Here are invited philosophy presentations that I have delivered. (Information about my pedagogy presentations can be found under CTL Collaborations.) Please note that the links below are for documents organized as notes for oral presentation rather than essays.
Justice Alito’s Confusion of Rights with Applications of Rights Dobbs v. Jackson Panel, RIT, November 2022
In Dobbs v. Jackson, Justice Alito attempts to build his principal argument using the “deeply rooted” standard that Justice Ginsberg employs in Timbs v. Indiana. However, in Dobbs, he only succeeds at tearing down a strawman variation on Ginsberg’s reasoning and fails to effectively answer the question of whether striking down laws that severely restrict women’s access to abortion is a correct application of a right that women do have.
Solutions to a Puzzle Involving Informed Consent Ethics Grand Rounds, Rochester General Hospital, May 2017 (See Section V for an area of concentrated original thought.)
Here’s a puzzle involving informed consent: If the ethical status of a risky or very unpleasant study is undermined by the involuntariness of a poor person’s enrolling to gain access to an expensive, life-saving drug, then shouldn’t the ethical status of delivering a badly unpleasant, life-saving drug to a rich patient, likewise, be undermined by the involuntariness of her authorization of treatment? In this presentation, I show that the former ethos that put trust in physicians’ decisions seems grounded in Utilitarianism, while the doctrine of informed consent seems grounded in Kant’s Categorical Imperative. After explaining and criticizing a solution based on a moral baseline approach to coercion, I propose a Utilitarian solution instead.
Justifying Copyrights and Patents: A Utility/Desert Hybrid Account Hale Ethics Series, RIT, September 2015 (See Sections II & V for areas of concentrated original thought.)
Of the three basic moral concepts that can be used to defend the legitimacy of copyrights and patents – entitlement, desert, and utility – the most effective, when used alone, is utility. In fact, the justification in our Constitution – “to promote the progress of science and the useful arts” – is clearly utilitarian. Using colorful examples from the history of popular music and science, I explain the inadequacy of using entitlement, desert or utility alone to defend the legitimacy of copyrights and patents. Treating copyrights and patents as rewards and exploiting parallels between punishments and rewards, I propose and defend a hybrid view employing utility and desert.
How to Teach Ethics to Business People Hale Ethics Series, RIT, February 2013 (See Section IV, subsection c, for an area of concentrated original thought about business ethics. See entirety for original thought about teaching business ethics.)
A full semester survey of business ethics permits an instructor to cover both ethical theory as well as its application to a range of topics. But what if an instructor had only a week or even just an afternoon? What focus would have the best outcome in terms of ethical behavior? Should the focus be framed by analytic philosophy or should the philosophy be “dialed down” for such an audience? I believe the best focus in such circumstances (and the proper start of any business ethics course) is a philosophical analysis of the rationalizations that seduce business people into ignoring those parts of their consciences that originate outside of the business world. In this talk, I defend the focus on rationalizations in business ethics instruction as well as share insights into the weaknesses of several influential rationalizations in business.
Colin Mathers Portfolio 
