Articles by Simon Cabulea May

Nominations Open: 21-31 August 2010

Via Abbas Raza, 3 Quarks Daily – the website you should be reading if you are not already — are hosting their second annual prize for the best blog writing in philosophy. Akeel Bilgrami will be the judge. The details of last year’s contest are here. You can nominate blog posts written in English in the last year and not longer than 4000 words.

Eastern APA: 28 Dec 2010

For everyone intending to go to the Eastern APA in Boston this year, the Society for Philosophy and Public Affairs will be holding a session on the Ethics of Compromise in Democracy on Tuesday 28 December, 2010, from 2pm-5pm. We’ll be looking at the topic of political compromise from a number of angles: compromise in international politics, the epistemology of disagreement, and the role of partisanship in politics. There’s been comparatively little systematic work on this ubiquitous political phenomenon, despite its moral and philosophical complexity, so we’ll be hoping to have a discussion that adds impetus to its study.

Chair: Randall Harp (Vermont)
Speakers:
Eric Beerbohm (Harvard): Compromise among Epistemic Peers
Simon Cabulea May (Virginia Tech): Deep Compromise in Partisan Politics
Dan Weinstock (Montreal): Compromises beyond Peace

Via Edward Lewis, the first part of a two-part interview with Stuart White on political philosophy and the left at the New Left Project. Topics include Cohen on luck egalitarianism and freedom.

Here are two questions that strike me as worth thinking about.

Say you wanted to teach a liberal arts-style freshman seminar that introduced students to the idea of reflecting on politics and society, but you didn’t want to turn it into yet another Applied Ethics or Introduction to Political Philosophy class that crammed in all the essential philosophical problems and texts: Capital Punishment, the Duty to Obey the Law, Abortion, Euthanasia, etc., on the one hand, and Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Marx, Mill, etc., on the other. Instead, you’d much rather just use plain old essays — well-crafted, accessible, insightful, evocative, memorable essays — written by people who may or may not be academics or part of the academic tradition.

The kind of essay I’m thinking of would be one that didn’t so much need to be explained as experienced, that presents a viewpoint that seizes your imagination in some way, rather than an argument or conceptual apparatus that needs to be taken apart, dusted a little by a qualified technician, and then put back together in sound working order. These would be essays that have a force that can’t really be conveyed to someone who has not read them, and that become part of the background framework of your way of thinking about the political and social world and the stuff in it that matters. They would ideally be long enough to be a substantial read, worth assigning as a text, but not too long to be a task that requires the threat of academic sanctions to be completed. Above all, they must not be difficult to read or boring to think about. They should be the sort of thing people mean when they talk about the art of the essay.

Read the rest of this entry »

Copenhagen: 19-20 August 2010 | CFP: 1 April 2010

The second University of Copenhagen conference in epistemology will be held from 19-20 August 2010. The following is the description:

We tend to think of liberal democracy as providing the most ethically defensible way to set up a modern society. A separate yet highly relevant issue is whether liberal democracies also are preferable from an epistemological perspective, i.e., from the point of view of promoting true over false belief, knowledge over ignorance, and so on. The purpose of this conference — and of the research project that it is part of — is to investigate the norms, practices, and institutions that  determine how belief and knowledge is acquired and transmitted in liberal democracies. Questions to be addressed include but are not limited to the following: Read the rest of this entry »

The Department of Philosophy at Virginia Tech invites applications for a one-year position, to begin August 10, 2010. Rank: Visiting Assistant Professor; AOS: Ethics; AOC: Open. Five courses per year, including one graduate seminar.

Evidence of teaching ability and research potential required. Salary: competitive. Ph.D. completed by August, 2010. In addition to offering a first class MA in Philosophy, the department is also a major component of two interdisciplinary PhD programs: Science and Technology Studies; and The Alliance for Social, Political, Ethical and Cultural Thought. Virginia Tech is an EO/AA employer and particularly encourages applications from women, veterans, persons with disabilities, and minorities.

Interested candidates are REQUIRED to complete a brief on-line application at www.jobs.vt.edu posting #0100027 and send dossier (cover letter with statement of interest, CV, three letters of recommendation, and evidence of teaching excellence) to Chair, Philosophy Search Committee, Department of Philosophy (0126), Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA 24061. We will begin reviewing applications as soon as they are received, until the position is filled. Those received by 12 March 2010 can expect full consideration.

Penn State: 25 July-1 August 2010 | Applications by 10 March (grad) or 15 April (undergrad)

Via Eva Kittay:

The Philosophy in an Inclusive Key Summer Institute (PIKSI) is designed to encourage undergraduate students from underrepresented groups to consider future study in the field of philosophy. PIKSI, held 25 July to 1 August, emphasizes both traditional and nontraditional philosophical scholarship, such as feminist philosophy, critical race theory, and disability studies. All undergraduate student participants are fully funded by PIKSI.

PIKSI is a project of the Association for Feminist Ethics and Social Theory (FEAST) and is supported the Rock Ethics Institute and the College of the Liberal Arts at Penn State, as well as a number of graduate programs which have funded their graduate students to serve as Graduate Student Assistant.

The deadline for applications is 10 March for graduate students and 15 April for undergraduates. For more information on the summer institute, institutional co-sponsorship, and the Iris Marion Young Diversity Scholars fund please visit the PIKSI website.

Newcastle University: 25-26 February 2010

The Newcastle Ethics, Legal and Political Philosophy Research Group are holding a conference in honour of Professor Peter Jones. The topic of the conference is “The Value and Limits of Rights.” The conference will be held at the Devonshire Building (G21 & G22) at Newcastle from 25-26 February. The programme is as follows:

Thursday, 25 February
1:30-2:00pm: Registration and Welcome Address
2:00-3:15pm: Albert Weale (UCL)
3:30-4:45pm: Simon Caney (Oxford)

Friday, 26 February
9:30-10:45am: Richard Bellamy (UCL)
10:45-11:00am: Tea/coffee
11:00am-12:15pm: John Horton (Keele)
12:15-1:00pm: Buffet lunch
1:00-2:15pm: Susan Mendus (York)
2:15-3:30pm: David Miller (Oxford)
3:30-3:45pm: Tea/coffee
3:45-5:00pm: Hillel Steiner (Manchester)

All are welcome to attend although there is a registration fee of £10 to cover the cost of the refreshments and buffet lunch. Payments can be made online here. Please address any questions to Dr Ian O’Flynn.

According to the BBC, in the latest twist in l’affaire du foulard/voile, a French parliamentary committee has recommended a ban on women wearing Islamic face veils in public [Correction: the proposal applies to public facilities, such as hospitals and mass transit, and not walking about the street]. The reasoning behind the report seems to be that face veils are contrary to the values of the republic, as symbols of women’s repression and extremist fundamentalism.

The proposal strikes me as a very bad idea in a number of ways. I don’t see how the law liberates women from whatever social pressure there exists to wear a veil. Will wearing a balaclava in public be illegal too? If not, then won’t the law just force a change of attire? Nussbaum has some discussion of this general issue in her Liberty of Conscience, pp. 346-53, invoking the ability of Chicagoans (and the Dutch, and presumably the French) to conduct normal social interactions with their faces covered in winter.

What if feminists who believe that make-up is just a manifestation of the objectification of women in patriarchy, and hence symbolic of repression and degradation, are right? Is there a way to support the veil ban, but not think that this claim about make-up would justify a make-up ban?* How about t-shirts with sexist imagery and messages? Quite apart from dress codes, we can recognise prostitution as degrading, and hence contrary to the values of an egalitarian republic, without thinking it should be illegal, primarily because making it illegal may very well just make the lives of those women, so degraded, even worse.

So, a question: can anything be said in support of this proposal (from ideally a feminist perspective), that does not run into these and other problems?

*[I should add I think having to wear a burqa is worse than feeling compelled to wear make-up.]

The Monist 94 (4): October 2011 | CFP: 31 October 2010

Via Gillian Brock, a CFP for an issue of the Monist on cosmopolitanism due out in 2011:

According to cosmopolitanism, every person has global stature as the ultimate unit of moral concern and is therefore entitled to equal respect and consideration no matter what her citizenship status or other affiliations happen to be. This issue of The Monist is intended as a forum for debates about the pros and cons of cosmopolitanism. It will address questions such as: What does cosmopolitanism require by way of obligations of justice to all? What kinds of reforms to our global and local institutions do cosmopolitan concerns require? Are these requirements feasible? In addition to our obligations to everyone, do we have further, more demanding, obligations to compatriots or to family members? Do non-cosmopolitan theories provide a better account of our obligations and allow us a more useful framework for mediating the interests of compatriots and non-compatriots?

Inquiries should be directed to Gillian at gbrock [at] auckland.ac.nz

St. Anne’s College, Oxford: 2-4 July 2010 | CFP: 9 January 2010

Moving up to the top because the deadline is soon — SCM.

The 2010 Society for Applied Philosophy annual conference will be held at St. Anne’s College from 2-4 July 2010. It will be an open themed applied philosophy conference (papers will be considered from the full range of topics in applied philosophy). Plenary speakers include Professor Thomas Pogge (Yale), Professor Judith Lichtenberg (Georgetown), Professor Catherine Lu (McGill), and Professor Ingmar Persson (Gothenburg).

Read the rest of this entry »

Princeton: 9-10 April 2010 | CFP: 18 January 2010

The deadline for this conference has now been extended to 18 January 2010 — SCM.

The Committee for the Graduate Conference in Political Theory at Princeton University welcomes papers concerning any period, methodological approach or topic in political theory, political philosophy, or the history of political thought. Approximately eight papers will be accepted.

Read the rest of this entry »

Linköping, Sweden: 8-12 June 2010 | CFP: 8 March 2010

The European Science Foundation (ESF), in partnership with LFiU is organising a conference on the “Responsibility to Protect: From Principle to Practice” to be held at the Scandic Hotel Linköping Väst, Linköping, Sweden, from 8-12 June 2010. The conference chair is Prof. Andre Nollkaemper, of the Amsterdam Center for International Law, University of Amsterdam.

The closing date for application is the 8 March, 2010. This conference is part of the 2010 ESF Research Conferences Programme and is accessible at its website.

Jacob Levy has put up a link to the podcasts from the recent memorial colloquium on Jerry Cohen’s life and work organised by the Groupe de recherche interuniversitaire en philosophie politique at Montreal. The presentations are from Daniel Weinstock, William Clare Roberts, Joseph Carens, Jurgen De Wispelaere, and Jacob Levy.

Bristol: 30 June - 2 July 2010 | CFP: 1 March 2010

The third International Global Ethics Association conference will be held at the University of the West of England in Bristol from 30 June to 2 July 2010. Confirmed speakers include Simon Caney (University of Oxford) and Darrel Moellendorf (Director, Institute for Ethics and Public Affairs, San Diego State University).

Papers and panels on all aspects of global ethics are invited. The organisers encourage multidisciplinary papers which address the theory and practice of Global Ethics and global justice from academic, policy and practice perspectives. Issues include:

• Development issues like progress towards achieving the MDGs and impact of post-colonial and post-development critiques on development ethics
• Ecological crises such as global warming and the distribution of increasingly scarce natural resources
• War and peace concerns such as the ethical issues arising from the War on Terror, humanitarian intervention, privatization of the military and the ethics of peace-keeping
• Gender issues 20 years since CEDAW, for example, transnational feminism and reproductive rights
• Human rights issues 60 years after the UDHR
• Economic injustices and the global market
• Global networks and civil society
• Identity politics, multiple identities and transnationalism

Please e-mail panel proposals and abstracts (no more than 500 words) to global-ethics [at] uwe.ac.uk by 1 March 2010. For further information please contact Dr Christien van den Anker and Professor Heather Widdows at the same email address.

Prato, Italy: 25-29 August 2010| CFP: 8 March 2010

Karen Green, Lisa Curtis-Wendlandt and Paul Gibbard are organising a conference on on the contribution of women to the history of political thought in Europe during the Enlightenment period. Papers may discuss the political ideas of individual women such as Mary Wollstonecraft, Catherine Macaulay, Mary Hays, Sarah Churchill, Mary Delariviere Manley, Marie Jodin, Emilie du Châtelet, Madame Dupin, Olympe de Gouges, Felicité Keralio-Robert, Madame Roland, Germaine de Staël, Dorothea Erxleben Leporin, Amalie Holst, Johanna Charlotte Unzer, Luise Gottsched, Mariana von Ziegler, Elise Reimarus, Elisabetta Caminer Turra, and others. Papers placing the work of such women in the broader context of political writing by men are encouraged. ‘Political thought’ is broadly interpreted to include sexual politics as well as political theory, and discussions of the political ideas of women as expressed in genres other than the political treatise are welcome.

Submissions of title and one page abstract should be sent by 8th March 2010 to Karen Green by email or in hard copy to her at the School of Philosophy and Bioethics, Monash University, Melbourne 3800, Australia. Up to five bursaries of up to $500 will be available to help post-graduates and early career researchers to attend the conference. Applicants who wish to be considered for one of these should indicate this with their submission.

An edited volume on women’s political thought in Europe during the eighteenth century is proposed, and contributions to the conference may be submitted for publication in this volume. Contributors who are unable to attend the Prato Conference, but would like to contribute a paper to the volume are invited to submit papers for consideration by September 30th 2010.

Boulder: 5-8 August 2010 | CFP: 1 February 2010

The third annual Rockey Mountain Ethics Congress will be held from 5-8 August 2010 at the University of Colorado, Boulder. ?The conference is hosted by the Center for Values and Social Policy. Papers from all areas of ethics and political theory are invited. To encourage the participation of junior scholars, the University of Colorado will be awarding a Young Ethicist Prize of $500 for most meritorious submission. The prize competition is open to any participating untenured philosopher (including, but not limited to, tenure-track faculty, instructors, and graduate students).

Abstract (750-1000 words) should be submitted electronically (in Word format) to Benjamin Hale and Alastair Norcross. Here is a pdf of the CFP.

Southampton: 8-10 April 2010 | CFP: 31 January 2010

The 2010 Association for Legal and Social Philosophy conference will be held at the University of Southampton from 8-10 April 2010. The theme of the conference is the future(s) of democratic citizenship. From the ALSP website:

In the contemporary world the ideal of democratic citizenship appears to be confronted with many challenges and opportunities, and there is substantial disagreement about how it should respond to them. In the light of changing forms of democratic engagement, the globalisation of political power, the continuing challenge of maintaining a common citizenship in the face of cultural diversity and mass migration, the form democratic citizenship will take in the future is open to question. Contributions to this conference will seek to think through the forms that democratic citizenship might, and should, take in the future. We focus on four sets of themes:

* democratic innovations,
* democratic citizenship: from local to global?
* democratic citizenship: threats and insecurities
* competing visions of democratic citizenship.

Keynotes confirmed thus far include Rainer Baubock (European University Institute) and Stuart White (University of Oxford). Selected papers from the conference will be published in a special issue of the Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy.

Washington University St. Louis 1-25 June 2010 | Apply by 2 March 2010

Andrew Altman and Kit Wellman will be running a four-week National Endowment for the Humanities Seminar on Philosophical Perspectives on Liberal Democracy and the Global Order from 1-25 June 2010.

Sixteen participants (fourteen faculty and two graduate students) will be chosen from among eligible applicants interested in liberalism, democracy and international justice. The seminar will feature appearances by Arthur Applbaum (Harvard), David Estlund (Brown), Debra Satz (Stanford), and Thomas Pogge (Yale), who will discuss their recently-published work and/or work-in-progress. Ample time will be allowed for participants to pursue individual projects on Seminar-related topics.

Summer Stipend: $3,300. Stipends are intended to help cover the cost of travel and living expenses during the course of the Seminar. Applications must be postmarked (or submitted electronically) no later than March 2nd, 2010.

Via Sally Haslanger:

All professional philosophers are invited to participate in a survey on publishing in philosophy. It should take about 10 minutes. It will be useful to have your CV handy as you fill it out. Please go here to find it.

If all goes well, Sally Haslanger will report on the results at the December APA in a symposium on philosophy publishing (Wednesday 30 December, 11:15-1:15).

Thanks for your help. Please help spread the word.

Manchester Metropolitan University, 1-3 September 2010 

A call for workshop convenors for the 2010 Workshops in Political Theory conference in Manchester:

Following the successful sixth annual series of Workshops held in Manchester, September 2009, at which over a hundred and fifty papers were given by participants from over twenty countries, another conference is being held next year. These workshops reflected the wide diversity of interests and idioms within the discipline and gave delegates plenty of time to discuss their papers in a relaxed setting as well as to attend other panels.  Panels can vary from three to twelve paper givers. The 2009 conference page is here. If interested in organising a panel contact either Professor Joe Femia or Professor Jules Townshend. 

Via an email from CUP:

Columbia University Press is pleased to announce the publication of Sibyl Schwarzenbach’s On Civic Friendship: Including Women in the State.

In this innovative new work Schwarzenbach argues that women have performed the vast majority of often unpaid friendship labor for centuries. Embodying the freedom, equality, and ideals of the Constitution, civic friendship emerges as a necessary condition for genuine justice. Through a critical examination of social and political relationships from ancient times to today, Sibyl Schwarzenbach develops a truly innovative, feminist theory of the democratic state.

You can find out more about the book here.

James P. Sterba at the University of Notre Dame praises the text:
“Sibyl Schwarzenbach’s attempt to show the importance of women’s experiences and feminist theory for the justification of the democratic state is the most successful I have seen. Its achievement should be widely recognized and commented upon by feminist political philosophers and, hopefully, by political philosophers more generally, attracting as much attention as Susan Okin’s Justice, Gender, and the Family.”

Stanford, 2010-11 | Application deadline: 8 January 2010

The McCoy Family Center for Ethics in Society and the Program on Global Justice seek up to three post-doctoral fellows for 2010-11. We welcome candidates with substantial normative research interests from diverse backgrounds including philosophy, the social sciences, and professional schools. We are especially interested in candidates with research interests in international topics including human rights, immigration, and environmental justice. But we are interested in all candidates with strong normative interests that have some practical implications. Fellows will teach one class, participate in the Political Theory and/or Global Justice Workshops, interact with undergraduates in the Ethics in Society program and help in developing an inter-disciplinary ethics community across the campus. Salary is competitive. Appointment is for one year, but may be renewed for an additional year. Applicants must have their doctoral degree in hand no later than 30 days prior to the appointment start date and be no more than 3 years after the awarding of the degree. The application deadline is January 8, 2010.

For inquiries, please contact Joan Berry.

Applicants should submit an application cover sheet and then send a cover letter, CV, three letters of recommendation and a short writing sample (about 25 pages) to:

Post-doctoral Fellowship Committee
Bowen H. McCoy Family Center for Ethics in Society
482 Galvez Street
Stanford University
Stanford, CA 94305-6079

Stanford is an equal opportunity, affirmative action employer.

Via David Shoemaker at PEA Soup:

The Philosophy of Religion Group is issuing a call for papers for its session at the 2010 American Philosophical Association Pacific Division Meeting on the topic of Religious Toleration. 

In the seventeenth century many European philosophers were deeply concerned with religious intolerance that spawned intra- and inter-national violence on a massive scale. Locke, Spinoza, Bayle and others famously drafted arguments aimed at providing religious partisans with reasons for tolerating more religious diversity in their midst than they might otherwise have been inclined to allow. While the arguments these philosophers made may have been influential in the development of religious toleration in Europe and North America in the 18th Century, it is not clear that they have as much appeal in the contemporary West or elsewhere in the world. This session will be devoted to revisiting the topic of religious toleration both to examine its philosophical roots and its contemporary cogency.

The session will consist of three papers, two presented by Edwin Curley (Michigan) and Robert Audi (Notre Dame) as well as a third paper drawn from submitted abstracts.

Those wishing to submit papers for consideration should send a 350 word (or less) abstract to the Program Chair, Michael Murray, at Michael.murray [at] fandm.edu no later than OCTOBER 1, 2009.

Manchester: Workshops in Political Theory Sixth Annual Conference: 2-4 September 2009The sixth annual conference of the Workshops in Political Theory will be held at Manchester Metropolitan University from 2-4 September 2009. Those wishing to participate should contact the relevant workshop convenor and register before 30 July (or pay a £10 late fee). The workshops are:

1. Politics, Morals and Economics in Adam Smith. Fotini Vaki (Ionian University, Corfu) and Raquel Lázaro (University of Navarre, Spain)
2. Ethics in Environmental Health Research and Public Health Applications. Birgit Dumez (Center for Human Genetics, Leuven, Belgium) and Casteleyn Ludwine (Center for Human Genetics, Leuven, Belgium)
3. Conflict and Compromise. Peter Jones (Newcastle University) and Ian O’Flynn (Newcastle University)
4. Political Theory and the Darwinian Revolution. Graeme Garrard (Cardiff University)
5. ‘Age Discrimination’? Geoffrey Cupit (University of Waikato, New Zealand)
6. International Political Theory. Peter Such (Cardiff University)
7. Liberal Realism: Political Theory in an Age of Insecurity. Derek Edyvane (Leeds University) and Matt Sleat (Sheffield University)
8. Beyond Borders: Drawing New Lines around Political Order. Noel Parker (University of Copenhagen) and Nick Vaughen-Williams (Exeter University)
9. Roundtable on Julia Kristeva and Political Thought. Birgit Schippers (St. Mary’s University College, Belfast)
10. Children, Families, and Justice. Philip Cook (LSE)
11. Hobbes. Michael P. Krom (St. Vincent College, Pennsylvania)
12. Feminist Theory. Janice Richardson (Exeter University) and Annelies Decatm (University of Leuven)
13. Eurocentrism in Political Theory. Efe Can Gurgan (Koç University)
14. When Should Philosophy be Practical: On Ideal and Non-Ideal Theory. Robert Jubb (University of Oxford) and James Gledhill (LSE)
15. Marxism. Mark Cowling (University of Teesside)
16. Anarchism. Ruth Kinna (Loughborough University)
17. Green Political Theory. Stijn Neuteleers  (Leuven University) and  Corey Maciver (Oxford University)
18. Human Enhancement and Justice. David Hunter (University of Keele), Michael Selgelid (Australian National University) and Anthony Mark Cutter (Central Lancashire)
19. Democracy: Theory and Practice. Stephen Elstub (University of the West of Scotland)
20. Contesting Recognition. Atnre Alleyne (University of Delaware)
21. Vilfredo Pareto. Joe Femia (University of Liverpool) and Alasdair Marshall, (University of Southampton)
22. Justice in Work and Production. Keith Breen (Queen’s University Belfast) and Russell Keat (University of Edinburgh)
23. The Problem of Dirty hands. Stephen de Wijze (University of Manchester)
24. British idealism. David Boucher (Cardiff University)
25. Art and Politics: Towards a Culture of Solidarity? Larry Wilde (Nottingham Trent University) and Ian Fraser (Nottingham Trent University)

Further details from the website: Read the rest of this entry »

An online library of Tanner lectures is up at the University of Utah.

Tucson: 7-9 January 2010 | CFP: 1 June 2009

Mark Timmons (Arizona) is organising a workshop on normative ethics to be held in Tucson on 7-9 January 2010. Keynote speakers are Thomas Hill (UNC), Peter Railton (Michigan), and Holly Smith (Rutgers). From the website:

The First Annual Arizona Workshop in Normative Ethics takes place at the Westward Look Resort in Tucson, Arizona, from January 7 to January 9, 2010. Normative ethical theory addresses general questions about the right and the good and attempts to answer such questions as: What sorts of actions are right or wrong and why? What sort of person ought one to become and why? Normative ethical theories, including, for instance, versions of consequentialism, deontology, contractualism, natural law theory, and virtue ethics address such questions. The annual Arizona Workshop will feature new work in normative ethical theory broadly construed, to include not only issues about the right and the good, but meta-theoretical questions about the project of developing and defending normative ethical theories.

Read the rest of this entry »

Victoria University of Wellington: 10-11 December 2009 | CFP: 12 June 2009

From their CFP:

A major conference on the Ethical Foundations of Public Policy will be held in Wellington (New Zealand) on the 10th and 11th of December. It is being hosted by the Institute of Policy Studies (School of Government, Victoria University of Wellington), in association with the Philosophy Programme (Victoria University of Wellington) and the Centre for Theology and Public Issues (University of Otago), and sponsored by the ANZSOG Trust. The conference will be opened by Rt Hon Bill English (Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance), with closing remarks by Iain Rennie (the State Services Commissioner).

The purpose of the event is to encourage and facilitate debate about the ethical basis for policy making, both in terms of the principles that should inform the behaviour of individual policy analysts and decision makers and the normative considerations that should guide choices over the substantive content of particular policies. To help achieve this objective, the conference will bring together policy makers (i.e. politicians, government officials, political advisers, etc.) and academics/researchers working in a range of disciplines, including economics, law, philosophy, politics, religious studies and theology. Five specific sub-themes have been identified for particular attention: the ethics of advice giving; the ethics of decision making; the nature of justice; protecting the global commons; and measuring progress.

Read the rest of this entry »

Josh Cohen and Tom Nagel have a piece in the TLS and Times Online on Rawls’s senior thesis on sin and faith. The piece is part of a longer introduction to A Brief Inquiry into the Meaning of Sin and Faith, which also includes Rawls’s 1997 piece, “On My Religion.” I’ve shared the uneasiness felt by some about the posthumous publication of a senior thesis, but from what Cohen and Nagel discuss there are a number of interesting anticipations of ideas later worked out in a secular form in Theory and Political Liberalism, particularly the rejection of teleology and a vivid sense of the arbitrariness of merit.

Also by Cohen, Boston Review have forwarded two recent pieces on libertarianism and on the technology, journalism, and democracy that may be of interest to people.

We’ll be starting this semester’s podcast symposium this Friday. We have five papers this semester. The first paper is available for download for people who are interested in reading it prior to this Friday’s presentation:

• 27 February: Jonathan Phillips (UNC), “Freedom: Morality and Folk Intuitions.” Comments by Matt Zwolinski (USD).

“Positive and negative theories of liberty hold drastically different accounts of the role for value judgments in regard to freedom. This paper discusses the implications of one special type: moral judgments, and considers how moral judgments may affect ordinary intuitions about freedom in particular. This ‘ordinary’ concept of freedom contrasts both positive and negative theories of liberty and has some interesting implications of its own.”

The remaining papers are: Read the rest of this entry »

I recently created a facebook group for Public Reason, although not for any particular purpose. I may put stuff up there from time to time, and anyone else is welcome to do so too.

Anyone interested in human rights, mass atrocity, or humanitarian intervention will know the work of Alison Des Forges, author of Leave None to Tell the Story, the definitive work on the Rwandan genocide of 1994. Des Forges was killed last night in the crash of Flight 3407 in Buffalo, along with 49 others. Human Rights Watch have a memorial notice up.

Erasmus University Rotterdam: 26-27 June 2009

Via Ingrid Robeyns:

This conference aims to reconsider and deepen theoretical work within political and moral philosophy on questions of care and justice in and between families. The speakers explore and/or reconsider some of the following questions: What is the nature of justice and care within families? To what extent are there conflicts between care and justice within families, and between families? When and how do such conflicts arise, and are they inevitable? Are conflicts of interest between different family members inevitable, and if not, how they can be avoided? What do family members owe to each other, especially with respect to care?

Are there normative issues about these relationships that go beyond duty? Which questions have been relatively neglected when thinking about justice and care in and between families? What are the gender, race/ethnicity and class dimensions to these issues? How does a proper appreciation and understanding of disability make a difference to these questions? Do these issues differ for different types of families, and how can we prevent our theories from leading to misleading generalisations?  Which policies or other forms of social change are normatively recommendable to deal with some of the related moral problems?

Read the rest of this entry »

Northwestern University: 23-25 April 2009 | CFP: 15 February 2009

The Northwestern University Society for Ethical Theory and Political Philosophy is holding its third annual conference from 23-25 April 2009. Keynote speakers are Samuel Scheffler, “The Normativity of Tradition,” and Seana Shiffrin, “Inducing Deliberation.” The deadline for submission is February 15, 2009. Submissions from both faculty and graduate students are welcome, as some sessions will be reserved for graduate student presentations.

Read the rest of this entry »

University of Colorado Boulder: 6-9 August 2009 | CFP: 15 February 2009

The Center for Values and Social Policy in the Philosophy Department at the University of Colorado, Boulder is pleased to invite paper proposals for the second annual ROME congress.  Papers from all areas of ethics and political theory are invited.  To encourage the participation of junior scholars, the University of Colorado will be awarding a Young Ethicist Prize of $500 for most meritorious submission.  The prize competition is open to any participating untenured philosopher (including, but not limited to, tenure-track faculty, instructors, and graduate students).

Keynote speakers:
Judith Jarvis Thomson (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)
Thomas Pogge (Yale University)
Shelly Kagan (Yale University)

Read the rest of this entry »

Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam: 18-20 August 2009 | CFP: 15 March 2009

This is a call for papers for an epistemology conference hosted by the Knowledge, Belief, and Normativity project. It strikes me as relevant for political philosophers too, however, given the interest in moral and other kinds of disagreement in much of recent liberal and democratic political philosophy.

From the notice:

The ethics of belief and the phenomenon of disagreement are two epistemological topics that show an interesting revival during the last few decades. This conference aims to draw the two issues together: What is it to acquire or hold responsible belief on some issue if that issue is the subject of (fierce) controversy? How does the existence of (known) disagreement affect the epistemic status of our beliefs? And what sort of cognitive response is appropriate when one is confronted with opposed views on a subject matter considered?

Read the rest of this entry »

A new philosophy of science group blog, “It’s Only a Theory,” has started up. Contributors so far include Otavio Bueno (Miami), Craig Callender (UCSD), Gabriele Contessa (Carleton), Roman Frigg (LSE), Marc Lange (UNC), Chris Pincock (Purdue), Stathis Psillos (Athens), Mauricio Suarez (Madrid), and Michael Weisberg (Pennsylvania).

Deadline: 15 February 2009

The Women and Politics and Foundations of Political Theory sections of the American Political Science Association and the Women’s Caucus for Political Science announce the Okin-Young Award in Feminist Political Theory. The award commemorates the scholarly, mentoring, and professional contributions of Susan Moller Okin and Iris Marion Young to the development of the field of feminist political theory. This annual award recognizes the best paper on feminist political theory published in an English language academic journal during the previous calendar year. Papers will be considered by self-nomination or nomination by other individuals. The award carries a cash award of $600. To be eligible, the article must have been published in 2008.

Read the rest of this entry »

David Bourget and David Chalmers at ANU have created an online database of philosophy papers called PhilPapers. It allows you to browse through journals, create reading lists at the click of a button, and comment on papers. There is an introduction page here. It looks very likely to become an essential research resource.

“Why?” on Prairie Public Radio: 5:00pm Central, second Sunday of the month

Jack Weinstein writes to say that the new Institute for Philosophy in Public Life at the University of North Dakota has launched a new philosophy call-in radio show called “Why?: Philosophical Discussions about Everyday Life” on Prairie Public Radio that will be available around the world. They will have professional philosophers (and other people working in the field) talking about their work and answering questions from the audience. It is broadcast the second Sunday of every month at 5:00 p.m. central time, and starts February 8. The current guest list is up, and they are looking for callers to phone in.

The announcement email for the institute is below the fold:

Read the rest of this entry »