and his depiction of moments of choice and stress in human reality. Sartre focuses on the ways we feel anxiety in the face of realization that we are free. He analyzes self-deception, a tool we utilize in coping with a future that is overwhelmingly filled with various possibilities. I will explore the basic concepts found in his work and show how they apply to everyday situations.

Presenter: Professor William Buschert

Presenters: Professors Howard Woodhouse, Mark Flynn, Ed Thompson, Bob Regnier (The University of Saskatchewan Process Philosophy Research Unit)