Notices

The Groupe de recherche interuniversitaire en philosophie politique de Montréal (GRIPP), along with the Research Group on Constitutional Studies (RGCS) and Departments of Philosophy and Political Science at McGill University, will offer one or more postdoctoral fellowships at McGill in 2011-12.

Area of specialization is open within political theory and political philosophy, but we are especially interested in applicants whose research is relevant to one or more of these GRIPP research themes:
1) The history of liberal and democratic thought, especially early modern thought;
2) Moral psychology and political agency, or politics and affect or emotions or rhetoric;
3) Democracy, diversity and pluralism;
4) Democracy, justice, and transnational institutions

Ph.D. must be in hand by 1 September 2011; preference may be given to candidates whose Ph.D.s will be in hand by 15 April 2011. Preference may also be extended to those with a knowledge of French, and to Canadian citizens or permanent residents; please indicate French knowledge and Canadian status in cover letter.

The fellow will be expected to be in residence at McGill for the academic year and to take part in GRIPP and RGCS workshops and conferences. The stipend will be at least $C 27,000 and may be higher. Summer fellowships, paid teaching on top of the stipend, an a research allowance are possible.

Please submit cover letter, CV, a writing sample of one chapter or paper, research statement, and three letters of recommendation via email to GRIPP.postdoc@gmail.com . Materials may be sent if needed to: GRIPP postdoctoral fellowship, Political Science, McGill University, 855 Sherbrooke St W, Montreal QC H3A 2T7, but electronic submission is preferred. Deadline: September 15.

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

Problems with Priority?
A one-day conference hosted by the Manchester Centre for Political Theory (MANCEPT)

19th November 2010
10.30am – 5.30pm
University of Manchester, UK

Speakers
Martin O’Neill (York)
Michael Otsuka (University College London)
Thomas Porter (Manchester)
Alex Voorhoeve (LSE)
Andrew Williams (I.C.R.E.A. and Pompeu Fabra University)

Details
The Priority View is widely seen as a leading alternative to egalitarianism that avoids some of the difficulties associated with the latter.  However, in their 2009 Philosophy & Public Affairs article “Why It Matters That Some Are Worse Off Than Others: An Argument against the Priority View” (P&PA vol. 37, no. 2), Michael Otsuka and Alex Voorhoeve have offered a new argument to show that the Priority View is vulnerable to fatal objection.  This conference is devoted to exploration and criticism of that new argument and will include a ‘response to critics’ session with Otsuka and Voorhoeve.

Registration and further details
http://www.socialsciences.manchester.ac.uk/disciplines/politics/events/priority/

Please note: thanks to the Analysis Trust, there are a limited number of subsidised places for graduate students.  These places will be allocated on a first come, first served basis.

Contact
Please contact Noémie Rouault (noemie.rouault@manchester.ac.uk) if you have any queries.

CFP: First Biannual Meeting of the North American Kant Society

The conference is to be held at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign on June 2-4, 2011. Papers can be in any of the three areas of Kant’s philosophy: theoretical, practical or aesthetic. Please identify the area under which you wish your paper to be considered. Papers should not exceed 20 minutes reading time (approx. 3000 words). Papers are due on October 15, 2010 and will be blind reviewed. Please keep identifying information on a separate page. We encourage graduate student submissions. If you are a graduate student, please identify yourself as such. A $100 travel award will be provided for the best graduate paper and this paper will be considered for the annual Markus Herz Prize. Send your submission by email to Sharon Anderson-Gold: anders@rpi.edu

Public Reason, Vol. 2, No. 1, June 2010 is now available online.

Contents:
Lockean Theories of Property: Justifications for Unilateral Appropriation
Karl Widerquist (Georgetown University – Qatar)

Abortion and the Limits of Political Liberalism
Henrik Friberg-Fernros (University of Gothenburg)

On the Public Reason of the Society of Peoples
Alexander Brown (University of East Anglia)

Crooked Wood, Straight Timber – Kant, Development and Nature
Rafael Ziegler (Ernst Moritz Arndt University of Greifswald)

Human Security and Liberal Peace – Some Rawlsian Considerations
Alejandro Agafonow (The Autonomous University of Barcelona)

Compulsory Victim Restitution Is Punishment: A Reply to Boonin
Michael Cholbi (California State Polytechnic University)

Book Reviews:

Jonathan Israel, A Revolution of the Mind
Reviewed by Reidar Maliks

Alex Voorhoeve, Conversations on Ethics
Reviewed by Cristian Iftode

G. A. Cohen, Rescuing Justice and Equality
Reviewed by Kevin William Gray

Public Reason is an open access journal of political and moral philosophy,
but it is also available in print (ISSN 2065-7285; EISSN 2065-8958).
Public Reason publishes articles, book
reviews, as well as discussion notes from all the fields of political
philosophy and ethics, including political theory, applied ethics, and
legal philosophy. The Journal encourages the debate around rationality in
politics and ethics in the larger context of the discussion concerning
rationality as a philosophical problem.

Public Reason is committed to a pluralistic approach, promoting
interdisciplinary and original perspectives as long as the ideal of
critical arguing and clarity is respected. The journal is intended for the
international philosophical community, as well as for a broader public
interested in political and moral philosophy. It aims to promote
philosophical exchanges with a special emphasis on issues in, and
discussions on the Eastern European space.

Starting from 2010 Public Reason publishes two issues per year, in June
and December. Public Reason is an open access e-journal, but it is also
available in print.

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.

Visiting Fulbright Chair in the Theory and Practice of Federalism and Constitutionalism, McGill University, Department of Political Science and Research Group on Constitutional Studies, 2011-2012.Open to US citizens (who are not also Canadian citizens or permanent residents); must have received Ph.D. by the end of 2010. Stipend of $US 25,000 for stays of 4-9 months.Specializations: Normative, jurisprudential, comparative, historical, or analytic/formal studies of constitutional theory and practice, with preference for studies that encompass some aspect of constitutional federalism. Methodologically open within political theory and political science, including intellectual and institutional history.For more information please contact me.To apply click here; application deadline August 2.

22nd-23rd July, Budapest

Registration Open, send an email to Molesa@ceu.hu or MiklosiZ@ceu.hu

http://www.ceu.hu/events/2010-07-22/democracy-and-legitimacy-dealing-with-extremism

Twenty years after the fall of Communism we witness an important rise in support for right wing political parties across Europe. In the last European elections the vote shifted to the right dramatically. Worryingly, far right political parties have fared well recently in the UK, Bulgaria, Italy, Austria, the Netherlands and Hungary. All of these countries have representatives from far right wing parties in the European Parliament. Many analysts suggest that people are turning to the far right groups as a reaction to (what they perceive as) shortcomings in democratic regimes.

In the face of these developments several questions arise: what resources does democracy have to resist far right parties? And more generally how should liberal democracy respond to illiberal groups? In many cases, these groups challenge the limits of free speech, making necessary to reflect once again on to what extent and why even “hate speech” ought to be protected against legal restrictions. On a related note, some governments have reacted against some groups by restricting the scope of free association or by interfering with the entry policies of some groups. Are there any limits to private association?

Meanwhile, the rise of the extreme right, together with heightened discrimination and segregation of disadvantaged minority groups give rise to another set of related questions about what governments may do to protect and assist these groups which might not be able to protect themselves, which might not be able to respond to prejudice against them. Is it permissible to restrict privacy rights by registering ethnic data in order to help fight against discrimination? Is it permissible to use such data for the purpose of reverse discrimination?

The conference is motivated by two sets of reasons: on the one hand we aim to discuss how the recent ‘turn to the right’ might affect liberal democracy and what can be done about it. On the other hand, we plan to do this by bringing together experts in both political theory, legal studies, public and social policy. We believe that cross-fertilisation is beneficial for all camps of enquiry.

Timetable:

THURSDAY, 22 JULY

Registration 9:30

Welcome 9:45

Keynote speech 10:00-11:15

T. Christiano, Democratic Authority and International Institutions

            Commented by Andrew Williams

Coffee 11:15-11:30

Panel 1 11:30-13:00

Enzo Rossi, Justice, Legitimacy and (Normative) Authority for Political Realists

Emanuela Ceva, Resolving, Containing, Managing: What Response to Value Conflicts in Politics?

Eszter Kollar, Ethical Insignificance and Political Significance of the Nation

Lunch 13:00-14:00

Panel 2 14:00-15:30

Richard Winfield The Vocabulary of Extremism: State-Sponsored Hate Speech Inciting Violence

Lucia Scaffardi, Freedom of Expression and Its Limits: Racial Hate Speech in Italy

Todd Grabarsky, The Rule of Law and Anti-Hate Speech Legislation in Democratic Germany

Coffee 15:30-15:45

Panel 3 15:45-17:15

Alexa Zellentin, Liberal Neutrality, Equal Citizenship and Cultural Differences

Nils Holtug, Secularism and Liberal Neutrality: The Case of Judges and Religious Symbols

Matthew Clayton, Rebutting Arguments for Religiously-Motivated Disobedience: Rawlsian Considerations

Coffee 17:15-17:30

Panel 4 17:30-19:00

Bernard Rorke, Anti-Roma Speech, Segregation and Discrimination

Stanislav (Stanko) Daniel, Mainstreaming Racism in Politics

Laura Ranca, Media(ted) extremism? Addressing Roma minority representation in Romania’s mainstream media

Wine reception at CEU Japanese Garden 19:00

FRIDAY, 23 JULY

Keynote Speech 10:00-11:15

Anthony Appiah, The theory and practice of cosmopolitanism           

Comments, TBD

Coffee 11:15-11:30

Panel 5 11:30- 13:00

Espen Gamlund, The Requirements of Toleration

Kristian Ekeli, The Political Rights of Anti-liberal Democratic Groups

Ekow Yankah, Rawls, Secular Communication and Exclusion

Lunch 13:00-14:00

Panel 6 14:00-15:30

Willem Korthals Altes, Hate speech, Religion, Discrimination

Janne Teller, May Allah Have Mercy on My Country

Naser Khader (Pending)

Coffee 15:30-15:45

Panel 7 15:45-17:15

David Heller, Regulating Hate Speech in Cyberspace: Local Norms, Global Inforcement?

Suzette Bronkhorst, The Internet and How Extremists Use Its Full Potential

Ronald Eissens, Liberty, Progress and Extremism: Lessons not Learned

Coffee 17:15-17:30

Panel 8 17:30-18:30

Rastislav Dinic, Tradition, Prejudice and Folk Epistemology

John Harris, Doubts about Democracy

Closing dinner at a restaurant in historic downtown Budapest 19:30

I’ve received the announcement below through the Association for Practical and Professional Ethics’ list.  I assume it’s no secret and think it might be of interest to Public Reason members:

Theoretical and Applied Ethics (Revised Announcement)

The editors of a new undergraduate journal, Theoretical and Applied Ethics, are seeking referees for its editorial board. Chris Herrera, associate professor of philosophy at Montclair State University will be general editor of this journal, and Alexandra Perry, lecturer in philosophy at Bergen Community College will be managing editor. T&AE will be geared towards undergraduates, and each paper accepted for publication will have been blind-reviewed by a team of referees, all of whom hold doctorates in their respective specialties. Professor Herrera’s overall goal is to provide an online journal for high-quality papers in areas such as Medical Ethics, Business Ethics, and Ethical Theory. Current plans are for the journal to be published three times each year, with a Fall, Spring, and Summer issue.  The journal’s board of editors will be comprised of faculty from various universities. Suitable applicants will hold a Ph.D. in philosophy, and have an AOS in ethics, philosophy of law, or social philosophy. Interested applicants should send an abbreviated version of their C.V.s, along with a brief letter of introduction to TheoreticalAndAppliedEthics@gmail.com

I have no dog in this fight, as my lack of a Philosophy Ph.D. makes me ineligible on my face.  For that matter, I’m probably also ineligible when off my face.

Just thought some of the political philosophers might have interest in this new program from Yale Cognitive Science:

The Experiment Month initiative is a program designed to help philosophers conduct experimental studies. If you are interested in running a study, you can send your study proposal to the Experiment Month staff. Then, if your proposal is selected for inclusion, we will conduct the study online, send you the results and help out with any statistical analysis you may need. All proposals are due Sept. 1.

For further information, see the Experiment Month website: http://www.yale.edu/cogsci/XM

0915-1800 June 15th 2010, James Martin 21st Century School, Oxford

Speakers:
DR. HELEN FROWE (SHEFFIELD), `Threats and Bystanders’
DR. GERALD LANG (LEEDS), `Self-Defence and Agency’
DR. SETH LAZAR (OXFORD), `Scepticism about the Eliminative/Manipulative Agency Distinction’
PROFESSOR VICTOR TADROS (WARWICK), `Duty and Liability’

Respondents:
JO FIRTH (OXFORD)
DR. JON QUONG (MANCHESTER)
DR. DAVID RODIN (OXFORD)
GUY SELA (OXFORD)

Kima has been drugged and abandoned at the bottom of a well. She wakes up to see Niko hurtling to-wards her. He was walking alongside the (concealed) well when a powerful gust of wind blew him down it. If Kima does nothing Niko’s body will crush her, but he will survive. Or, she can save herself, using her trusty ray gun to disintegrate his body. Most people think Kima is justified in killing Niko to save herself, even though Niko is quite innocent of the threat he poses. But why? One answer is that killing Niko is an example of eliminative agency-Kima is not benefiting from Niko’s presence, but merely eliminating the threat that he poses. This is easier to justify than manipulative agency, which would involve using Niko’s body to secure a benefit she could not enjoy in his absence.This workshop brings together some of the UK’s leading philosophers of self-defence to discuss the eliminative/manipulative agency distinction, and ssess its contribution to the ethics of self-defence.

Lunch served. Papers will be pre-circulated a week in advance. Everyone is welcome, but registration is required. Numbers will be limited so register early to avoid disappointment. Please contact lucy.crittenden (at) politics.ox.ac.uk to register

Thanks!

Central European University, Budapest, 22-23 July 2010 | CFP: 31 May 2010

Please submit a 400 words abstract, suitable for blind review to molesA [at] ceu.hu or to MiklosiZ [at] ceu.hu by 31 May 2010. The conference is free of charge, but participants will need to provide for their own travel costs.

Twenty years after the fall of Communism we witness an important rise in support for right wing political parties across Europe. In the last European elections the vote shifted to the right dramatically. Worryingly, far right political parties have fared well recently in the UK, Bulgaria, Italy, Austria, the Netherlands and Hungary. All of these countries have representatives from far right wing parties in the European Parliament. Many analysts suggest that people are turning to the far right groups as a reaction to (what they perceive as) shortcomings in democratic regimes.

In the face of these developments several questions arise: what resources does democracy have to resist far right parties? And more generally how should liberal democracy respond to illiberal groups? In many cases, these groups challenge the limits of free speech, making necessary to reflect once again on to what extent and why even “hate speech” ought to be protected against legal restrictions. On a related note, some governments have reacted against some groups by restricting the scope of free association or by interfering with the entry policies of some groups. Are there any limits to private association?

Read the rest of this entry »

Workshops in Political Theory

7th Annual Conference
Manchester Metropolitan University
1-3 September 2010
CALL FOR PAPERS: COLLECTIVE RESPONSIBILITY AND GLOBAL JUSTICE
Convenor: Avia Pasternak (University College London)

In recent years there’s a growing interest amongst philosophers and political theorists in questions of collective responsibility. Discussions cover a range of issues: What is the nature of corporate agency? Can groups be held morally responsible for their actions? Could they be punished and, if so, what are the implications for the individual group members?

Answers to these questions are of pertinent relevance to another major debate in contemporary political theory which concerns global justice, or the principles that should govern the distribution of primary goods at the global level: Are the primary holders of duties of global justice groups or individuals? What type of groups should be held collectively responsible for global injustices (states, multinational corporations, peoples, ethnic groups)? Can we ascribe responsibility for global injustices to groups which lack coordination mechanisms and formal decision-making procedures? Should groups like states be held collectively responsible for past wrongs which they have inflicted on other groups (e.g. colonialism)? And how should the responsibility of groups (states, nations, corporations) for global injustices pass on to their members?

This workshop invites papers on these questions and on other topics which reflect upon the relation between collective responsibility and global justice.

If you wish to participate, please send a 500 abstract to avia.pasternak@ucl.ac.uk by May 31, 2010.

More details about the Workshops can be found at http://www.hlss.mmu.ac.uk/polphil/news/article.php?id=343

CALL FOR PAPERS

“Science, Knowledge, and Democracy”

TRiP 2011 - Three Rivers Philosophy Conference

University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC  USA

April 1st - April 3rd, 2011

PDF flyer here.

Keynote Speakers:

Elizabeth Anderson (University of Michigan)

Miranda Fricker (Birkbeck, University of London)

Henry Richardson (Georgetown University)

Miriam Solomon (Temple University)

Read the rest of this entry »

Workshops in Political Theory
Seventh Annual Conference
Manchester Metropolitan University
1-3 September 2010

DEMOCRATIC PUBLIC REASON IN PRACTICE

Convenors:
Enrico Biale (University of Milano-Bicocca and University of Louvain)
Valeria Ottonelli (University of Genova)

What constraints and requirements should democratic public reason meet
in order to be both practically viable and normatively appealing?

Democratic public reason is subject to feasibility constraints. Some of
them are also common to non-democratic models of decision-making, like
the existence of time limits on the decision process and other material
and institutional restrictions on the actual implementation of the
choices to be made. Other constraints on the feasibility of democratic
public reason are peculiar to it, like those pertaining to the actual
knowledge, competence and engagement in politics that can be
realistically expected from the citizens of a democratic polity, and
those relating to the issues that members of a democratic society can
reasonably debate on.
At the same time, democratic public reason needs to respond to normative
requirements and ideals, like publicity and transparency in the
decision-making processes, respect for the rules of correct reasoning,
such as consistency and integrity, the rejection of status quo and
ideological biases, and the search for a sharable basis on which to
ground the debate.

This workshop aims to further explore this tension between the ideal and
the practice of democratic public reason, by addressing the underlying
theoretical and normative issues and by testing the answers that can be
offered to them through the analysis and discussion of case studies.
Papers analysing the tension within specific areas of application of the
ideal of democratic public reason (health care, social justice,
fundamental liberties) are especially welcome.

Those who wish to participate in the workshop are invited to send a 500
word abstract to vottonel@nous.unige.it by the 31st of May 2010.

Additional information about the venue and the workshop can be found at
http://www.hlss.mmu.ac.uk/politicaltheory.

Democracy and Legitimacy: Dealing with Extremism.
22nd -23rd July 2010
Central European University,
Budapest, Hungary.
(Extended deadline, 15th May 2010)
Please submit a 400 words abstract, suitable for blind review to molesA@ceu.hu or to MiklosiZ@ceu.hu by the 15th May 2010. The conference is free of charge, but participants will need to provide for their own travel costs.

Twenty years after the fall of Communism we witness an important rise in support for right wing political parties across Europe. In the last European elections the vote shifted to the right dramatically. Worryingly, far right political parties have fared well recently in the UK, Bulgaria, Italy, Austria, the Netherlands and Hungary. All of these countries have representatives from far right wing parties in the European Parliament. Many analysts suggest that people are turning to the far right groups as a reaction to (what they perceive as) shortcomings in democratic regimes.

In the face of these developments several questions arise: what resources does democracy have to resist far right parties? And more generally how should liberal democracy respond to illiberal groups? In many cases, these groups challenge the limits of free speech, making necessary to reflect once again on to what extent and why even “hate speech” ought to be protected against legal restrictions. On a related note, some governments have reacted against some groups by restricting the scope of free association or by interfering with the entry policies of some groups. Are there any limits to private association?
Meanwhile, the rise of the extreme right, together with heightened discrimination and segregation of disadvantaged minority groups give rise to another set of related questions about what governments may do to protect and assist these groups which might not be able to protect themselves, which might not be able to respond to prejudice against them. Is it permissible to restrict privacy rights by registering ethnic data in order to help fight against discrimination? Is it permissible to use such data for the purpose of reverse discrimination?

The conference is motivated by two sets of reasons: on the one hand we aim to discuss how the recent ‘turn to the right’ might affect liberal democracy and what can be done about it. On the other hand, we plan to do this by bringing together experts in both political theory, legal studies, public and social policy. We believe that cross-fertilisation is beneficial for all camps of enquiry. Therefore, we invite contributions both from a theoretical and a practical perspective.

We invite papers including, but not limited to, the following topics:
Freedom of expression, regulation of “hate speech”
Tolerance
Discrimination (both negative and positive)
Segregation
Freedom of association
Freedom of assembly
Political campaign regulations
Media regulations
Protection of privacy, protection of personal data
State neutrality

Invited speakers:

Matthew Clayton (University of Warwick).
Thomas Christiano (University of Arizona)
Andrew Williams (University of Warwick)
Nils Holtug (University of Copenhagen)
Nikolai Sitter (Central European University)
Emanuela Ceva (University of Pavia)

Postgraduate Essay Prize, 2010

Res Publica: A Journal of Moral, Legal and Social Philosophy

For the sixth year running, Res Publica (the journal of the Association for Legal and Social Philosophy) will be awarding a prize for the best paper submitted by a current postgraduate student in 2010.  This may be in any area falling within the journal’s aims and scope, described below.  Entries should conform to the normal requirements for submissions - please see the website address below for details.

All entries must be received by 1 October 2010, with the winner to be announced in January 2011.  The winner will receive £100 and a year’s subscription to the journal.  The winning essay will be published in Volume 17 (2011).

Previous winners:
Alexandra Couto, ‘Privacy and Justification’ 12.3 (2006)
Alasdair Cochrane, ‘Animal Rights and Animal Experiments: An Interest-Based Approach’ 13.3 (2007)
Göran Duus-Otterström, ‘Betting Against Hard Determinism’ (14.3, 2008)
Seth Lazar, ‘The Nature and Disvalue of Injury’ (15.3, 2009)
Guy Sela, ‘Moral Luck and Liability Lotteries’ (forthcoming: 16.3, 2010)

The prize will be judged by a panel of referees, along with the journal editors.

Entries should be submitted via the journal’s website -
www.editorialmanager.com/resp - and labelled Postgraduate Essay Prize.

There is more information about Res Publica at www.springer.com/11158.  Or please contact the co-editors:

Gideon Calder - Email: Gideon.Calder@newport.ac.uk

Jonathan Seglow - Email: j.seglow@rhul.ac.uk

German political theorists and IR-specialists are hosting a three-day-conference on International Political Theory in Frankfurt/Main from June 10-12, 2010. While most papers and the bulk of the discussion will be in German, there will be one English language panel on June 11, 4.30 - 8 p.m.:

4:30 - 5:30 Chris Brown, London School of Economics and Political Science: The Normative Foundations of a Post-Western World

5:30 - 6:30 Leif Wenar, King’s College, London: Clean Trade in Natural Resources

6:45 - 7:45 Terry Nardin, National University of Singapore: What is the ‘Political’ in International Political Theory?

For more details and the rest of the program, please see

http://www.politikwissenschaft.tu-darmstadt.de/index.php?id=theoriesektion

Everyone welcome, please register with katharina.grabietz at gmx.de

Hello all,

I’ve just edited a textbook on “Ethics and World Politics” for Oxford University Press, which may be of interest to those teaching global justice or cognate areas.

The book is aimed at advanced undergraduate and graduate courses in political theory/philosophy and international relations. It aims to cover a broad range of issues and approaches, and it is accompanied by a website with assorted pedagogical features (lecture powerpoints, glossary, etc.).

The OUP UK webpage for the volume is here. The OUP US webpage is here.

I hope it proves useful for those teaching the subject,

Best wishes,

Duncan Bell

Department of Politics and International Studies, University of Cambridge

Two conferences coming up in Montreal:

April 9-10, 2010
Hegel After Spinoza: A Symposium
Friday - 4:00 pm
Keynote Address
John McCumber
Nature vs. Spirit: Hegel’s Reconciliation with Spinoza

Saturday - 10:00 am

Jason Read
“Desire is Man’s Very Essence”: Spinoza and Hegel as Philosophers of Transindividuality

Caroline Williams
Thinking the Subject between Hegel and Spinoza

1:30 pm
Vittorio Morfino
Spinoza in the Science of Logic

Vance Maxwell
Hegel’s Treatment of Spinoza: Its Scope and Limits

4:00 pm
Keynote Address
Warren Montag
Hegel, sive Spinoza: Towards a History of the Problem

This event is sponsored by:The Beatty Memorial Lectures Committee, Groupe de Recherche Interuniversitaire en Philosophie Politique (GRIPP), the Department of Philosophy, and the Research Group on Constitutional Studies.

April 15-16, 2010
Basic Income at a Time of Economic Upheaval: A Path to Justice and Stability?

“Times of economic turmoil raise difficult questions but also offer radical new opportunities to rethink and perhaps even rebuild the economic fabric of our society. The prospects and challenges of a BIG policy at a time of economic upheaval is the topic of a 2 day conference held on 15-16 April 2010 at the University of Montréal, hosted by the Centre de Recherche en Éthique de l’Université de Montréal (CRÉUM), BIEN Canada and the US Basic Income Guarantee network (USBIG).This first collaboration between the US and Canadian chapters of the Basic Income Earth Network (BIEN) includes keynote addresses from Dr. Louise Haagh (University of York), Prof. Guy Standing (University of Bath), and Senator Eduardo Suplicy (São Paulo, Brasil), as well as a contributions by Senators Art Eggleton and Hugh Segal, Tony Martin MP, Amélie Châteauneuf (spokesperson of FCPASQ), Rob Rainer (Executive Director of Canada Without Poverty), Al Sheahen (Executive Committee Member of USBIG), and Sheila Regehr (Director of National Council of Welfare), and many others.

The program is now available on the conference website at http://bigmontreal.wordpress.com/program/
The conference takes place at:
McGill Faculty Club, Ole’s
3450 McTavish Street
Montreal, Quebec H3A 1X9

Everyone is welcome to attend and participation is free. To register for the conference please email Jurgen De Wispelaere at BIGMontreal2010@gmail.com with your name and institutional affiliation.

CEU Budapest: 22-23 July 2010 | CFP: 30 April 2010

Please submit a 400 words abstract, suitable for blind review to molesA [at] ceu.hu or to MiklosiZ [at] ceu.hu before the 30 April 2010. The conference is fee of charge, but participants will need to provide for their own travel costs.

Twenty years after the fall of Communism we witness an important rise in support for right wing political parties across Europe. In the last European elections the vote shifted to the right dramatically. Worryingly, far right political parties have fared well recently in the UK, Bulgaria, Italy, Austria, the Netherlands and Hungary. All of these countries have representatives from far right wing parties in the European Parliament. Many analysts suggest that people are turning to the far right groups as a reaction to (what they perceive as) shortcomings in democratic regimes.

In the face of these developments several questions arise: what resources does democracy have to resist far right parties? And more generally how should liberal democracy respond to illiberal groups? In many cases, these groups challenge the limits of free speech, making necessary to reflect once again on to what extent and why even “hate speech” ought to be protected against legal restrictions. On a related note, some governments have reacted against some groups by restricting the scope of free association or by interfering with the entry policies of some groups. Are there any limits to private association?

Read the rest of this entry »

I am delighted to announce that the journal Representation has just published a symposium on David Estlund’s book, Democratic Authority. The symposium - which includes papers by Ben Saunders, Andrew Lister, myself, and a reply from David Estlund - grew out of the reading group that was initially hosted here at Public Reason in the early part of 2008.

I should also add, as an associate editor of Representation, that this symposium is part of a broader effort to encourage more political theorists and philosophers to publish in the journal. We are aiming to create a journal which publishes both empirical and theoretical work on representation and democracy, so if you work in these areas, please consider us as a venue.

Workshops in Political Theory, Seventh Annual Conference
Manchester Metropolitan University, 1-3 September 2010

TOLERATION AND RESPECT: CONCEPTS, JUSTIFICATIONS AND APPLICATIONS

Conveners:
Emanuela Ceva (Institute for Advanced Study, University of Pavia)
Sune Laegaard (Roskilde University)
Federico Zuolo (Institute for Advanced Study, University of Pavia)

Discussions of the ideas of toleration and respect have animated vivid and ongoing debates in political and moral philosophy during the last decades. The formulations given to the idea of toleration have come to range from the negative appeal to non-interference to the positive recognition of difference. In a similar vein, the idea of respect has been object of some serious reformulation building on the works of neo-Kantians up to the most recent applications to issues of cultural diversity and religious liberty. However, the sophistication of the dicussions revolving around each of the two ideas has not been accompanied by a clarification of their reciprocal conceptual and normative relations, thus leading, in fact, to a blurring of the lines between them.

On this backdrop, the workshop will offer an occasion to engage in debates leading to a more systematic exploration of the intricate relations, conceptual and practical, between the two ideas. In particular, papers could address one (or more) of the following issues: Read the rest of this entry »

Two theory-heavy political science conferences released their schedules today: the Canadian Political Science Association , June 1-3, Montreal (with the theory section organized by Jennifer Rubenstein and myself, and including a dedicated workhop on “Non-ideal and institutional theory”) and the New England Political Science Association (theory panels organized by Sharon Krause).For those who just want to see the theory listings for CPSA instead of browsing through the unwieldy 86-page pdf, I’ve separated them out here.

The main point of this chapter is to defend a conception of objectivity in our normative thinking about justice.  Against critics of the ‘Enlightenment tradition,’ Sen defends the idea that we should understand reason as the “ultimate arbitrator of ethical beliefs.”  This is not because “reasoned scrutiny” can provide us with “any sure-fire way of getting things exactly right,” but rather because ethical thinking requires us to be “as objective as we reasonably can,” and reason is our only reliable way of doing this (p. 39).  This role for reason is compatible, Sen points out, with recognizing the dangers of ‘overselling reason,’ or in being overconfident in the conclusions of our own reasoning.  Sen also makes the point that our emotions pose no threat to, and should not be understood as hostile towards, our capacity for reason, despite the fact that historically many Enlightenment thinkers may have ignored or downplayed the cognitive role of the emotions (here Sen mentions, unsurprisingly, Smith and Hume as important exceptions).  Nonetheless, “the need for reasoned scrutiny of psychological attitudes does not disappear even after the power of emotions is recognized” (p. 50).  These general claims all strike me as correct and not especially controversial.

Sen also sketches some of the main elements of his account of ‘ethical objectivity’ in this chapter.  One element is Adam Smith’s device of the ‘impartial spectator.’  Another is Rawlsian public reason.  Public reason provides a ‘public framework of thought’ by means of which arguments can be made in a transparent and mutually justifiable way.  Despite the differences amongst the different accounts of ethical objectivity mentioned in this chapter, Sen notes that “there is an essential similarity in their respective approaches to objectivity to the extent that objectivity is linked…by each of them to the ability to survive challenges from informed scrutiny coming from diverse quarters.”  Despite appropriating Rawlsian public reason to his account of ethical objectivity, though, Sen asserts that “the principles that survive such scrutiny need not be a unique set,” (p.45) and that this marks a significant difference between his position and Rawls’s.  (I don’t think that this is a fair interpretation of Rawls’s position in his later writings, but will postpone this discussion until next week.)

One potentially controversial claim is Sen’s assertion that Rawls’s and Habermas’s respective approaches to public justification ultimately do not differ much.  “If people are capable of being reasonable in taking note of other people’s points of view and in welcoming information,” Sen writes, “then the gap between the two approaches would tend to be not necessarily momentous” (p. 43).  I think that Sen is correct here (at least I think I do – I found his discussion in this section at times to be somewhat opaque), but then I haven’t read Habermas in years.  I’d be curious to know what anyone better informed of Habermas’s criticisms of Rawls thinks.

Sen makes another comment that some readers of a Kantian persuasion might find debateable.  He states: “Since reasoned support can hardly be in itself a value-giving quality, we have to ask: why, precisely, is reasoned support so critical?” (Pp. 39-40.)  I suspect that some Kantians (especially those influenced by Korsgaard’s interpretation of Kant’s theory of value) would disagree.  (Although the comment by Sen is so brief, perhaps I am reading too much into it?)

I found Sen’s comment on Rawls’s idea of ‘reasonable persons’ on the bottom of page 43 somewhat puzzling.  After noting his overall sympathy with the idea of Rawlsian public reason, he writes: “I will not make a big distinction between those whom Rawls categorizes as ‘reasonable persons’ and other human beings… I have tried to argue elsewhere that, by and large, all of us are capable of being reasonable” (p. 43).  He then goes on to remark that his own view is instead similar to Rawls’s idea of ‘free and equal citizens,’ according to which all persons have ‘two moral powers’ (a capacity for a sense of justice, and a capacity to form, revise, and pursue a conception of the good).

Sen does not seem to appreciate that Rawls’s idea of ‘reasonable persons’ is a very specific one in political liberalism, and one related directly to the idea of citizens as ‘free and equal.’  The first feature of reasonable persons is that they acknowledge the ‘fact of reasonable pluralism’ (i.e., they manifest a “willingness to recognize the burdens of judgement and to accept their consequences for the use of public reason in directing the legitimate exercise of political power” [PL, p. 54]).  The second feature of reasonable persons is that they hold the ‘criterion of reciprocity’ to be a prescriptive norm for the public political relations of citizens (“reasonable persons are ready to propose, or to acknowledge when proposed by others, the principles needed to specify what can be seen by all as fair terms of cooperation” [JaF, pp. 6-7]).  Finally, reasonable persons honour these principles, even at some cost to their own interests.  These features of reasonable persons correspond to citizens’ capacity for a sense of justice, just as the rationality of persons corresponds to citizens’ capacity for a conception of the good.  So the idea of ‘free and equal citizens’ with ‘two moral powers’ is not wholly distinct from the idea of persons understood as ‘rational and reasonable’ in Rawlsian political liberalism.  Moreover, I see nothing in Rawls’s conception of ‘reasonable persons’ that rules out the possibility that ‘all of us’ are capable of being ‘reasonable’ in the relevant sense.

This is obviously a relatively minor criticism.  However, I think that Sen’s comments here are indicative of a problem that becomes more marked in the next chapter, namely, an apparent failure on the part of Sen to address adequately key features of Rawlsian political liberalism.  This problem is well illustrated, I think, by the very label ‘transcendental institutionalism.’  I’ll have more to say about this next week.

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 »

[Moving to the top since the deadline is tomorrow. SCM]

THE APT CONFERENCE 2010 – PROPOSAL GUIDELINES

Reed College, Portland, Oregon, October 21-23, 2010; Proposals Due February 20, 2010

The Association for Political Theory welcomes paper proposals, panel proposals, and proposals for roundtable discussions from all approaches and on all topics in political theory, political philosophy, and the history of political thought. Faculty, advanced PhD candidates, and independent scholars are eligible to apply. We also encourage faculty to volunteer to serve as chairs and/or discussants.

Read the rest of this entry »

Global Justice. Concepts, Theories and Constraints: May 18-19, 2010 | CFP: 20 April 2010

Having gained an unprecedented urgency, the topic of global justice has received increasingly public and academic attention, and has lately become a central issue in moral and political philosophy. Our conference seeks to be a forum for discussing the most important theories of global justice, their central concepts and constraints.

Professor Thomas Pogge (Yale University) will deliver the conference keynote address.

The conference will be held at the Faculty of Philosophy, University of Bucharest. The conference is organized by the The Center for the Study of Rationality and Beliefs as part of the research project Reason and Beliefs. Rationality, Public Reason and Education within a Multicultural Society financed by CNCSIS/UEFISCSU.

Submission of papers
We welcome papers concerning any topic related to global justice. Contributions are expected from researchers from different academic fields who are interested in the outlined topic or in closely related ones. Students are also invited to submit papers for the conference, as we intend to organize a student panel. Abstracts should be sent by e-mail as attachment at globaljustice@ub-filosofie.ro until the 20 April 2010. The deadline for submitting the full version of your paper is 10 May 2010. Along with the abstract, please send us your contact details: current affiliation, address and telephone number. The organizers cannot support any travel or accommodation costs.

Read the rest of this entry »

We are pleased to announce the third issue of Dissensus, focused on “Droit et philosophie du langage ordinaire”, directed by D. Pieret, with contributions of D. Pieret, B. Leclercq, B. Ambroise, D. Pasteger, S. Goltzberg, N. Thirion, T. Berns & G. Jeanmart, A. Janvier & J. Pieron, A. Herla and T. Bolmain.

Dissensus is the University of Liege (Belgium) peer-reviewed electronic journal in political philosophy. Papers are welcome, in English or French and are to be sent to secretariat.dissensus [at] ulg.ac.be

Dissensus is available on http://popups.ulg.ac.be/dissensus/ and http://www.philopol.ulg.ac.be/dissensus.html.

Dear Public Reason Contributors and Readers,

Below is the schedule for our international online reading group on Amartya Sen’s recent book, The Idea of Justice.  Of course, modifications to the schedule may have to be made as we go along, but hopefully we will be able to maintain, for the most part, a weekly schedule.

I envision this group as operating in a similar fashion to the previous reading groups conducted on this blog (viz., the ones on Estlund and Brettschneider).  Participants may want to look at those discussions in order to get a sense of what is involved.  (Links to both can be found on the left hand side of this webpage.)

Before we get rolling, there are three modest suggestions that I would like to make.

First of all, it is expected that all participants will have done the relevant reading for the week in question.  Consequently, I don’t think that detailed or comprehensive summaries for each chapter will be necessary.  Rather, I would recommend summarizing only the material that you think is especially interesting, controversial, or relevant to the matters that you want to comment upon.

Second, I would recommend that most posts try to stay under 1000 words (ideally ‘well under’).  “Brevity is the soul of wit,” as the Bard says.  We are all busy people, and I worry that posting ‘mini-articles’ may serve as a disincentive for people to read the commentaries in their entirety and to participate in the discussion.

Third, although this probably is quite obvious to us all, I would recommend, if possible, trying to identify 1-3 specific questions, issues, or criticisms for further discussion in each commentary.

Obviously these are meant as suggestions only!  Feel free to write a longer post, or raise 4+ issues (or none at all), if you think that the chapter on which you are commenting warrants it.

We have an extremely impressive group of commentators lined up for this discussion.  Thanks to all of you in advance for your time and effort!  I’m very much looking forward to our discussion.

Best wishes,
Blain

Schedule

Introduction (Feb 22) Colin Farrelly (Queens U)

Part I – The Demands of Justice

1. Reason and Objectivity (March 1) Blain Neufeld (UW-M)
2. Rawls and Beyond (March 8.) Blain Neufeld (UW-M)
3. Institutions and Persons (March 15) Robert Jubb (UCL/Oxford)
4. Voice and Social Choice (March 22) Chris Lowry (CU HK)
5. Impartiality and Objectivity (March 29) Derek Bowman (Brown)
6. Closed and Open Impartiality (April 5) Jonathan Quong (Manchester)

Part II – Forms of Reasoning

7. Position, Relevance and Illusion (April 12) Steve Vanderheiden (Colorado)
8. Rationality and Other People (April 19) Alon Harel (Hebrew U)
9. Plurality of Impartial Reasons (April 26) Charles Olney (UCSC)
10. Realizations, Consequences and Agency (May 3) Andrew Lister (Queens U)

Part III – The Materials of Justice

11. Lives, Freedoms and Capabilities (May 10) Daniel Weinstock (Montreal)
12. Capabilities and Resources (May 17) David Wiens (Michigan)
13. Happiness, Well-being and Capabilities (May 24) Colleen Murphy (Texas A&M)
14. Equality and Liberty (May 31) Jurgen De Wispelaere (CREUM)

Part IV – Public Reasoning and Democracy

15. Democracy as Public Reason (June 7) Peter Stone (Stanford)
16. The Practice of Democracy (June 14) Cynthia Stark (Utah)
17. Human Rights and Global Imperatives (July 21) Alex Sager (Calgary)
18. Justice and the World (July 28) Alex Sager (Calgary)

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.

Rights, Equality, and Justice:A Conference Inspired by the Moral and Legal Theory of David Lyons

Boston University is proud to honor Professor David Lyons with a conference featuring many outstanding scholars in law and philosophy giving papers and commentaries on important topics about which he has written. Professor Lyons will give a response. Boston University Law Review will publish the papers and proceedings. Information about the conference, along with papers (as we receive them), will be posted on the BU School of Law Web site: http://www.bu.edu/law/events/upcoming/. The conference, which is co-sponsored by the BU School of Law and Department of Philosophy, will be held at BU School of Law, 765 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston, MA.

All are welcome to attend. There is no registration fee, but if you plan to attend, please RSVP to Andrea Larsen, alarsen@bu.edu. If you have academic questions about the program, please contact Professor James E. Fleming, jfleming [at] bu.edu.

Read the rest of this entry »

I just wanted to announce the publication of my book with David Schmidtz, A Brief History of Liberty.

It’s something of an unusual book for philosophers, because it’s as much a genuine history (and economics, psychology, law, and sociology) book as it is a philosophy book. I’d summarize our motivation for the project as follows: Dave and I note that historically, philosophers and regular people have used the word “liberty” to refer to a wide range of related things. When philosophers debate what the word “liberty” refers to, or which kind of liberty is most important, they often have a background assumption that liberty, whatever that is, is to be promoted by government in a particular way. But that’s not a good assumption. What role government, or any institution, ought to play in promoting a particular kind of liberty is determined not by conceptual analysis, but by investigating (empirically) what government and other institutions are likely to accomplish. What value any kind of liberty has is also for the most part contingent—we need to see what having certain kinds of liberties does to people, and what happens to people when those liberties are absent. Again, this goes beyond philosophy and requires empirical work. Also, what relationship different kinds of liberty with one another requires empirical work. For instance, while people might debate whether negative or positive liberty is more important, we instead note that empirically, it looks like protecting negative liberty has a long and non-accidental historical track record of promoting positive liberty.

Here’s the table of contents:

Introduction: Conceptions of Freedom.

1. A Prehistory of Liberty: Forty Thousand Years Ago.

2. The Rule of Law: AD 1075.

3. Religious Freedom: 1517.

4. Freedom of Commerce: 1776.

5. Civil Liberty: 1954.

6. Psychological Freedom, the Last Frontier: 1963.

Congress: Democracy Today - In Political Philosophy and Theory, 3 - 6 November 2010 - Universidade do Minho, Braga, Portugal

Today western democracies confront social, cultural and political challenges, which call for a reevaluation of our state affairs, our system of practices and our system of discourses. In contemporary pluralist and multicultural societies, there is an increased gap between citizens and political establishments. Traditional approaches of politics of recognition or redistribution, used to translate claims into the public sphere, seem no longer sufficient in this new paradigm of an increased globalized world and trans-national politics. Under this light, the meaning(s) we generally tend to attribute to the concept of democracy need to be re-evaluated and ultimately redefined.

This will be the First International Congress on ‘Democracy Today’ which will take place at Universidade do Minho, Braga. Having as starting point the assumption that the concept of democracy needs to be revised, we intent, during this congress, to accomplish two main tasks: on the one hand, to provide an account of the multiplicity of meanings of ‘democracy’ and its conceptual nuances. On the other hand, to account for the different instantiations of democracy and its intrinsic practices. Under this light we propose four days of reflection, discussion and dialogue, specially under the scope of political philosophy and political theory.

These are some of the questions we expect to explore:

Read the rest of this entry »

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.

The Groupe de recherche interuniversitaire en philosophie politique de Montréal (GRIPP) is pleased to announce the results of its 2010 book manuscript competition. The Annual Montreal Political Theory Manuscript Workshop Award has been awarded to Hélène Landemore, Assistant Professor of Political Science at Yale University, for her manuscript titled “Democratic Reasons: Politics, Collective Intelligence, and the Rule of the Many.”Le groupe de recherche interuniversitaire en philosophie politique de Montréal (GRIPP) a le plaisir de vous annoncer les résultats de la concurrence pour son prix annuel. Le lauréat 2010 du Prix annuel de l’atelier de manuscrit de philosophie politique de Montréal est Hélène Landemore, professeure adjointe en sciences politiques à l’Université Yale, pour son manuscrit intitulé “Democratic Reasons: Politics, Collective Intelligence, and the Rule of the Many.”

Call for Papers from Faculty and Graduate Students

Northwestern University Society for Ethical Theory and Political Philosophy

Fourth Annual Conference: May 20-22, 2010

Keynote Addresses: Elizabeth Anderson and Christine Korsgaard

Submission Guidelines: The deadline is February 15, 2010.  We welcome submissions from faculty and graduate students, as some sessions will be reserved for student presentations.  Please submit an essay of approximately 4000 words and an abstract of at most 150 words.  Essay topics in all areas of ethical theory and political philosophy will be considered, although some priority will be given to essays that take up themes from the works of Anderson and Korsgaard, such as value theory, philosophy and economics, democratic theory, constructivism, practical reason, personal identity, and the moral status of animals.  Essays and abstracts should be prepared for blind review in .doc, .rtf, or .pdf format.  Graduate submissions should be sent by e-mail to leegoldsmith2012@u.northwestern.edu and faculty submissions should be sent by e-mail to garthoff@northwestern.edu.  Notices of acceptance will be sent by March 31, 2010.  For more information, please contact Jon Garthoff at the e-mail address above or visit our website:

http://www.philosophy.northwestern.edu/conferences/moralpolitical/

JOURNAL OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY:
An International Journal of Moral, Political, and Legal Philosophy
(ISSN 1740-4681)Volume 7, Number 1 (2010)

ARTICLES

William Sin, ‘Trivial Sacrifices, Great Demands’, pp. 3-15

Lina Papadaki, ‘What is Objectification?’ pp. 16-36

M. B. E. Smith, ‘Does Humanity Share a Common Moral Faculty?’ pp. 37-53

Jonathan Seglow, ‘Associative Duties and Global Justice’, pp. 54-73

Miriam Ronzoni, ‘Constructivism and Practical Reason: On Intersubjectivity, Abstraction, and Judgment’, pp. 74-104

Kenneth R. Westphal, ‘From “Convention” to “Ethical Life”: Hume’s Theory of Justice in Post-Kantian Perspective’, pp. 105-32

REVIEW ARTICLE

Wim de Muijnck, ‘Thinking about Normativity: Ralph Wedgwood on “Ought”‘, pp. 133-44

BOOK REVIEWS

Clare Chambers on Gender, Class, and Freedom in Modern Political Theory, pp. 145-47

Anca Gheaus on Disadvantage, pp. 148-50

Paul Bou-Habib on Climate Change, Justice, and Future Generations, pp. 151-53

All issues of the Journal of Moral Philosophy are available on Swetswise here and IngentaConnect here.

Subscription information can be found on our Brill website here.

Please direct all enquiries regarding article or discussion submissions to the Editor, Thom Brooks (Newcastle).

Please direct all enquiries regarding review articles and books for review to the Reviews Editor, Christian Miller (Wake Forest).