Dr. James Hatley Presents Papers atConferences at Eugene and Emory University

SALISBURY, MD--Dr. James Hatley, associate professor of philsophy at Salisbury State University, gave papers at conferences at the University of Oregon in Eugene and Emory University in Atlanta recently.

His first presentation, part of the program for the yearly meeting of the International Association for Environmental Philosophy, was "Predatory Space: The Uncanny Goodness of Being Edible to Bears." In the paper he considered how being eaten or mauled by wild animals in a wilderness or wild area is not considered as serious a moral evil as in other locations. That the victims of bear attacks often feel a great affinity and even respect for the animal that has preyed upon them leads Hatley to argue for another order of goodness in addition to that of the humane, in which we respect the manner in which all animals become food for all other animals.

The paper, which is to be published in a book of essays selected from the last two years of this conference, is part of Hatley's ongoing project to write a phenomenology of backpacking. Hatley's second paper was delivered to an international conference organized by Emory University that focused on the thought of Emmanuel Levinas. Levinas is a Jewish philosopher who survived the Holocaust and whose work has been inspiring much commentary in the last decade. In Hatley's paper, "Beyond Outrage: The Delirium of Responsibility in Levinas's Scene of Persecution," he considers the story of Cain, as well as Rabbinical interpretations of it, in order to characterize the dangers one must face in order to give and to receive forgiveness, especially in regard to those who are perpetrators of violence.