A tradition of the philosophy department, the 36th annual “Warren Steinkraus Lecture on Human Ideals” was held in the Historic Classroom in Sheldon Hall’s admissions suite.

About 40 students and members of the department faculty attended. Named for the eclectic professor who served both his department and the wider campus community, the Steinkraus Lecture is a hallmark event for the philosophy department’s calendar and funded by an endowment.

This year, organizers invited Sarah McGrath of Princeton University to speak on “What, if anything, is a ‘moral experience?’”

“We wouldn’t want to say that any type of experience that can play a role in the acquisition of moral knowledge counts as ‘moral experience’,” McGrath said, “since virtually any kind of experience at all could be potentially relevant to the acquisition of moral experience.”

During her talk, McGrath noted the famed “Mary’s room” thought experiment first suggested by Australian philosopher Frank Jackson: Mary, a researcher living in a black-and-white world, reads everything possibly published on color and descriptions of color. However, Mary has never seen—or visually experienced—color herself, just the descriptions.

Therefore, the experiment questions whether Mary will gain new knowledge if she finally sees color.

McGrath used “black-and-white Mary” as a vehicle for, in her words, discovering “whether there is a privileged mode of presentation for moral judgment,” which means only by moral perception can one have a moral experience, like seeing color.

After her talk, McGrath discussed the importance of moral experiences today in the bioethics segment of the healthcare industry and the need to understand patient and societal perspectives.

She spoke of colleges across the country now offering master’s programs in bioethics and how bioethicists are needed to morally judge new technologies and medicines.

One of McGrath’s specializations in philosophy is metaethics, which is the study of morality. For instance, questions such as “What is good?” and “What is bad?” are what philosophers in this specialization study.

Being from Arizona, McGrath said that she loves traveling through central New York and New England. She has given talks at other upstate universities too.

“The fall foliage was incredible—what a beautiful part of the country!” McGrath said. “It was spectacular to see Lake Ontario at the edge of the campus.”

McGrath admired Oswego’s small town aesthetic and particularly loved the Coffee Connection, the Rooftop Lounge and Man on the Moon Candies.

Photo by Bryan Santiago