PEA Soup

Welcome, Simon Keller!

We are pleased to announce that Simon Keller has accepted our invitation to become a contributor here at PEA Soup.  Simon is presently a Senior Research Fellow at CAPPE at the University of Melbourne and an Adjunct Assistant Professor at Boston University, and he is slated to join the Philosophy Program at Victoria University of Wellington as an Associate Professor.  His book, The Limits of Loyalty, has recently come out, and he works on such topics as patriotism, love, and welfare (among others).  It's great to have you aboard, Simon!

Three Cheers for These PEA Brains!

In lieu of the customary "here-are-some-amazing-statistics-about-PEA-Soup" birthday message, we thought it would be better to post a "Yearbook" to share some good things that have happened to some of our fellow PEA brains over this past year.  A lot of good news appears below the fold.  If there is any more good news that should be shared, by all means please add it in the comments section.

Institutions, Systems, Structures

Folks who work on oppression often distinguish oppression attributable to individuals from oppression attributable to institutions.  Thus, there's a lot of discussion about institutional racism or sexism, say, as well as discussion of systematic or structural racism or sexism.  Here's a quick question: anyone have any thoughts on the nature of the relation between the institutional, the systematic, and the structural?  Are these terms just being used as synonyms, at least in the relevant literature?  I have a vague feeling that it is possible to have non-systematic and non-structural institutions, but (since the relevant systems and structures are all social systems and structures, I presume), I'm not sure that there are any non-institutional (social) structures or (social) systems.  Any thoughts?

CFP: International Society for Utilitarian Studies

David Lieberman sends along a call for papers for the International Society for Utilitarian Studies...

The Tenth Conference of the International Society for Utilitarian Studies will be held on 11-14 September 2008, at the University of California, Berkeley (Berkeley, California, U.S.A.). The meeting is co-hosted by the U.C. Berkeley School of Law and its Kadish Center for Morality, Law and Public Affairs.

Welcome Dale Miller!

We are pleased to announce that Dale Miller has accepted our invitation to be a contributor here at PEA Soup.  Dale is Associate Professor of Philosophy and Co-Director of the Institute for Ethics and Public Affairs at Old Dominion University, and specializes in history of ethics (especially Mill), ethical theory (especially consequentialism), and social-political philosophy.  It's great to have you aboard, Dale!

Moral Psychology Conference at the University of San Francisco

For people in the Bay Area, or those interested in making a trip to it, there will be a small conference entitled "Mind, Agency, and Emotion: New Perspectives on Moral Psychology" held at the University of San Francisco on November 9th and 10th.

Speakers will include Chrisoula Andreou, John Doris, Anne Jacobson, Jeanette Kennett, Benoit Monin, Shaun Nichols, Jenefer Robinson, and Christine Swanton.

For more information, go here:
http://www.usfca.edu/fac-staff/mrvargas/Conferences/Indexical/MP/Program.html

CFP: ETMP 10th Anniversary Conference

Via Simon Kirchin:

A reminder of a previous call for papers.

2008 sees the 10th anniversary of the journal "Ethical Theory and Moral Practice".  In celebration, the journal is organizing a major international conference, to be held in Amsterdam, 19th-20th March 2008.  The general conference theme is the title of the journal itself:  How do ethical theory and moral practice relate?

Details below the fold...

Happy 3rd Birthday!

Today marks the third anniversary of PEA Soup's burst (okay, limp) onto the blogosphere. We're celebrating with a new look, about which we'll say a bit more below. But first, right up front, we want to thank all of you—our fellow contributors, commentators, and readers—for helping to turn PEA Soup into "the ethics blog." 

We also wanted (without turning this post into a self-congratulatory love fest) to take this opportunity to say a few things about the blog, find out especially how folks have benefited from participating here at PEA Soup, ask for some feedback on the new look, and share the statistics for our three year run.

When we started PEA Soup, the four of us were all working in Southern California, Dave and Doug at CSU Northridge, Josh and Dan at CSU Bakersfield. At the time, there were few multiple-contributor, topic-oriented blogs. Certain Doubts, Experimental Philosophy, The Garden of Forking Paths, Philosophy of Art, and Prosblogion were also just starting up operations, and the few other multiple-contributor blogs that existed were either not topic-oriented or the contributors were usually restricted in some way, typically, to those in the same philosophy department or graduate program. We believed that so long as it remained an ethics-oriented blog, and so long as it encouraged participation from folks in any geographical area, PEA Soup would be able to provide a valuable service to those around the world working in ethics. In these respects, it has been great to see PEA Soup's healthy growth over the last three years, and we hope to continue to open up the conversation, both in terms of our contributors and our subject matter.

We would especially love to hear from all of you about the benefits and successes (e.g. publications, insights) that have resulted from participating in or reading PEA Soup. 

We would also like to hear from everyone about the new look of the blog. Do you prefer this new look, or would you rather we revert to the "traditional" look? This really is a decision that will be based on consensus (assuming there is one), so please let us know what you think, especially those of you who like the new look, since those in favor are usually those who remain silent.

Here are PEA Soup's three-year statistics as of this morning: 

371 Posts

5194 Comments

326 Page views per day (lifetime)

560 Page views per day (2007)

Thanks again to all of you! 

Welcome, Mark Schroeder

The roster continues to grow in quantity and quality.  Over the past two days, we were pleased to announce that Jimmy Lenman and Sally Haslanger have agreed to contribute to PEA Soup, and we are now pleased to announce that Mark Schroeder has also accepted our invitation to join the roster.  Mark is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at USC, specializes in all areas of philosophy related to metaethics,  and has commented regularly on posts here at PEA Soup.  It's great to have you aboard, Mark!

Welcome, Sally Haslanger

We're very pleased to announce the addition of Sally Haslanger to PEA Soup's roster of contributors.  Sally is a Professor in the Department of Linguistics and Philosophy at MIT and is affiliated with MIT's Women's Studies Program.  Among her many contributions to the profession, she is an editor of another exciting Web-based forum, the Symposium on Gender, Race, and Philosophy, where readers can find her much-discussed paper on women in the profession.

It's great to have you join, Sally!