Debbie Roberts
Lecturer

Profile

Biography

Before coming to York I was a teaching fellow at the University of Sussex for six months. Before that I was a PhD student at the University of Reading, and before that I was a lecturer in the School of Philosophy and Ethics at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa. I did my MA and my undergraduate degree at Rhodes University in South Africa.

Career

2011 - Lecturer University of York
Teaching Fellow University of Sussex
PhD University of Reading
Lecturer University of KwaZulu-Natal, SA
MA Rhodes University, SA

Departmental roles

Chair of the Teaching Committee

Research

Overview

Research interests

Moral Philosophy; Metaethics; Value Theory

Current projects

My research interests focus on metaethics, but I am also interested in other areas of philosophy that relate to this work including metaphysics, philosophy of mind and philosophy of language.

My current research focuses on thick evaluative concepts, and the nature of evaluation. In particular, I defend a non-reductive account of thick concepts. I am particularly interested in the metaphysics of the evaluative, the distinction and relation between the evaluative and the deontic, and the relation between thick and thin evaluation, and what it is for a concept or property to be evaluative. I have just started working on the nature of evaluative dependence.

I have a number of papers that I am currently working on: 'Thick concepts and reduction', 'Disentangling two sets of anti-disentaling remarks', 'Why the thick does not determine the thin', 'Objectionable thick concepts', 'Thick concepts and the nature of evaluation' and 'Evaluative dependence: grounding and explanation'.

Available PhD research projects

I would be happy to supervise students wanting to work on any topic on metaethics.

Publications

Selected publications

Articles/Chapters
  • 'Thick evaluation' in S. T. Kirchin (ed) Thick Concepts (to undergo consideration at OUP)
  • Roberts, D. (2011) 'Shapelessness and the Thick'  Ethics 121(3): 489-520
  • Roberts, D. (2005) 'Does the Explanatory Constraint on Practical Reasons favour Naturalism about Practical reasons?' South African Journal of Philosophy 24(2) 97-108
  • Roberts, D. (2004) 'The Rationality of Happiness' South African Journal of Philosophy 23(4) 375-82

Reviews
  • Review of Graham Oddie's Value, Reality, & Desire, Ratio 23(1) (2010) 118-22
  • Review of Stephen Pinker's The Blank Slate, Theoria: a journal of social and political theory 112 (2007) 80-6

External activities

Memberships

Director, British Society for Ethical Theory (BSET) 2011-

Member of the Aristotelian Society and the Philosophical Society of South Africa (PSSA)

Editorial duties

  • Co-editor 2007-2010, South African Journal of Philosophy
  • Referee for Philosophical Quarterly, British Journal for the History of Philosophy, Dialectica, Philosophical Papers, Theoria, South African Journal of Philosophy.

Invited talks and conferences

Invited presentations
  • TBA, Oxford Moral Philosophy Seminar, February 2012
  • 'What makes a concept evaluative?' Ethics work-in-progress seminar, University of Leeds, February 2012.
  • 'Evaluative dependence'  Ethics and Explanation conference at the University of Nottingham and the University of Sussex Philosophy Society, November 2011.
  • 'Evaluation and variability: why thick concepts are not determinates of the thin' Value Concepts workshop, University of Leeds, March 2010.
Refereed conference papers
  • 'The thick of it: a non-reductive account of thick evaluation' Reading-Lund Conference, Lund, May 2010.
  • 'Shapelessness and the thick' British Society for Ethical Theory annual conference, Reading, July 2009.
  • 'Thick concepts and supervenience' Thick Concepts Conference, Kent, July 2009.
  • 'Shapelessness and the distinction between thick and thin concepts' Ontology, Mind and Language, SIFA, Bergamo, September 2008.
  • 'Why we should be holists but not particularists: the role of thick concepts in moral reasoning' 32nd annual conference of the PSSA, Grahamstown, January 2006.
  • 'Does the explanatory constraint on practical reasons favour naturalism about practical reasons?' 31st annual congress of the PSSA, Pietermaritzburg, January 2005.
  • 'External Reasons' 30th annual congress of the PSSA, Pietermaritzburg, January 2004.
Other talks
  • Public Lecture 'The virtues of character', University of York, November 2011, part of the series Know Thyself: Open Course Lectures 2011-12.
  • Response to Andrew Reisner's 'Where norms and aims diverge: the pragmatic foundations of theoretical reason' at the Aims and Norms: Belief workshop, University of Southampton, September, 2011.
  • Sixth Form Conference talk 'Moral Philosophy' at the University of Sussex, June 2011.


 
Debbie Roberts

Contact details

Dr Debbie Roberts
Lecturer
Department of Philosophy, SB A012
University of York
Heslington
York
YO10 5DD

Tel: +44 (0) 1904 324169

Teaching

Undergraduate

2011/12

Autumn Term
  • Issues in Moral Philosophy, 3rd yr
Spring Term
  • Ethics, 1st yr

Postgraduate

2011/12

Autumn Term
  • Philosophy of Law
Spring Term
  • Ethics