Although you probably already know this from your colleges, I’d really like to encourage you to attend tonight’s lecture by Kwame Anthony Appiah, the author of the common reading book this year. The lecture is tonight at 7:30 p.m. in the Grand Hall at the RMC, and it has now been opened to the entire Rice community, so even if you are an upperclassman or haven’t already signed up to attend, you can still show up.
I hope you will all be able to take advantage of the opportunity to hear this distinguished scholar, who has written numerous books informed by a fascinating life story. It might also be interesting to think about the talk in conjunction with our discussions in class about what makes a good historical explanation. At least one chapter in The Honor Code discusses the reasons for the abolition of slavery in the British Empire, and we will be talking about the causes of emancipation in the American Civil War era later this semester. If you attend the lecture, you might think some about how well Appiah’s account of “how moral revolutions happen” fits the criteria we have begun to outline for good causal explanations.