What is the true foundation of moral rights in human beings—and possibly in animals? Philosophers have long debated whether rights stem from consciousness, the ability to experience the world, or rationality, the capacity for reason and thought. At the next discussion in the Transylvania Lectures series, our guests will examine both perspectives and argue why rationality is the key criterion for moral rights. The conversation will also address complex questions, such as how individuals who lack full rational capacity fit within our moral framework and explore the broader concept of human essence in relation to morality and rights. 

Our guest speaker will be Dr. Nick Zangwill, Honorary Research Fellow at University College London and Visiting Professor at Lincoln University. He has published three monographs, edited two collections, and published more than 150 articles on moral philosophy, aesthetics, epistemology, metaphysics, and other topics. In the UK, he has worked at the universities of Glasgow, Oxford, Durham, and Hull, with visiting positions in at the universities of Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto, Padua, Rome, Warsaw, the Institute of Fundamental Sciences in Tehran, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Haifa, and in the USA, Brown, Ohio State and Tulane. He is known for his expertise on moral philosophy, especially metaethics, and aesthetics, especially the philosophy of music and visual art. He has also written on metaphysics, epistemology, the philosophy of mind, and logic. 

His partner in discussion will be Reverend Norbert Zsolt Rácz, a graduate of Hungarian Unitarian Church’s John Sigismund College and the Protestant Theological Institute in Kolozsvár/Cluj. His field of interest includes systematic theology, philosophical aspects of religiosity and questions related to the more theoretical side of existence. 

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