Conference: Themes from the Political Philosophy of T. M. Scanlon, Manchester, 22-23 May 2009

(Please note change of venue. This conference now has an increased capacity, and so registration has just re-opened.)

MANCEPT (the Manchester Centre for Political Theory), togethr with the Politics and Philosophy Discipline Areas of the School of Social Sciences (with the financial support of the Royal Institute of Philosophy, and of the Analysis Trust), are holding a 2 day conference on:

“Justice, Rights and Institutions: Themes from the Political Philosophy of T. M. Scanlon”

22-23 May 2009

John Casken Lecture Theatre, Martin Harris Centre, University of Manchester

Full details are online here:

http://personalpages.manchester.ac.uk/staff/martin.oneill/scanlon/

Registration and booking is via this site (£60 (£30 for students), includes tea/coffee, refreshments and lunch on both days):

http://www.socialsciences.manchester.ac.uk/disciplines/politics/events/mancept2009/booking/

(Accommodation at the University of Manchester can also be booked via the above link.)

Speakers:

* T. M. Scanlon (Harvard University)
* Waheed Hussain (University of Pennsylvania)
* Rahul Kumar (Queen’s University, Canada)
* A. J. Julius (University of California at Los Angeles)
* Véronique Munoz-Dardé (University College London)
* Serena Olsaretti (University of Cambridge)
* Martin O’Neill (University of Manchester)
* Michael Otsuka (University College London)
* Mathias Risse (Harvard University)
* Zofia Stemplowska (University of Manchester)
* Leif Wenar (Kings College, London)
* Andrew Williams (University of Warwick)
* Jonathan Wolff (University College London)

Conference Aims and Description:

T. M. Scanlon, the Alford Professor of Natural Religion, Moral Philosophy, and Civil Polity at Harvard University, is one of the most significant moral and political philosophers of the past thirty years. His development of contractualism as a general view explaining the content of “what we owe to each other” represents one of the great systematic projects in recent moral and political philosophy

This conference will take advantage of Scanlon’s presence in the UK to give the 2009 Locke Lectures at the University of Oxford, in order to bring him to Manchester for an intensive two-day exploration of themes from his political philosophy.

Although Scanlon’s contractualist moral philosophy has received a significant degree of critical attention, there has perhaps not been the same degree of attention given to the distinctively political aspects or implications of Scanlon’s project. The conference will aim to remedy this gap through a detailed exploration both of Scanlon’s work in political philosophy, and of the implications for political philosophy of other aspects of Scanlon’s work on topics in moral philosophy.

Papers at the conference will thus be of two broad types: (a) papers relating to Scanlon’s treatment of issues such as freedom of expression, human rights, equality, punishment, contract, and the idea of tolerance, as collected in his book The Difficulty of Tolerance (Cambridge: CUP, 2003); and (b) papers that address the connections between issues in political philosophy and Scanlon’s treatment of topics such as choice, responsibility, blame, intention, value, promising, and well-being in his books What We Owe to Each Other (Cambridge, Mass.: HUP, 1998) and Moral Dimensions (Cambridge, Mass.: HUP, 2008).