PEA Soup

Shifting burdens of proof in practical ethics

In my recent thinking about the ethics of suicide, I've been compelled to confront a methodological issue in practical ethics that I'd not really given much thought to before now. (Nor, as best I can tell, have other ethicists thought much about the issue either.)

Traditionally, we assign act tokens to one of three deontic categories: forbidden, (merely) permissible, or obligatory.  And prior to careful investigation of the morality of an act, our default assumption appears to be that an act is permissible. Furthermore, those who claim the act is either forbidden or obligatory bear the burden of proof to give reasons or arguments in favor of their claims.

The Ethics of Naming and Shaming

We've all had our own horrible experiences with journals -- long delays, sloppy or uncharitable referee reports, apparently hasty or otherwise defective decisions, etc. You can share yours here and achieve catharsis! Or if you're well adjusted, you could just share for sharing's sake.

Anyway, I'm wondering what people think are some necessary/sufficient/relevant conditions for each of the following:

1. It is morally wrong to publicly disclose your negative experience with the journal.
2. It is morally permissible to publicly disclose your negative experience with the journal.
3. It is morally obligatory to publicly disclose your negative experience with the journal.

Different conditions will presumably apply for positive experiences, but set those aside for now (or don't, if you really don't want to).

And how does the journal wiki's existence (v1.0 and perhaps one day v2.0) affect any of this? All the information shared there is/would be anonymous and averaged, which is presumably much more reliable than anecdotes.

Call for Papers on Religious Toleration

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. 

More NEH

The following comment, from an anonymous NEH reviewer, was posted over at IHE due to some (length-related?) problem with posting it here.  It is worth reading. 

Naturalism Workshop in Leeds

Workshop: "Naturalism: Ethical and Metaphysical"
University of Leeds
September 18-19, 2009

This workshop brings together researchers interested in issues
concerning naturalism in moral philosophy and in metaphysics and
epistemology. Registration for the workshop is now open. More details
about the workshop and registration can be found at:
http://naturalism09.wordpress.com/.

The workshop begins at 2pm on Friday, 18 September, and ends at 4:15pm
on Saturday, 19 September. The speakers are:

Ted Sider (NYU): “Fundamentality and Evaluative Anti-Realism”
Ralph Wedgwood (Oxford): TBA
Jonas Olson (Stockholm): “In Defence of Moral Error Theory”
Carrie Jenkins (Nottingham): “Naturalism and the A Priori”
David Copp (UC Davis): “Toward a Pluralist and Teleological Theory of
Normativity”

What does the NEH have against us? (Updated and edited)

Once again the NEH has announced the “Enduring Questions” grant competition:

http://www.neh.gov/grants/guidelines/EnduringQuestions.html

The announcement raises many troubling questions.

Metaethics, Semantics, and Metasemantics

One thing I’ve become much more aware of in Leeds is the distinction between semantics and metasemantics. There is a worry that ignoring this distinction is creating some confusion. Metaethicists have traditionally claimed to be doing moral semantics whereas in fact they have mainly been doing metasemantics. Today, there is a new debate in which people also say that they are doing semantics. This time this claim is actually true. However, as a consequence, the new debate is not at the same metasemantic level as the previous debates. I know this is a bit confusing but let me try to elaborate a bit.

 

Arizona Workshop in Normative Ethics, January 2010

Mark Timmons has posted the program for the first annual Arizona Workshop in Normative Ethics (first announced in this call for papers). I've put the whole program below the fold; you can also just go to the workshop web site for the program and more information.

Replacing the Philosophy Journals Wiki with Something Much Better

Some time ago, I started the Philosophy Journal Wiki. But as has been rightly pointed out here, the Philosophy Journal Wiki leaves a lot to be desired. Thankfully, Andrew Cullison has taken it upon himself to come up with a better version. I think that what he has in the works is excellent, but before he gets it up and running he's looking for some feedback. Over at his blog, he's created a small model of what he has in mind. Please click on this link http://www.andrewcullison.com/2009/07/best-journal-survey-method-so-far/ and check it out. Leave any useful feedback that you have there, not here.