The Burman Lectures in philosophy have been given annually by internationally leading philosophers since 1996. The lectures are arranged by the Department of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies at Umeå University.
Lecturer: Carolina Sartorio, Professor of Philosophy at Rutgers University.
Learn more about Carolina Sartorio
Time: 19-21 May 2026, at 13.15-15.00 PM
Place: Umeå University, Humanities Building, Lecture Hall HUM.D.220 – Hjortronlandet
Tuesday May 19, 13:15-15:00, Auditorium HUM.D.220 -- Hjortronlandet
Abstract: Unlike the basic kind of responsibility, the non-basic kind (responsibility for consequences, or “out in the world” things) is a form of moral responsibility that is inherited from something else. Should we still expect these two forms of responsibility to be unified in some significant way? Is unification a virtue of a theory of responsibility? Some have thought so. I first argue against unification. I then draw consequences for debates about the relevance of alternative possibilities to moral responsibility.
Wednesday May 20, 13:15-15:00, Auditorium HUM.D.220 - Hjortronlandet
Abstract: What is the relation between (non-basic) moral responsibility and causation? Some think that we can only be responsible for what we cause, and that our responsibility for an outcome is always grounded in having caused it; in contrast, others think that we can be responsible for outcomes that we don’t cause, as in the case of collective harms, and that our responsibility in those cases is grounded in other factors. I first argue against both views—I argue that they fail for the same reason: they are too dependent on the truth of controversial metaphysical assumptions. I then put forth an alternative view that is more metaphysically neutral (and independently plausible). Finally, I draw consequences for the problem of collective harms.
Thursday May 21, 13:15-15:00, Auditorium HUM.D.220 - Hjortronlandet
Abstract: In the two previous lectures I motivated a particular way of thinking about non-basic moral responsibility, and I hinted at some possible applications of the view. In this final lecture I discuss other applications that, I think, help cement the view. I first draw attention to the grounding structure of non-basic responsibility. I then explain how this bears on the debate about tracing as well as on our responsibility in complex cases, including scenarios of overdetermination of various kinds and scenarios of causal deviance.
All interested are welcome to these lectures.
The 2026 Burman Lectures are supported by a generous contribution from Vitterhetsakademin.
2025
Lecturer: John Macfarlane, Professor of Philosophy at University of California, Berkeley
Word and Plan
Lecture 1: Felicitous Underspecification
Lecture 2: Disagreement and Meaning
Lecture 3: Panvariabilism
The 2025 Burman lectures received support by a generous contribution from the Wenner-Gren Foundations.
2024
C. Thi Nguyen, associate professor of philosophy at the University of Utah
Scores and the Meaning of Life
Lecture 1: Value Capture
Lecture 2: Mechanical Scoring Systems and Human Values
Lecture 3: Bureaucratic Meanings and Semantic Self-Determination
2023
Professor David Enoch, The Hebrew University, Jerusalem
Autonomy: Coercion, Nudging and the Epistemic Analogy
Lecture 1: Contrastive Consent and Third-Party Coercion
Lecture 2: How Nudging Upsets Autonomy
Lecture 3: Epistemic Autonomy May Not Be a Thing
Professor Elisabeth Camp, Rutgers University
Perspectives, Frames, and the Coercion of Intimacy
Lecture 1: From Point of View to Perspective
Lecture 2: Perspectival Framing With Pictures and Words
Lecture 3: Frames, Nicknames, and the Coercion of Intimacy
Jeff McMahan, Sekyra and White’s Professor i moralfilosofi vid Oxford University
The Ethics of Creating, Saving, and Ending Lives
Lecture 1: Abortion, Prenatal Injury, and What Matters in Alternative Possible Lives
Lecture 2: The Population Ethics Asymmetry and the Permissibility of Procreation
Lecture 3: Moral Reasons to Cause People to Exist
Professor Ingrid Robeyns, Utrecht University
Why worry about wealth?
Lecture 1: What is limitarianism?
Lecture 2: Arguments for economic limitarianism
Lecture 3. Objections to economic limitarianism
Prof. Jennifer Saul, University of Sheffield.
Race, Manipulative Language, and Politics
Lecture I: Dogwhistles, Political Manipulation and the Philosophy of Language
Lecture II: Racial Figleaves, The Shifting Boundaries of the Permissible, and the Rise of Donald Trump
Lecture III: 'Immigration' in the Brexit Campaign: Dogwhistle Terms in Complex Contexts
Jenann Ismael, University of Arizona
Determinism, Time, and Totality
Lecture I: Determinism and the Causal Order
Lecture II: Time and Transcendence
Lecture III: Totality
Karen Bennett, Cornell University.
Making things Up
Lecture 1: Building
Lecture 2: Causing
Lecture 3: Relative Fundamentality
Elizabeth Anderson, Professor of Philosophy and Women's Studies at the Department of Philosophy, University of Michigan.
Pragmatism in Ethics: Why and How
Lecture 1: Why Pragmatism?
Lecture 2: How to Be a Pragmatist 1: Correcting Moral Biases
Lecture 3: How to Be a Pragmatist 2: Experiments in Living
Michael Smith, McCosh Professor of Philosophy, Princeton University
What We Should Do and Why We Should Do It
Lecture 1: "The Standard Story of Action"
Lecture 2: "A Constitutivist Theory of Reasons"
Lecture 3: "A Case Study: The Reasons of Love"
David Chalmers, Australian National University and New York University
Structuralism, space, and skepticism
Lecture 1: Constructing the world
Lecture 2: Three puzzles about spatial experience
Lecture 3: The structuralist response to skepticism
Stephen Finlay, University of Southern California
Metaethics as a Confusion of Tongues
Lecture 1: Metaethics: Why and How?
Lecture 2: The Semantics of "Ought"
Lecture 3: The Pragmatics of Normative Disagreement
Dag Prawitz, Stockholm University
Bevis, mening och sanning
Tim Crane, University of Cambridge
Problems of Being and Existence
Lecture 1: Existence, Being and Being-so
Lecture 2: Existence and Quantification Reconsidered
Lecture 3: The Singularity of Singular Thought
2009
Jerry Fodor, Rutgers University
What Darwin Got Wrong
Lecture 1: What kind of theory is the Theory of Natural Selection?
Lecture 2: The problem about 'selection-for'
2008
Susanna Siegel, Harvard
The Nature of Visual Experience
Lecture 1: The varieties of perceptual intentionality
Lecture 2: The contents of visual experience
2007
Alex Byrne, MIT
How do we know our own minds?
Lecture 1: Transparency and Self-Knowledge
Lecture 2: Knowing that I am thinking
2006
Jonathan Dancy, University of Reading and University of Texas, Austin
Lecture 1: Reasons and Rationality
Lecture 2: Practical Reasoning and Inference
2005
Ned Block, New York University
Consciousness and Neuroscience
Lecture 1: The Epistemological Problem of the Neuroscience of Consciousness
Lecture 2: How Empirical Evidence can be Relevant to the Mind-Body Problem
2004
John Broome, Oxford
Reasoning
2003
Wlodek Rabinowicz, Lund
Värde och passande attityder
2002
Kevin Mulligan, Genève
Lecture 1: Essence, Logic and Ontology
Lecture 2: Foolishness and Cognitive Values
2001
Hubert Dreyfus, Berkeley
Lecture 1: What is moral maturity? A Phenomenological Account Of The Development Of Ethical Expertise
Lecture 2: The primacy of the phenomenological over logical analysis: A Merleau-Pontian Critique of Searle's Account of Action and Social Reality
2000
Herbert Hochberg, University of Texas, Austin
Lecture 1: A Simple Refutation of Mindless Materialism
Lecture 2: Universals, Particulars and the Logic of Predication
1999
Susan Haack, University of Miami
The Science of Sociology and the Sociology of Science
Lecture 1: Social Science as Semiotic.
Lecture 2: Sociology of Science: The Sensible Program.
1998
Howard Sobel, University of Toronto
Lecture 1: First causes: St. Thomas Aquinas's 'Second way'.
Lecture 2: Ultimate reasons if not first causes: Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz on 'the Ultimate Origination of Things'.
1997
Ian Jarvie, York University
Science and the Open Society
1996
David Kaplan, UCLA
What is Meaning: Notes toward a theory of Meaning as Use
The Burman Lectures started in 1996 on the initiative of Inge-Bert Täljedal, then mayor of Umeå and later vice chancellor of Umeå University. The lectures commemorate Erik Olof Burman (1845-1929), Umeå's "first professor of philosophy".
Burman was born in Yttertavle outside of Umeå, went to high school in Umeå, and became professor of practical philosophy 1896-1910 at Uppsala University. Nowadays Burman is best known as the teacher of Axel Hägerström, who is known for his expressivist theory of moral judgments, among other things.
A longer presentation of Erik Olof Burman, written by Inge-Bert Täljedal (Pdf in Swedish)