Jennifer Foster

about me
I'm a doctoral candidate in Philosophy at University of Southern California, dissertating under the supervision of Mark Schroeder.
My dissertation explores the concepts of doxastic courage and cowardice – that is, how forming (or omitting to form) beliefs can be a kind of moral virtue or vice – and their relationship to doxastic anxiety and political conflict. It is a project in epistemology, social and political philosophy, virtue theory, and the ethics of belief. But whereas most recent work on the ethics of belief focuses on the wrongs of positive belief, my virtue-theoretic approach highlights how lack of belief can wrong. Contrary to many moral and political exhortations to practice epistemic humility, there is such a thing as being too open-minded.
Aside from my dissertation, I have projects in philosophy language, metaethics, and aesthetics. I am particularly interested in how social and evaluative language, especially figurative language works – semantically, pragmatically politically. In this vein, I also work on the semantics of slurs and their relationship to other derogatory and nonderogatory evaluative expressions, as well as aesthetic terms.
jjenniferfoster dot phil at gmail dot com


2022
jan
19
Normative Inference Tickets (Symposium)
with Jonathan Ichikawa, UBC
Eastern Division Meeting
American Philosophical Association
Jan
28
Normative Inference Tickets
(Invited Colloquium)
with Jonathan Ichikawa, UBC
UCONN Departmental Colloquium Series
feb
24
Normative Inference Tickets (Symposium)
with Jonathan Ichikawa, UBC
Central Division Meeting,
American Philosophical Association


recent talks
Are Women "Free and Equal" in Rawls's Well-Ordered Society?
2020/21 Vancouver Summer Philosophy Conference (VSPC), Univ. of British Columbia
Comments on Teresa Bruno-Niño’s “The Limits of the Pragmatic Account of Moral Categoricity”
Apr. 2021 Pacific Meeting, American Philosophical Association
Comments on Gözde Yildirim's "Rough Heroes Revisited"
Feb. 2021 Central Meeting, American Philosophical Association
Comments on Bianca Takaoka's "The Social Value of Insults"
Jan. 2021 Eastern Meeting, American Philosophical Association, Online
Comments on Gretchen Ellefson's "The Cooperative Principle Revisited"
Aug. 2019 Vancouver Summer Philosophy Conference (VSPC), Univ. of British Columbia
Are Women "Free and Equal" in Rawls's Well-Ordered Society?
2019 Rocky Mountain Ethics Congress (RoME), University of Colorado, Boulder
Comments on Tarasenko-Struc's "Objectification and Domination"
2019 Bay Area Feminism & Philosophy Workshop (BayFAP), University of San Francisco, CA
Not-At-Issue: The Normative “Flavor” of Instrumental Necessities
Apr. 2019. The American Philosophical Association, Pacific Division, Vancouver, BC
