Sandrine Berges

 

B.A., M.Phil., Ph.D.

 

 

Department of Philosophy	00 90 312 290 2806 (work)
Bilkent University	00 90 312 290 2769 (home)
06800 Bilkent	00 90 5383160256 (mobile)
Ankara, Turkey	sandrineberges@gmail.com
	http://sandrineberges.googlepages.com

 

 

Areas of specialization:	Areas of competence:
Ancient Philosophy Moral and Political Philosophy Applied Ethics Aesthetics	Nietzsche Rationalists Philosophy of Mind Critical Thinking

  

 Education

 

1995-2000	University of Leeds	Ph.D., Philosophy (January 2000) “Plato’s Defence of Justice: Socrates contra Nietzsche”
1991-1994	Birkbeck College, London	M.Phil , Philosophy Dissertation: “Weakness of the Will in Plato’s Protagoras” Papers: Mind, Language, Plato
1988-1991	King’s College London	B.A. (hons) 2(i) Philosophy including Aesthetics.

 

Employment History

 

September 2000	University of Bilkent 06800 Bilkent Ankara, Turkey	Instructor in Philosophy Since 2006: Assistant Professor.
Spring 2000	University of St Andrews	Teaching assistant Assistant Editor to the British Journal for Philosophy of Science.
1995-1999	University of Leeds	Part time tutor and lecturer in schools of Philosophy, Classics and Continuing Education.
Spring 1996	Birkbeck College, London	Part time tutor in Philosophy.

 

 

 

 

Publications

 

·         "Virtue Ethics, Politics and the Functions of Laws: The Parent Analogy in Plato's Menexenus." Dialogue, XLVI, 2, 2007.

·         “Why the Capabilities Approach is Justified” in the Journal of Applied Ethics, Vol. 24, issue 1 2007.

·          “The Hardboiled Detective as Moralist: Ethics and Crime Fiction”, in Values and Virtues, Mind Series, OUP, edited by Tim Chappell, 2007.

·         “Religion and Clothing: the Capabilities Approach Considered”, in Ethique Economique. http://ethique-economique.net/Volume-3-Numero-2.html

·         “Morality for Private Eyes” (in English and Spanish) in the Dossiers IX of the department for Women’s Studies in the Universitad de Castellon, forthcoming.

·         “Loneliness and Belonging: Is Stoic Cosmopolitanism Still Defensible?” Res Publica (February 2005, vol 11,1)

•        “Virtue and the Laws: The Parent Analogy in Plato’s Crito” Yeditepe’de Felsefe a refereed Turkish Philosophy       journal in English and Turkish (2004)
•          “Nietzsche, Plato and Sublimation”, Phronimon the journal of the South African Society for Ancient Philosophy and the Humanities, 2001.

·         “Evil Behaviour and Character: Virtue Ethics versus Social Psychology”, in Territories of Evil, Harvey, Medlicott and Morris (eds.), Rodopi Press, (in press).

• Review of Neither Bad nor Mad, by D. Greig, Metapsychology, April 2004.
• Review of Empathy and Moral Development: Implications for caring and Justice, by Martin Hoffman, Metapsychology, June 2001.
• Review of Cruel Compassion, by Thomas Szasz, Metapsychology, August 2000.

 

 

Invited Papers

 

·         June 2004 “Is the Capabilities Approach Justified?” invited talk for the Centre d’Ethique et d’Economie pour l’Environnement et le Développement Durable at Bois le Roi.

·         31 March 2005 « Compassion and Responsibility : motivating citizen action against child labour », at a C3ED Versailles conference on Child Labour.

·         14 April 2005 “Morality for Private Eyes”, at a symposium on Women in Crime in Castellon, Spain.

 

Talks given

 

·         November 2007 “Virtue Ethics and Situationism” at Bilkent Philosophy Day.

·         July 2006 “Laws for Ordinary People”, Joint Session, Southampton.

·         September 2005 "Motivation Citizen Action Against Child Labour: a Philosophical Perspective", 5^th Internation Conference on the Capabilities Approach and Human Development, UNESCO, Paris.

·         July 2005 "Compassion and Responsibility" Joint Session, Manchester.

·         March 2004 "Discourses of Evil: The Global Gag Rule and Capabilities" accepted for the Fifth Global Conference on Evil, Prague.

·         November 2003: "Is Stoic Cosmopolitanism still defensible?" at the Fordham conference on Ancient and Medieval Philosophy, New York.

·         July 2003: "Virtue Ethics, Politics and the Function of Laws: the Parent Analogy in Plato's Menexenus" accepted for the Joint Session in Belfast.

·         March 2003: "The Hardboiled Detective as Moralist: Ethics and Crime Fiction" at the Fourth Global Conference on Evil, Prague.

·         March 2002: "Virtue as Mental Health and the Treatment of Criminal Behaviour" at the Third Global Conference on Evil, Prague.

·         September 2001: "A Genealogy of the Will to Truth", at the Nietzsche Society Conference in Cambridge.

·         March 2001: "Can We Blame Character?", at the Second Global Conference on Evil, Prague.

·         June 2000: “Nietzsche, Plato and Sublimation”, at the Third Conference of the South African Society for Ancient Philosophy and the Humanities, at the University of Pretoria.

 

 

 

I am an enthusiastic and active researcher with the firm belief in the importance of philosophical research both for its own sake and as a necessary part of the experience of an effective teacher of philosophy. My research interests divide into three related projects: the possibility of grounding a virtue politics on Plato's philosophy, International Ethics, and the ethics of crime fiction.

 

a. Plato and Virtue and the Law – Book Manuscript (under contract with Continuum):

 

The thesis of this book is that a distinctive virtue theory of the law is clearly presented in Plato’s political dialogues.

There are two main challenges to this project. First it seems prima facie impossible for a virtue ethicist to have anything interesting to say about the laws. A virtuous agent will act according to what she perceives as the morally relevant features of the particular situation she finds herself in. But the law requires that she follows the same rules as everyone else, no matter what the fine details of her situation might be. This apparent incompatibility makes is difficult to imagine that a virtue ethicist might have anything useful to say on the topic of laws.

 

Secondly, one might easily feel that giving a virtue ethical account of the law would constitute a threat to autonomy Laws tell us what we should do in order not to be punished. We know that they are necessary in order for society to function well. We choose to be part of a well functioning society, and so we respect the laws. But a virtue ethical account of laws will also state that laws are good for our characters, and that someone who disobeys them is not just a dissenter, but a bad person, and, possibly, a mentally unhealthy one.

 

By studying the arguments of the Crito, Menexenus, Gorgias, Republic, Statesman and Laws, I will show how Plato proposes several ways in which we can understand the law from the perspective of virtue ethics and at the same time respond to the two challenges above. I will argue that Plato worked on these questions throughout his career, and that not until his later works in political philosophy, the Statesman and the Laws, does he succeed in addressing the challenges of incompatibility of law and virtue, and paternalism satisfactorily. 

 

 

b. International Ethics.

In this project I am focussing on two problems: international justice, and patriotism. I have written four papers. The first (Ethics and Economics) asks whether the Sen/Nussbaum capabilities approach can offer a sensible solution to the dilemma posed by headscarves wearers in the Republic of Turkey. I answer that it can and that the advice it should offer agrees to some extent, but not fully with the line taken by the Turkish constitution.

A second paper (currently in revision) concerns the capabilities approach and international policy regarding abortion. I argue from the point of view of the capabilities approach that there can be no justification for the 'Global Gag Rule', or the withdrawing of aid for family planning organisation who advice their patients on abortion.

 

In a third paper (JAP) I reply to arguments by Thomas Pogge to the effect that Sen's Capability approach is not a viable competitor to 'resourcist' theories of global justice. I argue that Nussbaum's version of the approach, the capabilities approach, answers some of Pogges's worries. I focus, in particular, on the inadequacies of the concept of compensation in distributive justice.

 

A fourth invited paper, (for a C3ED conference on Child labour in March 2005) discusses the concept of political responsibility in relation with the question of citizen action against child labour. A version of this paper will be presented at the Joint Session in Manchester July 2005. I developed the idea of political responsibility in relation with the capabilities approach for the HDCA conference in Paris, September 2005.

 

A fifth paper links my interest in international ethics to my interest in Ancient Philosophy: "Loneliness and Belonging: is Stoic Cosmopolitanism Still Defensible?" (Res Publica) concerns the philosophical basis for the Stoics belief that the universe is the only city to which we owe moral allegiance, and the conflicts inherent in that belief.

 

 

c. Ethics and Crime Fiction.

My interest in virtue ethics together with a fondness for crime fiction have led to investigate the question of whether this kind of literature could contribute to the development of the virtuous character. In 2003 I presented a paper in Prague: "The hardboiled detective: ethics and crime fiction". In this paper I take up Nussbaum's arguments for the conclusion that literature is morally uplifting and shows that it applies at least as much to crime literature as to her own examples (Henry James, Dickens). I further argue that crime fiction (in particular the works of Ian Rankin, Jean-Claude Izzo, Marcia Muller and Sarah Paretski) suggests a moral theory which emphasises care, casuistry, and character development. A version of this paper is now published as part of an OUP volume edited by Tim Chappell. In April 2005 I presented a further paper on the same topic, this time linking virtue ethics and crime fiction to the ethics of care in Castellon, Spain. This paper was published in Spanish. I am planning to write more on these topics in the future.

 

 

Courses Taught:

 

¨       4^th year course on Aesthetics (2006-8)

¨       2^nd year course on the Rationalists (2006-8).

¨       Lecture and small group course on Moral and Political from 2001.

¨       Lecture and small group course on Philosophy of International Relations at Bilkent - 2000-2001

¨       Lectures and small group course on Sartre at Leeds - 1998-1999.

¨       Small group teaching at Leeds and St Andrews on Aesthetics, Moral Philosophy, Medical Ethics, Informal Logic, Philosophy of Mind, Descartes, and Kant - 1996-1999.

¨       Small group teaching on Greek and Roman Philosophy at Birkbeck, London, and in the School of Classics at Leeds - 1996-1999.

¨       Lectures and small group teaching on Critical Thinking at Leeds 1995-1999

¨       Lecture course on Nietzsche at Birkbeck (Centre for Extra Mural Studies) - 1994.

 

 

Senior Thesis supervision:

2007-2008: Erol Tok “An attempt to show that art cannot be defined”

2006-2007: Eser Bakdur “The capability approach and adaptive preferences”

 

 

Teaching Skills

 

¨       Student centred small group teaching  (teacher-led in class discussions based on students' preparations).

¨       Lecturing (including lectures which incorporates student participation.)

¨       Thematic, text based teaching (presenting major philosophical themes via primary texts).

¨       Internet aided teaching (course web page design, e-mail communication with students about on-going work).

¨       I am currently taking part in a teaching workshop organized by members of my department and will lead a discussion on ‘how to teach arguments to non-philosophy students taking philosophy electives’ next week.

 

 

Administration:

 

2005-	Member of colloquium and exchange committees. Responsibilities: Colloquium committee: Chair of the committee, responsible for inviting speakers who are either working in Turkey or visiting, organizing their visits and advertising the talks. This year’s speakers include Saladin Meckled Garcia, from UCL, Can Baskent, from CUNY, Jean Salem from the Sorbonne and Thomas Pogge from Columbia. Exchange committee: I am responsible for liaising with our exchange student in Dundee, interviewing students for future exchange, and I am currently setting up an exchange with Louvain.
Spring 2000	Assistant Editor for the British Journal for the Philosophy of Science at St Andrews.
1998-1999	Assistant to Head of First Year Teaching, responsible for the proctorial system at Leeds.
Summer 1997	Joint organiser and administrator for "A Summer School in Philosophy" at Leeds.
1996-1999	Moderator of Philosophy exams for the School of Continuing Education at Leeds.
1996	Assistant to Prof. Peter Simons for the ECAP conference in Leeds.

 

 

 

 

Other Professional Experience

 

Associate Editor for online publication Ethics and Economics (http://ethique-economique.net/).

I am responsible for interviewing philosophers interested in philosophy of economics, the environment, or development.  I have interviewed Prof. Catherine Larrère, Prof Philip Pettit, Jonathan Wolf and Thomas Pogge.

 

I have been asked to referee papers for Yeditepe’de Felsefe,  Res Publica, and the BSET conference 2005.