Flickers of Freedom

Justice Without Retribution Conference, June 3-5

Please come join us at Cornell University, June 3-5, for the Justice Without Retribution Conference. Speakers include many contributors to this blog! If you plan on attended, please book your room at the Ithaca Hotel by May 2 to receive the discounted rate. Details are available here: http://www.justicewithoutretribution.com/conferences.html 

Presenters: ​

• Robert Kane
• ​Manuel Vargas
• Nicole Vincent
• Erin Kelly
• Dana Kay Nelkin
• Eddy Nahmias
• Gregg D. Caruso
• Michael McKenna
• Victor Tadros
• Jennifer Chandler
• Elizabeth Shaw
• Derk Pereboom
• Alan Norrie
• Farah Focquaert
• Michael L. Corrado
• Joseph Margulies 

Final CFP: 4th Annual Philosophers' Cocoon Philosophy Conference

This is a final call-for-papers for the 4th Annual Philosophers' Cocoon Philosophy Conference (PCPC), which is provisionally scheduled to be held at University of Tampa from Saturday October 8th to Sunday October 9th, 2016. If you're curious about what the conference has been like in past years, see here!

As in the past, this year's conference will be unique in several respects:

1. Although conference attendance will be open to all members of the profession, paper presenters must be early-career philosophers (i.e. anyone who doesn't have tenure--grad students, post-docs, Assistant Profs, independent scholars, etc.)
2. Due to travel-funding challenges that early-career philosophers often face, several sessions will be reserved for Skype presentations in which the author will be projected, and field audience questions, in real time over the internet (note: this has worked very well in past years!).
3. Although commentators and audience members are encouraged to present objections to papers, the conference theme will be "constructive engagement", i.e. helping authors to improve their work (e.g. by not only raising objections, but offering and discussing possible solutions).
4. Because successfully navigating the publishing world is one of the most difficult capacities for early-career philosophers to develop, the conference welcomes submissions of a typical full-length journal article (20-30 pages double-spaced) -- the aim being to help early-career philosophers develop full-length papers into publishable quality. As a rule of thumb, the longer the paper, the higher the standards for acceptance to the conference. Extremely long papers are discouraged.
5. In order to defray costs of attendance (once again out of concern for the needs of early-career scholars), there will only be a small suggested (but non-mandatory) $5 registration "donation" (to help pay for snacks), and consequently no official banquet, etc. (though there will be snack!). Tampa is awesome, and there are many affordable places to meet, eat, and congregate around the university.
6. Finally, please note that submission to the conference involves an agreement to serve as a commentator on another paper during the conference should your paper be accepted and you accept your invitation to attend.

To submit a paper to present at the PCPC, please email the following to me at [email protected] by May 1st, 2016:

1. An anonymized paper,
2. A separate title page with the author's name, contract information, and brief paper abstract.
3. A statement in your email and attached cover page concerning whether you intend to attend the conference in person or only via Skype.

Decision emails indicating whether your paper has been accepted should be sent out around July 1st (yes, papers will undergo peer-review!).  Finally, please bear the following in mind: In order to ensure that the conference is well-attended, there will be relatively few Skype sessions -- so the probability that your paper will be accepted is higher should you state in your submission email that you can attend in person.

I look forward to receiving some great submissions (hopefully from some Flickers readers and/or contributors), and to another great conference!

Manipulation and Moral Responsibility in Ethics and Philosophy of Religion, Edinburgh, July 15-16

I’m pleased to announce a conference this summer, July 15 and 16, 2016, in Edinburgh, Scotland, on topics relating to free will, moral responsibility, manipulation, and philosophy of religion. The conference brings together philosophers working on related themes: manipulation (and manipulation arguments) in debates about free will and moral responsibility, and issues regarding divine providence in philosophy of religion.

Confirmed speakers include:

    Helen Beebee

    Maria Alvarez

    Gunnar Björnsson

    Jean-Baptiste Guillon

    Sofia Jeppsson

    Alfred Mele

    Patrick Todd

    John Martin Fischer

    Derk Pereboom

Travel funds available:

We have a limited amount of travel funding available for early career researchers (graduate students and those who received their PhD in 2010 or later) who might benefit from participation in the conference and chairing a session. If you wish to apply for such funding, please send an email (with subject line “request for travel funding”) to Patrick Todd (at pat.c.todd at gmail.com) with (a) a CV (b) 200 words explaining your interest in the topics of the conference and (c) a rough estimate of how much funding would be required in order to make your participation possible.

Funding can be used for travel to the conference and accommodation in Edinburgh. International applications are welcome.

The deadline for requests for travel funding is Monday, April 3. Decisions will be made by April 25.

Topic:

There is a natural connection between manipulation arguments and philosophy of religion: on some traditional pictures of God, God’s providence seemingly amounts a manipulation scenario “writ large”. What kind of “manipulation” does undermine moral responsibility? And what kind of picture of divine providence really threatens human freedom?

Further, there has been a recent increase in interest in what we might call the positionality of blame – issues regarding, for instance, who has and lacks the moral standing to blame morally responsible wrongdoers. Under what conditions – if any – could a “manipulator” retain the “moral standing” to blame those she manipulates? Or under what conditions might God lack the standing to “hold” creatures responsible, even if those creatures are responsible

Support:

This conference is funded by the John Templeton Foundation, Eidyn at the University of Edinburgh, and the Scots Philosophical Association.

Free Will and Consciousness -- Summer School in Riga, Latvia

The Moscow Center for Consciousness Studies (MCCS) will be hosting a summer school, in Riga, Latvia, on the topic of Free Will and Consciousness from July 10 – 23, 2016. The summer school will be led by Derk Pereboom (Cornell University). Leigh Vicens (Augustana College) and Patrick Todd (University of Edinburgh) will participate as instructors. Graduate students and recent PhDs are invited to submit applications to participate.

MCCS will provide accommodation and breakfast, and will compensate 50% of the cost of a round trip ticket to Riga. Two applicants will be provided with full travel expenses to and from Riga.

To apply for admission, submit (1) a ten-page writing sample (2,500 to 3,000 words) that demonstrates your knowledge of current work on free will or on the relation between free will and consciousness, (2) two letters of recommendation from philosophers working in the area (e.g., your supervisor or other qualified people who know your work), and (3) your cv. The deadline for submitting applications is April 3, 2016. Send your materials to Artem Besedin at [email protected]. Decisions will be announced by May 1.

For further information about the MCCS and its activities, see http://www.Hardproblem.ru.

Gary Watson Fest, November 3-5, 2016

Just to wet your whistle, this is an announcement of a conference celebrating the work of Gary Watson, to take place on November 3-5, 2016 in New Orleans, LA (probably at the Intercontinental Hotel).  The proceedings will begin on Thursday, November 3, with an interview of Gary conducted by John Martin Fischer.  Committed speakers over the next two days include Antony Duff, Harry Frankfurt, Jeanette Kennett, Michael McKenna, Tim Scanlon, Michael Smith, Jay Wallace, and Susan Wolf.  The conference will conclude with Gary Watson discussing and responding to the critical themes raised.  

Mark your calendars!  (The conference is being organized by Justin Coates, Neal Tognazzini, and David Shoemaker.  Registration will be free, and all are welcome.  Just let me (Shoemaker) know: dshoemakATtulaneDOTedu.)

 

Justice Without Retribution Network

Thought I would share this post at Psychology Today announcing the new Justice Without Retribution Network:

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/unjust-deserts/201512/justice-without-retribution

Over the next few years, Elizabeth Shaw, Derk Pereboom, Farah Focquaert, and myself (Gregg Caruso) plan on organizing a number of conferences and events. The two conferences already scheduled--the first this June at Cornell University (schedule available here)--include many contributors to this blog! I look forward to a fun and productive dialogue moving forward.

CFP: NUSTEP

I have been asked by the Northwestern University Society for the Theory of Ethics and Politics (NUSTEP) to post a notice about our call for papers. The CFP for NUSTEP's Tenth Annual Conference is attached. The conference will be held at Northwestern University on May 19–21, 2016 and will feature keynote addresses by Nomy Arpaly and Pamela Hieronymi.

Please let me know if you are willing to post our CFP on your blog, or if there are further steps we need to take. If you would like more information about our conference, please contact Kyla Ebels-Duggan at:

[email protected] 

Or you can visit our website.

CfA: Gothenburg Responsibility Project

Call for Abstracts*, Gothenburg Responsibility Project Conference #1, 24-27 August 2016, University of Gothenburg.

We are pleased to announce the first of our biennial conferences on agency and responsibility. These conferences will bring together philosophers working on agency and responsibility, including both established figures and those early in their careers and those working in both "theoretical" and "applied" areas of these topics. 

Below the fold are our confirmed keynote speakers:

 

Minds Online Conference discusssion on determinism

Should you be interested (and you should!), check out this discussion at the Minds Online Conference, which features a paper by Marcelo Fischborn arguing that neuroscience could in principle establish a form of determinism that would undermine libertarian theories of free will (though existing evidence does not yet suggest it), and responses from Adina Roskies and me.

If you read (or skim) the papers and want to add to the discussion, please do it there, not here.  However, if you don't have time to look at the longer discussion, but do have time to think about the following questions, I'd be curious to hear what people think:

Can neuroscience establish a thesis of local 'neuro-determinism' that has the same sort of form as the universal determinism we discuss in the free will debates (e.g., as used in incompatibilist arguments)?  If so, what might such a thesis look like?  And if so, how might such a thesis be used in an argument for 'neuro-incompatibilism'--i.e., that free will is incompatible with 'neuro-determinism'?  (Similar questions could be asked about psychological determinism, biological determinism, etc.)

Consciousness and Intention in Economics and Philosophy

We are happy to announce that Consciousness and Intention in Economics and Philosophy will be held at Kyoto Sangyo University (KSU) on the 12th and 13th, December 2015.

We hope that it will be joined by researchers and students who are interested in experimental researches in economics, philosophy and other sciences, as the previous conferences hosted by Kyoto Experimental Economics Laboratory (KEEL) of KSU: Experiments in Economic Sciences: New Approaches to Solving Real-world Problems (2004) and How and Why Economists and Philosophers do Experiments: Dialogue Between Experimental Economics and Experimental Philosophy (2010).

The keynote speakers for the conference are

Prof. Kurt Gray

Department of Psychology
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

Prof. Shaun Nichols
Department of Philosophy
University of Arizona

Prof. Maroš Servátka

Macquarie Graduate School of Management

Prof. Masatoshi Yoshida

Department of Developmental Physiology,

National Institute for Physiological Sciences,

and the invited lecturer for the Sakura Exchange Program in Science, which is jointly organised with the conference, is

Prof. Nick Feltovich

Department of Economics,

Monash University

The conference and the program are organised by KEEL:

Prof. Sobei H. Oda, Prof. Yoshio IIda, Pof. Hiroshi Kitamura, Dr Yan Zhou

in cooperation with Prof. Jiro Okuda (Faculty of Computer Science and Technology, KSU) and Dr Masashi Kasaki (Japan Society of for the Promotion of Science).