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Speaker Series: Ruth Chang (Rutgers), “Hard Choices”
April 24, 2015 @ 3:00 pm - 5:00 pm
Professor Ruth Chang will give a paper as part of our annual Speaker Series.
When Ruth Chang graduated from college, she was presented with a choice: Should she pursue a career in philosophy, or a career in law? Soon after finishing Harvard Law School and dipping her toe in the legal world, she regretted her decision and switched paths. She went off to Oxford University to study philosophy and has been a philosopher studying choice, freedom, value and action ever since.
Chang’s research focuses on decision-making and the human condition: How do we exercise our freedom through the choices we make? She studies the relationship between reason and value, and how we navigate the sea of pros and cons as we make decisions that shape our lives. She recently presented a TED talk on how to make hard choices.
“Hard Choices”
Abstract:
Life is rife with hard choices. What career should you pursue? Should you have children? Where should you live – the country or the city? Should you be a bourgeois academic or work to relieve suffering in a war torn region? In this talk, I examine some common explanations of what makes a choice hard and moot a view of my own about what makes a choice hard and how we should respond in such choices.
