PEA Soup

Call for Applications: NEH Summer on Moral Psychology and Moral Education

This four-week Summer Institute for College and University Teachers at Grand Valley State University from May 30 to June 24, 2016 extends discussion beyond the public function of the humanities to an intensive examination of the moral psychology behind effective moral education.

See more info here.

CfA: The New Methods of Ethics

I am organising two conferences here at Birmingham on the methods of moral philosophy. The first one of these will take place on the 15th and 16th of September 2016 and the keynote speakers at this conference will be Antti Kauppinen (Tampere), Shaun Nichols (Arizona), and Catherine Wilson (York). The second conference will be on the 4th and 5th of January 2017 with the keynotes from Tristram McPherson (Ohio State), Valerie Tiberius (Minnesota), and Ralph Wedgwood (USC). In addition to the keynote speakers, four speakers for both conferences will be selected on the basis of the submitted abstracts. More information about the conferences and the call for abstracts can be found from below. The deadline for the abstracts will be on the 15th of May.

CHill Meta 2 Call for Abstracts

I am pleased to announce a Call for Abstracts for the 2^nd annual CHillMeta workshop, taking place in Chapel Hill on September 9-11, 2016. Abstracts (of 3 double-spaced pages) of papers in any area of metaethics are welcome from almost anyone—only those who were speakers in the 2014 or 2015 workshop are ineligible to submit something for this year’s event. Submissions are limited to one per person and are due by May 1, 2016. Please email submissions and send any questions to me. A program committee will evaluate submissions and make decisions by early June. More information about the workshop is available here.

On a related note: if you are interested in submitting a paper for the Marc Sanders Prize in Metaethics (announced earlier here), these are due to me, via email, by March 1. Anyone within 15 years of having received a Ph.D. is eligible to submit a paper for consideration. The winner receives $10,000, an automatic spot on the CHillMeta program, and inclusion of his or her paper in a future volume of Oxford Studies in Metaethics.

Hope to see you in Chapel Hill this fall!
All the best,
Russ Shafer-Landau

An open text in moral theory?

I'd be curious to know if some of our contributors and readers would be interested in collaborating with me on creating an open online textbook in moral theory. Open source textbooks hold promise in reducing costs to students and making scholarly knowledge more publicly available. There are quite a lot of open resources in philosophy (particularly in logic, it seems) but not a high quality textbook on normative moral theory. I'll admit to not knowing all that much about some of the likely technical issues (the design and layout, how best to disseminate such works, etc.) we would face, but my thought is that a team of 3-5 with the right technical knowhow, a strong publishing history in moral theory, and some pedagogical flair could create a great resource.

Please contact me if you're interested - thanks!

Speakers set for Oxford Studies in Political Philosophy Workshop in Barcelona

The speakers for the Fourth Workshop for Oxford Studies in Political Philosophy at Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Spain on June 1-3, 2016 have now been finalized. The speakers will be:

Kasper Lippert-Rasmussen: “(Luck and relational) egalitarians of the world, unite!”

Thomas Sinclair: “The Power of Public Positions: Official Roles in Kantian Legitimacy”

Adam Swift and Zofia Stemplowska: “Justice and Legitimacy in Nonideal Circumstances”

Ralf Bader: “Moralizing Liberty”

Alex Zakaras: “Complicity and Coercion: Toward an Ethics of Political Participation”

Allen Buchanan: “Institutional Legitimacy”

Jessica Flanigan: “Duty and Enforcement”

Alex Voorhoeve:  “May a Government Mandate More Extensive Health Insurance than Citizens Want?”

Zoltan Miklosi: “Varieties of Relational Egalitarianism”

The full program will soon be posted at http://oxfordstudies.arizona.edu/workshop-schedule-2016.  

Zakaras (Vermont) wins Sanders Prize in Political Philosophy

The winner of the 2016 Sanders Prize in Political Philosophy is Alex Zakaras (U. Vermont), for “Complicity and Coercion: Toward an Ethics of Political Participation”. An honorable mention goes to Thomas Sinclair (U. Oxford) for “The Power of Public Positions: Official Roles in Kantian Legitimacy”. More information about the prize is at http://www.marcsandersfoundation.org/sanders-prizes/political-philosophy/political-philosophyprize-winners/.

Academics' Statement of Protest Regarding Faculty Firings at Mount St. Mary's University

Details here. That link will also take you to a page where you can sign the statement.

For Women Philosophers who work near the border of Political Science

This is primarily intended for Political Scientists but I am told it is entirely appropriate for women philosophers who work in the relevant sub-fields to list themselves. The purpose of the site is explained this way:

"So often while planning a conference, brainstorming a list of speakers, or searching for experts to cite or interview, it can be difficult to think of any scholars who aren’t male. We’ve all been there… you just know that a woman has got to be studying that topic… but who?

This site is intended to provide an easily accessible database of female experts in a variety of areas.

This site was created and is maintained by political scientists and, as such, focuses on politics, policy, and government, but also on methods in the social sciences. (We’re certain that women know stuff in other fields too, though! )"

Safe Spaces and the Space of Reasons: Reflections on the Global Campus Protests

This post was sent to me by Olufemi O. Taiwo and is signed by #TheUndercommons (UCLA).

 

Stop me if you've heard this one.

An adjunct. She’s Black, which she must remember when her colleagues and students recoil at her perceived anger, but forget if she’s brave enough to openly question these reactions. Which colleagues remember when assessing her work – especially should she make the mistake of mentioning her race, or worse, researching in ways that make it salient – but forget when defending these assessments. Fellow marginal colleagues and students seek her for advice and support.  She helps.

Not familiar? How about: your department’s sole Black professor. A status that is noticed for committee assignments and the occasional “diversity” course offering (festive!). By students huddled in his office, often strays from departments that have no version of him, seeking -- what?  Guidance, maybe. Someone to entertain the quiet thoughts they jot in the margins of their class notes, next to the ones they are actually willing to articulate. He rarely asks. He just listens.   Teaches. When queried about his unsatisfactory productivity at his tenure review, he makes shit up. Win some, lose some.

Or: a Black student, sitting in a class. Maybe yours. They can feel that something is off, left unsaid, that there are maneuvers to be made that the course material is not gymnastic enough to allow. That the person in front of them isn’t the person to ask.

They find a Black instructor.

CFP: A Networking and Mentoring Workshop for Grad Student Women in Philosophy

More info here.

Women PhD and DPhil students in philosophy are invited to submit papers (on any topic in philosophy) to participate in a workshop at Princeton University, August 16-19, 2016. The submission deadline is February 15, 2016. Thirty-five students will be selected to participate in the workshop: seven submitted papers will be selected to be discussed at the workshop; fourteen students will be selected as commentators on the papers; and fourteen more students will be selected as chairs of sessions. This will be a pre-read workshop: all participants will be expected to read the seven papers on the program in advance, and to participate fully in the workshop. In addition to seven sessions of substantive philosophy, there will be five sessions at which professional advice will be offered by fourteen faculty mentors.