PEA Soup

Welcome, Chrisoula Andreou!

We are pleased to announce that Chrisoula Andreou has accepted our invitation to become a contributor here at PEA Soup. Chrisoula is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Utah. She works on practical reasoning, ethical theory, and applied ethics. Welcome aboard, Chrisoula!

SLACRR 3 - Program

Here are the main speakers at the next St. Louis Annual Conference on Reasons and Rationality, May 20-22, 2012.

Keynote:  Jonathan Dancy (Texas/Reading), "More Right than Wrong"

Nebraska Practical Reason and Metaethics Conference

Mark van Roojen and I are pleased to announce the finalized lineup and schedule for the upcoming conference in Lincoln April 20-22. Speakers include: Peter Railton, Michael Smith, Connie Rosati, Michael Bratman, Mark Schroeder, Nomy Arpaly, Jamie Dreier, Jonathan Way, and Stephen Finlay and Justin Snedegar. Also notice all the exciting folks who will serve as chairs of sessions. You totally should come! The conference is free and open to the public but please let me know if you are coming and sign up for dinners. More info can be found at the conference web site here.

 

Henle Conference on Happiness and Well-Being

Dan Haybron is pleased to announce that the Department of Philosophy at Saint Louis University will be hosting the Henle Conference on Happiness and Well-Being on March 30-31, 2012. A tentative schedule appears below the fold. For futher updates, see https://sites.google.com/site/danhaybron/henle-conference-on-happiness-and-well-being.

NEH Summer Institute in Experimental Philosophy

Ron Mallon and Shaun Nichols and directing an NEH Summer Institute in Experimental Philosophy this July in Tucson.  Details are here: 

http://epi.arizona.edu/ 

Applications are due March 1st.  

Institutes are designed for teachers of American undergraduate students.  Because of recent changes to the program, now up to three spaces may be awarded to graduate students in the humanities.

CFP: PITTSBURGH AREA PHILOSOPHY COLLOQUIUM

Saturday, September 8, 2012

Washington and Jefferson College

Washington, Pennsylvania

Keynote Speaker: Carl Craver (Washington University in St. Louis)

Announcing the Character Essay and Book Prize

The Character Project at Wake Forest University is pleased to announce The Character Essay and Book Prize. This prize is aimed at essays or books on character which are accessible to non-academic audiences in venues with a wide readership. The competition will award $3,000 to each winning submission. We aim to make nine awards total. Three awards will be for submissions which address themes related to the psychology of character, three for submissions related to the philosophy of character, and three for submissions related to the theology of character. Winners will be invited (all expenses paid) to the Character Project’s Final Research Conference in June 2013 at the Graylyn International Conference Center in Winston-Salem, NC (http://www.graylyn.com), and awards will be presented at this event. Deadline for submission is February 1, 2013. For further details, please visit: http://www.thecharacterproject.com/prizes.php . The Character Project is funded by a grant from the John Templeton Foundation.

CFP: Gender, Race, and Sexuality Conference in Barcelona

Gender, Race, and Sexuality Conference in Barcelona: Issues in Philosophical Methodology

Dates: 25-26 June 2012
Venue: Residència Investigadors del CSIC (c.Hospital 64, Barcelona)

The topic of the conference will include issues in connection with gender, race, and sexuality, with special attention to methodological considerations in “applied” (analytic) philosophy.

Details below the fold...

BGSU Manipulation Conference

The organizers of the upcoming conference (3/16-3/17) at Bowling Green State University on the topic of manipulation have announced the line-up, which looks good. Keynote speaker is Marcia Baron. Follow this link for details about the conference, registration, and accommodations.

Ethical AutoCorrect

Computers and smartphones sometimes autocorrect what you type, so that your words are properly spelled. We know that this doesn't work perfectly. Suppose it did. Further, suppose that somehow there were also a perfect Ethical AutoCorrect, which if activated would alter any unethical action you were trying to perform into an ethical action. For example, if activated, and if extreme pacifism were true, then your attempt to switch the runaway trolley from the track with x people on it to the track with only x-1 people on it would fail. When you try to do what is indeed ethical, the Ethical AutoCorrect doesn't change a thing.

Two questions:  First, is such an Ethical AutoCorrect even an coherent idea? Or is there something about ethics such that the very idea of an Ethical AutoCorrect is confused? Second, if it is a coherent idea, and if it were a live option, should you use it?