Readers of Ethics Etc might be interested in an interview I did with the BBC One Planet about human engineering and climate change. The interview segment starts at around the 11 minute mark.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p00q88qq/One_Planet_Aid_Happiness _and_Tiny_Vegetarians/

More programming information can be found here.

Thursday, March 29, 6:30pm -8:00pm
Location: NYU Bookstore, 726 Broadway New York, NY 10003

“This is Your Brain on Politics: Why people believe what they want to believe, and deny science selectively” with Jonathan Moreno and Jonathan Haidt, moderated by S. Matthew Liao.

Jonathan Moreno is David and Lyn Silfen University Professor of Ethics at the University of Pennsylvania, and author of The Body Politic: The Battle Over Science in America (BLP, 2012) and Mind Wars: Brain Science and the Military in the 21st Century (BLP pap. ed., 2012).

My co-authors, Anders Sandberg and Rebecca Roache, and I chime in on the debate regarding our Human Engineering and Climate Change paper at the Guardian. You can read the interview here.

Recently, the Atlantic interviewed me about the paper “Human Engineering and Climate Change,” which I co-wrote with Anders Sandberg and Rebecca Roache, and which is forthcoming in Ethics, Policy and the Environment. You can find the interview here:

http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/03/how-human-engine ering-could-be-the-solution-to-climate-change/253981/

2012 Brocher Summer Academy in Global Population Health – 18-22 June 2012.

Location: Villa Brocher, Hermance, Switzerland.

Website: http://bit.ly/zP8eDN

Applications are accepted until 15 March 2012.

A paper I’ve co-written with Anders Sandberg (Oxford) and Rebecca Roache (Oxford) entitled “Human Engineering and Climate Change” has been selected by Ethics, Policy, and Environment to be a Target Article for their next issue. The abstract of our paper is as follows:

March 16 & 17, 2012
Bowling Green State University

Registration is free and open to all. To register; visit the workshop website: http://www.bgsu.edu/departments/phil/conferences/manipulation/page1051 39.html

Academics Stand Against Poverty (ASAP) Anniversary Workshop
Where: New Haven, Yale University
When: April 13, 2012
Deadline for submission: March 2, 2012

Sponsored by the Global Justice Program of the Whitney and Betty MacMillan Centrefor International and Area Studies, Yale University and the Program in Cognitive Science, Yale University

Keynote Speakers: Paul Slovic, University of Oregon and Nicole Hassoun, Carnegie Mellon University

The call
Many individuals in affluent nations are aware that a vast number of people live in conditions of severe poverty. Yet they are more likely to go to the movies or to buy an expensive sweater than they are to give their money to humanitarian aid. The question arises, how can individuals be motivated to act on their duties to aid the global poor?

To celebrate its 30th anniversary, the Society for Applied Philosophy is pleased to announce a Call for Applications for the SAP 30th Anniversary Post-Doctoral Fellowship.

The Fellowship is tenable for one-year in association with a UK Philosophy Department to work on a clearly defined research project in any area of practical or applied philosophy. The salary is at the lowest spinal point of the grade 6 scale (approx. £24k), plus on-costs (National Insurance and pension contributions, and London Allowance where appropriate).

December 9, 2011
9am to 4pm
SUNY Global Center
116 East 55th Street, NY, NY
Sponsored by SUNY Downstate Medical Center

Speakers include:
Andre A. Fenton, SUNY Downstate Medical Center and New York University
David Glanzman, UCLA
Merle Kindt, University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands
Adam Kolber, Brooklyn Law School
John L. Kubie, SUNY Downstate Medical Center
S. Matthew Liao, New York University
Todd C. Sacktor, SUNY Downstate Medical Center
David Wasserman, Yeshiva University

Owing to some clerical error, this job is not in the JFP (Jobs for Philosophers) yet. Do let anyone you think would be suitable know about this position. Thanks!

The NYU Center for Bioethics and the NYU Environmental Studies Program invite applications for the position of Assistant Professor/Faculty Fellow, pending administrative and budgetary approval. The initial appointment will be for one year beginning September 1, 2012, renewable annually for a maximum of three years. An applicant should have a keen interest in and preferably have written and taught in areas bioethics and environmental studies. We also welcome candidates who have training in such areas as ethics, political philosophy, social and political theory, public policy, or environmental health, who have strong or emerging teaching and research interests in bioethics and environmental studies. Applicants must expect to receive their Ph.D by Fall 2012 or have completed it no more than three years before the start date. We especially urge minority and female candidates to apply.

30th Anniversary Conference
Start Date: 29-Jun-2012
End Date: 01-Jul-2012
Location: St Anne’s College, Oxford
Venue Address: Woodstock Road, Jericho, Oxford OX2 6HS
Contact Email: admin (at) appliedphil.org

The Society for Applied Philosophy (UK) was founded in 1982 with the aim of promoting philosophical study and research that has a direct bearing on areas of practical concern. It arose from an increasing awareness that many topics of public debate are capable of being illuminated by the critical, analytic approach characteristic of philosophy, and by direct consideration of questions of value. These topics come from a number of different areas of social life – law, politics, economics, science, technology, medicine and education are among the most obvious. The purpose of the SAP is to foster and promote philosophical work that is intended to make a constructive contribution to problems in these areas. It does so through events, conferences, and lecture programmes.

Egalitarianisms: Current Debates on Equality and Priority in Health, Wealth, and Welfare
March 30th -31st, 2012
McGill University, Montreal, Canada

Confirmed Speakers
Nir Eyal (Harvard)
Iwao Hirose (McGill)
Nils Holtug (Copenhagen)
Dennis McKerlie (Calgary)
Shlomi Segall (Hebrew University of Jerusalem)

Workshop Description

Egalitarian theories of distributive justice have recently encountered fundamental challenges. Is egalitarianism susceptible to the leveling down objection? Is it less plausible than prioritarianism? Does it support reducing the inequalities resulting from brute luck, but not option luck? Does it aim to equalize the distribution of welfare at each time or over a lifetime? What does egalitarianism make of the strong correlation between inequalities in health and inequalities in socio-economic conditions? In this two-day workshop, we will discuss current theoretical issues and seek common and unified grounds for future research into egalitarian theories of distributive justice.

The NYU Center for Bioethics and the NYU Environmental Studies Program invite applications for the position of Assistant Professor/Faculty Fellow, pending administrative and budgetary approval. The initial appointment will be for one year beginning September 1, 2012, renewable annually for a maximum of three years. An applicant should have a keen interest in and preferably have written and taught in areas bioethics and environmental studies. We also welcome candidates who have training in such areas as ethics, political philosophy, social and political theory, public policy, or environmental health, who have strong or emerging teaching and research interests in bioethics and environmental studies. Applicants must expect to receive their Ph.D by Fall 2012 or have completed it no more than three years before the start date. We especially urge minority and female candidates to apply.

The Truth of Ethics
February 24-25, 2012
Fordham University

Keynote Speaker:
Prof. Stephen Darwall (Yale University)

Papers of high quality relating to the topic “the Truth of Ethics,” broadly construed are invited. Paper topics may address issues in moral epistemology, normative and meta-ethical theory, competing theories of truth, moral psychology, applied ethics, and other related areas.

Sample questions include:

What does moral reasoning tell us about the nature of reason in general?

Do moral propositions have truth values? If so, how do we know them?

If not, then what is their status?

Fellow philosophers will no doubt be familiar with the curious book, Nudge, by Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein. The book defends “libertarian paternalism” and a view of behavioural economics. While I have not been convinced by its arguments, it is a good read and I’ve half expected Nudge to be the subject of at least a small wave of papers in ethics and political philosophy. I’m not the only one who thought its ideas would find traction: the British government has also commissioned research into how it might “nudge” the public into healthier lifestyles, for example.

2012 ISME Call for Papers
By Thom Brooks

2012 ISME Call for Papers

Deadline for submissions: 15 September 2011

The 2012 International Society for Military Ethics Conference will be held 24-27 January 2012 in Mother Rosalie Hill Hall, University of San Diego, 5998 Alcala Park, San Diego, CA 92110.
This year’s theme will be “Civil-Military Relations and Social Issues in the Military.” Papers and proposals for panels or other program segments consistent with this theme are welcomed.

In keeping with our usual practice, papers on any aspect of military ethics or just war theory will be considered.

Philosophy in funny places
By Saul Smilansky

An invited piece of mine on philosophy in Israel, “Letter from Israel“, has just come out in The Philosopher’s Magazine (TPM); naturally it has an ethical dimension and some of you might find it interesting.

Preceding this “Letter from Israel” were reports on philosophy in various other exotic lands. I’ve found many to be fascinating. Check out, for example, the

Letter from Singapore

The “Letter from Iceland

The “Letter from Turkey

From South-Africa

And from Italy…

There have also been “letters” from China, Malta, and so on – just Google your favorite country and you might get lucky.

1-3 July, Hulme Hall, University of Manchester

The programme for SAP’s Annual Conference 2011 is now available, with several Ethics-Etc Contributors on the programme.

The Annual Conference 2011 will be an open themed applied philosophy conference (papers will be given from a broad range of topics in applied philosophy).

Plenary speakers
Connie Rosati (University of Arizona)
Katie McShane (Colorado State University)
Marilyn Friedman (Vanderbilt / Charles Sturt University)
Kasper Lippert Rasmussen (Aarhus University)
Hugh LaFollette (University of South Florida, St Petersburg)

Registration
Registration for the Annual Conference is now open and will close on Friday 3 June 2011

I’ve been asked by one of the organizers to let people know about this upcoming conference:

The Bowling Green Workshop in Applied Ethics and Public Policy:
Freedom, Paternalism and Morality

April 1-2, 2011

The announcement is attached.Bowling Green Workshop in Applied Ethics and Public Policy: Freedom, Paternalism and Morality

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