Roger Crisp had an article in Mind in 2008 entitled “Goodness and Reasons: Accentuating the Negative.” Mind just published a piece discussing Crisp’s 2008 article by Philip Stratton-Lake, as well Crisp’s response to Stratton-Lake, both of which look very interesting. I also have a piece called “The Buck-Passing Account of Value: Lessons from Crisp,” which also discusses Crisp’s 2008 article and which is available via Philosophical Studies’ Online First, or here for a penultimate version. I had a quick look at Stratton-Lake’s piece and Crisp’s response, and as far as I can tell, the points I make in my paper are different from Stratton-Lake’s. I’ll be reading Stratton-Lake’s and Crisp’s papers more closely soon, but in the meantime, I’d be very interested to learn what other people think of them.

Raz on The Guise of the Good
By S. Matthew Liao

Professor Joseph Raz (Columbia and Oxford University) will be giving a talk on Monday, Feb. 8, at the Oxford Moral Philosophy Seminar entitled ‘On the Guise of the Good.’ A copy of Professor Raz’s talk can be found here. Professor Raz would welcome any comments/suggestions. Here’s an abstract of his talk:

August 1st – 5th, 2010
Bellingham, Washington.

Everyone is invited to submit a paper, or to volunteer to be a commentator or session chair, but conference attendance is by invitation only, and will be primarily limited to those on the conference program.

To submit a paper: Submissions should be prepared for blind review and emailed to the 2010 BSPC Program Committee at BSPC2010 (at) gmail.com. Papers on any topic are welcome, but the conference program committee will be looking for papers that are of general philosophical interest. Papers of any length will be considered, but shorter papers (under about 25 pages) will have a better chance of being accepted than longer papers. The deadline for submissions is March 1st, 2010. Prospective authors will be notified of the Program Committee’s decisions by early May.

University of Wisconsin, Madison
September 24-26, 2010

Stephen Darwall (Yale) will be this year’s keynote speaker. Abstracts (of 2-3 double-spaced pages) of papers in any area of metaethics are due by May 1. There is a limit of one submission per person. Speakers in the 2008 or 2009 workshop are not eligible to submit abstracts for this year’s event. A program committee will evaluate submissions and make decisions by early June.

Information on submitting an abstract, plus much other relevant information about the workshop, can be obtained at the workshop website: https://mywebspace.wisc.edu/shaferlandau/web/metaethics/workshop_2010/

Conference Announcement and Call for Papers:

2ND COPENHAGEN CONFERENCE IN EPISTEMOLOGY:
THE EPISTEMOLOGY OF LIBERAL DEMOCRACY

THE UNIVERSITY OF COPENHAGEN
AUGUST 19-20, 2010

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.

Call for Papers: Ethics, Energy and the Future: Technology for a Sustainable Society

June 24th-26th 2010
Delft University of Technology, the Netherlands
Abstract Deadline: February 15th, 2010

Keynote Speakers include:
Simon Caney, University of Oxford
Stephen Gardiner, University of Washington
Axel Gosseries, University of Louvain
Jeroen van den Hoven, 3TU Centre for Ethics and Technology
Andrew Light, George Mason University & Center for American Progress
Henry Shue, University of Oxford

CONF: De se attitudes + Self-Knowledge & Rational Agency
Oslo, June 2010

Arché (St Andrews) and CSMN (Oslo) are pleased to announce two major events on first-person thoughts to be held in Oslo from 6th to 11th June, 2010.

(1) Arché/CSMN Mini-course & Workshop: De se attitudes Sunday June 6, 2010 – Wednesday June 9, 2010
Confirmed speakers:
• Pranav Anand (UC Santa Cruz)
• Andy Egan (Rutgers/Arché)
• James Higginbotham (USC)
• Daniel Morgan (Oxford)
• Dilip Ninan (Arché)
• François Recanati (Institute Jean-Nicod (CNRS)/Arché)
• Seth Yalcin (Berkeley)
Website: http://www.csmn.uio.no/events/2010/De-Se

CFP: APT Conference 2010
By S. Matthew Liao

THE Association for Political Theory Conference 2010
Reed College, Portland, Oregon
Conference Date: October 21-23, 2010
Proposal Submission Date: 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. Faculty are encouraged to volunteer to serve as chairs and/or discussants.

The current issue of Philosophical Perspectives is devoted to ethics, and judging from the titles, looks to have quite a number of very interesting papers. Do check them out!

Society for Applied Philosophy Annual Conference 2010
St Anne’s College, Oxford, 2-4 July

CALL for PAPERS
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.

University College, Dublin
9TH–11TH JULY, 2010

The Joint Session is the annual conference of The Aristotelian Society held in conjunction with The Mind Association. It is the largest and primary conference for philosophers in the UK. There is a wide subject base and international speaker profile.

Northwestern University
Society for Ethical Theory and Political PhilosophyFourth Annual Conference
MAY 20-22, 2010

KEYNOTE SPEAKERS:
Elizabeth Anderson, University of Michigan
Christine Korsgaard, Harvard University

CFP: 3rd ROME Congress
By S. Matthew Liao

RoME: Third Annual Rocky Mountain Ethics Congress
University of Colorado, Boulder
August 5-8, 2010
Boulder, Colorado

An international conference geared to offer the highest quality, highest altitude discussion of ethics, broadly conceived

Call For Papers
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 third 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).

David Chalmers and David Bourget are conducting a Philosophical Survey on philosophers’ views on philosophical issues, and a Philosophical Metasurvey in which respondents predict the results of the Philosophical Survey. They’ve extended the deadline to Tuesday December 3. Do take the survey if you are interested.

Ethics Etc Goes Mobile
By S. Matthew Liao

This weekend I upgraded the engine running Ethics Etc. The site was working fine, but I wanted to take advantage of some features that are better supported by a new engine. A number of these features are security features, so they should be imperceptible. But one feature that might be of interest is that Ethics Etc now has a mobile version, consisting of primarily the posts! This should make accessing and reading Ethics Etc on your iPhone, Blackberry, etc., easier. Owing to the upgrade, there may be some glitches generally. If you do find some, please do let me know. Thanks!

Welcome David Owens!
By S. Matthew Liao

We are very pleased that Dr. David Owens has joined us as a Contributor. David is a Reader at the University of Sheffield. He has published extensively in metaphysics and epistemology, and more recently, he has turned his attention towards ethics. David has published a number of papers on promissory obligation, published in Mind, Philosophical Review, etc., and he has also written on lying, and on the nature of obligation. Welcome aboard, David!

Professor Sally Haslanger (MIT) is conducting a survey on publishing in philosophy. All professional philosophers are invited to participate. It should take about 10 minutes. It will be useful to have your CV handy as you complete the survey. You can find the survey here.

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

April 12-13th, 2010
Eindhoven University of Technology, the Netherlands
Abstract Deadline: November 23rd, 2009
Opening Lecture: Simon Caney, University of Oxford

The purpose of the conference is to invite experts in the fields of philosophy, ethics, applied economics, environmental economics and innovation studies. The focus will be on those aspects of uncertainty and the discount rate relevant to these disciplines. Uncertainties are of particular importance in innovation projects, where both costs and benefits are hard to assess. A crucial question is how uncertainty can be taken into account in cost-benefit analysis, even if imperfectly, and what kinds of alternative methodologies exist that may deal more effectively with decision-making in uncertain environments. The workshop also aims to expose and analyse the ethical assumptions at work in the choice of a discount rate. Importantly, while some of the reasons for discounting future benefits and costs are economic, some are ethical. The choice of discount rate is therefore an interdisciplinary issue.

Professor Ralph Wedgwood (Oxford University) will be giving a talk today at the Oxford Moral Philosophy Seminar entitled ‘Instrumental Rationality.’ A copy of Ralph’s talk can be found here and a handout for his talk is here. Ralph would welcome any comments/suggestions. Here’s an abstract of his talk:

Date: July 3-4 2010
Location: The Informatics Conference Centre, George Square, Edinburgh

Speakers:
Talbot Brewer (University of Virginia)
John Cottingham (University of Reading)
Jonathan Dancy (University of Reading/ Texas)
Brad Hooker (University of Reading)
Edward Harcourt (Keble College, Oxford)
James Lenman (University of Sheffield)
Tim Mulgan (University of St Andrews)
Michael Ridge (University of Edinburgh) & Sean McKeever (Davidson College, NC, USA)
Tom Sorell (University of Birmingham)
Sergio Tenenbaum (University of Toronto)
Alan Thomas (University of Kent)

Jointly organised by the Philosophy Departments, The Open University and The University of Edinburgh, with support from The Mind Association, The Royal Institute of Philosophy, and The Scots Philosophical Club

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