Loving Strangers

Meghan Sullivan, the Wilsey Family Collegiate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame and the director of the Notre Dame Institute of Advanced Study, will be presenting the keynote lecture for the 17th Annual Graduate Student Philosophy Conference.

In her talk, "Loving Strangers," she will argue the prevailing approach in moral theory treats good samaritanism and attendant concepts such as supererogation as issues within duty-based ethics. A samaritan is someone who “goes above and beyond” what a duty of beneficence requires to aid a stranger. This talk will argue that we can better understand samaritanism by treating it instead as a theory about the reasons one might have to love a stranger. Meghan Sullivan will argue for three advantages of this love-based approach. The first advantage concerns explaining the diversity of ways in which samaritanism is referenced in applied ethics. The second advantage concerns accounting for the historical basis for these concepts, in particular the ways contemporary moral theorists interpret the Parable of the Good Samaritan and the Greatest Commandment in Jewish ethics. The final advantage concerns the ways in which samaritanism might better inform ongoing debates about the strength and grounds for our reasons of love.