Announcing a new Meetup for The Canberra Atheists Meetup Group!

What: Skeptics Lecture: Do Democratic Societies Have A Right To Do Wrong?

When: December 14,[masked]:00 PM

Where:
Lecture Theatre, Innovations Building, ANU
Eggleston Rd
Canberra

Speaker: Dr Christian Barry

Place: Lecture theatre, Innovations Building, Eggleston Rd, ANU.

Do democratic societies have a moral right against others that
these others not prevent them from wrongdoing? Many political
theorists seem to think that they do. "It is a feature of
democratic government", Michael Walzer writes, "that the people
have a right to act wrongly - in much the same way that they
have a right to act stupidly." Most think that the scope of
this right is limited. A majority in a democratic society is
not usually held to have a moral right not to be prevented if
it is about to enslave or arbitrarily disenfranchise a
minority, or if it were to launch a grievously unjust war
against another society. Many have argued, however, that it
would be wrong in principle to intervene to prevent some wrongs
that democratic societies would inflict. This view, which we
shall refer to as the right to do wrong thesis (RTDW) can be
stated as follows: for democratic societies A and agents B,
there is a class of unjust policies and institutions X, such
that if A chooses to implement X pursuant to democratic
procedures, it is in principle morally impermissible for B to
intervene to prevent the implementation of X. Dr Christian
Barry will be skeptically reviewing the issues involved in
order to help better understand the ethics of democratic
governance.

Christian Barry is a lecturer in philosophy and a research
fellow at the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics
at the ANU. He is a host and producer on Public Ethics Radio,
the Centre?s regular on-line audio program. His research
focuses on closing the gap between theory and practice in
international justice.

No need to book but note that theatre holds 106.

Dinner will follow lecture.

If you have any questions please contact Nick on[masked] or
[address removed]

Canberra Skeptics Website:
http://finch.customer.netspace.net.au/skeptics/

Learn more here:
http://atheists.meetup.com/596/calendar/11699292/