Conference: Human Rights in Theory and Practice

From Public Reason...

Human Rights in Theory and Practice

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted by the United Nations in 1948, and in recognition of the UDHR’s 60th anniversary, the Institute for Law and Philosophy will host a one-day conference featuring panels on a range of philosophical and legal aspects of human rights. Committed participants include Charles Beitz (Princeton), Allen Buchanan (Duke), Roger Clark (Rutgers-Camden), James Nickel (Arizona State), Thomas Pogge (Yale), and Joseph Raz (Columbia/Oxford), with ther additions still to come. Details to follow.
Registration is required, and there is a registration fee of $25 ($10 for students). To rgister, please e-mail and send a check, payable to Rutgers University, to: John Oberdiek, Rutgers University School of Law-Camden, 217 North 5th Street, Camden, NJ 08102.

BPPA Conference

I'm sure that the BPPA won't mind me sharing the news that next year's British Postgraduate Philosophy Conference will be hosted by King's College, London. I'm disappointed that Sheffield has missed out on the opportunity to host the conference, but wish to congratulate King's on their success - I'm sure it will be a great event.

G. A. Cohen Conference

Conference announcement courtesy of the Brooks Blog...

Rescuing Justice and Equality: Celebrating the Career of G.A. Cohen

On January 23-24 2009, with the generous support of Philosophy and Public Affairs, the Centre for the Study of Social Justice will be hosting a conference to celebrate the career of G.A. Cohen, who is retiring after 23 years as Chichele Professor of Social and Political Theory.
Over the two days there will be eight papers covering various themes raised by Professor Cohen’s contribution to the field, each given, and commented on, by a colleague, friend, and/or former student.

The full list of confirmed speakers is:

• Professor Richard Arneson (UC San Diego)
• Dr Paula Casal (University of Reading)
• Professor Joshua Cohen (Stanford University)
• Professor Gerald Dworkin (UC Davis)
• Professor David Estlund (Brown University)
• Professor Cecile Fabre (University of Edinburgh)
• Professor David Miller (University of Oxford)
• Professor Michael Otsuka (University College London)
• Professor Joseph Raz (University of Oxford)
• Professor John Roemer (Yale University)
• Professor Tim Scanlon (Harvard University)
• Professor Seana Shiffrin (UC Los Angeles)
• Professor Hillel Steiner (University of Manchester)
• Professor Wayne Sumner (University of Toronto)
• Professor Philippe Van Parijs (Université Catholique de Louvain)
• Professor Andrew Williams (University of Warwick)

There is no conference fee but places for the conference are limited. Please register your interest by emailing Kate Candy: kate.candy@politics.ox.ac.uk. Please state your name, title and affiliation in the email. Further information will be posted online at http://social-justice.politics.ox.ac.uk/events/Cohen/index.asp as soon as it is available.

Future Ethics Workshop

The report from the first Future Ethics workshop is now online here. Future ethics is a workshop series on climate change, political action and the future of the human being held at The University of Manchester 2008-09. The report includes papers, film footage, feedback from group work, and notes from small discussion groups. 

Philosophers' Carnival

Welcome to the new edition of the Philosophers' Carnival. Interest was high this fortnight, with nearly 30 submissions, so unfortunately I couldn't include them all. Sorry to those who missed out, and I hope people enjoy the selections I've made.

Here we go...

Epistemology:

Possibly Philosophy sheds light on the Paradox of Rational Believability here, and replies to comments here and here.

Noah Greenstein focuses on the truth aspect of knowledge with A Note on Epistemology here, and his argument is well summarised in a comment here.

Also writing On Truth (and Correspondence) is Movement of Existence who shares his thoughts here.

Finally in epistemology, the well-titled This is the Name of This Blog Bashes Bonjour on Basicality here.

Logic and Language:

Aidan McGlynn at The Boundaries of Language weighs in on Grice and Doxastic Voluntarism here.

Think it Over comments on Quine's discussion of the Linguistic Theory of Logical Truth here.

And finally in logic and language, a fellow Sheffield alumni at Snow is White writes on McDowell's 'On the Sense and Reference of a Proper Name' here.

Metaphysics:

The Real World writes on Relativity and the Present here.

Roman Altshuler at The Ends of Thought comments on Davidson on Pro-Attitudes here.

And Avery Archer at The Space of Reasons writes on Why-Questions and Minimal Causal Accounts here.

Ethics:

Previous Carnival host Thom Brooks writes at his eponymous Brooks Blog on public service privatisation in the case of prisons here.

The Uncredible Hallq (aka Chris Hallquist) provides an introductory lecture on Consequentialism and the problem of harming one to save many here.

Other:

And finally, in the 'other' category we have posts on ranging from Aesthetics to Physics...

Sportive Thoughts seeks to find a definition of 'good' for art here.

Soul Physics tells us How Special Relativity Thwarts Eternalism (and more) here.

The last selection is a musing from The Coriolis Effect on how creative philosophers can be, here.


That's it for this edition of the Philosophers' Carnival, the next edition will be hosted by Enigmania on July 28th. Follow this link to submit to the next edition.

Ban Ki-moon

The UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, has written an opinion piece in the Guardian today ahead of the Hokkaido Toyako G8 summit. Read it here.
It's interesting (although not in a good way) to see a reference to Malthusian thinking on global hunger and resource scarcity in such a piece. One would hope that such thinking had been discredited a long time ago.

Philosophy in Schools

Interesting article in today's Guardian urging that philosophy should be taught in schools (read it here) in order to increase pupils' critical thinking skills.

Philosophers' Carnival - Call for submissions

The next Philosophers' Carnival will take place here on July 14th. Please submit entries to the carnival via this link, any topic is welcome!