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Upcoming Conferences, Talks & Events


Seminar: Ethics and Moral Agency in Finance and the Financial Sector: The role of pedagogy

Wednesday 25th February 2015

Organised by CEVI, in conjunction with the Kemmy Business School, University of Limerick, Ireland

Conference Theme
The financial sector has been somewhat robust in resisting structural reform and political regulation, whilst trying to demonstrate that it seeks to put in place changes that will act upon the causal factors that triggered the 2009 crisis. Their preferred solutions lie in stronger and more effective ethics codes and mechanisms by which they are inculcated in the finance sector, and pedagogies that avoid narrow and insular approaches and practices to financial activity. Critics have claimed that this focus belies structural and cultural contexts that encourage risky, speculative and potentially dangerous practices. Yet regardless of the feasibility and specifics of structural change, cultural change will also be necessary to ensure a finance sector that is more reflective of its power, centrality and responsibility to the stability and prosperity of contemporary societies.

This seminar, following on from a first workshop in Limerick in 2014, seeks to focus on the question of pedagogies and the scope and limits to their deployment in the finance sector. The seminar welcomes contributions that seek to interrogate the question of the power and relevance of pedagogies, and suggests these particular themes and questions (though they are not exhaustive or exclusive):

  • How powerful are codes of ethics as means of developing cultures of responsibility within the finance sector?
  • Can moral pedagogies impact upon the cultures of the finance sector and what impact can they have?
  • If moral pedagogies have a role to play in the finance sector, how should they be composed, implemented and used?
  • What is the relationship between the practices of the finance industry, its professional codes and claims for a moral agency?
  • Is the object of moral pedagogies a more generic 'problem' of the practices of business and finance or is it a singular 'problem' for the financial sector, and if it is, what lessons can be learned from business ethics?
  • What do critical social and philosophical perspectives have to offer in articulating an understanding of the relationship between moral agency, moral pedagogies and systems and practices within business and finance?

This conference is convened to bring together the voices of those who both analyse and engage in the business and finance sectors, and more critical philosophical and political-economic voices and perspectives, to explore the problems and possibilities, and the scope and limitations, to questions of moral pedagogy and professional ethics as a basis for accountable and responsible business and finance in the 21st Century. It invites papers that provide critical diagnoses of the problems and possibilities of moral pedagogies in their relationship to moral agency and practice in the conjuncture of the 2009 crisis (though historical and contemporary ‘post-crisis’ papers are welcome) and the reflexivity such pedagogies might engender. It welcomes arguments that represent the spectrum of opinions, from pleas that business is ethical and the current ‘scapegoating’ is unjustified, to arguments that the crisis was simply an illustration of the bankruptcy - moral and political - of capitalist finance.

We welcome proposals for papers of not more than 20 minutes length. Papers are welcome from any discipline and profession, and paper-givers should be aware that the audience will span social, economic and business disciplines and include finance and business professionals as well as academics. There will be two keynote plenary sessions with speakers to be announced. Depending on the quality of the papers and engagements of the presenters, the organisers will propose a special edition to an established journal, and will draft a proposal for an editied collection. The Conference Language is English and all papers and presentations should be in English. There is no fee for this workshop but no monies available towards costs

Abstracts of no more than 250 words may be submitted to: Tom Claes

Relevant dates are:

  • Deadline for submission of Abstracts/Proposals by: Monday January 19th, 2015.
  • Notification of Acceptance and Rejection:  Friday January 23rd 2015

Organisers: Tom Claes, CEVI, Martin Mullins, Kemmy Business School, University of Limerick, Ireland, Paul Reynolds, Edge Hill University, UK


Past Conferences, Talks & Events


Workshop: Philosophical Activism: Philosophy and Public Policy, 30-31 October 2014, Durham University, Durham, UK

Workshop Website

Centre for Humanities Engaging Science and Society (CHESS) | Durham University, Durham (UK). This event is organised with generous support from the Society for Applied Philosophy, the Department of Philosophy at Durham University, the Career and Academic Researcher Development office at Durham University, and the Global Policy Institute at Durham University. It is co-organised by Laszlo Kosolosky, Gaston Meskens, and Tom Claes (Centre for Ethics and Value Inquiry, Ghent University, Belgium).

Philosophy as an academic field has become increasingly interested in the epistemic, political, ethical, social, and moral complexities that surround public policy deliberations. On the one hand, important theoretical work is undertaken, for instance, on the application possibilities and limitations of scientific findings for good policy practice. There have been calls for something like applied philosophy of the social sciences. Others have sketched a problem-driven rather than theory-driven approach for those moral and political philosophers who aim to make their work more relevant to vexing socio-political issues like health policy, gambling, or economic regulation.

On the other hand, from a more practical angle, philosophers have often served on governmental advisory committees (e.g., Onora O’Neill currently chairing the Equality and Human Rights Commission; Mary Warnock chairing the 1974 Warnock Committee Inquiry on Special Education) and independent bodies and charities aiming to influence public policy and understanding (e.g., Jonathan Wolff currently serving on the Responsible Gambling Trust and Homicide Review Group).

Such contributions, both theoretical and practical, are arguably one cluster of ways to be philosophically active. It also invites philosophical reflection, though, for instance on actual and potential arguments to involve philosophers (rather than, e.g., social or natural scientists, other humanities-trained professionals, artists, …,) in public policy; what mutual expectations are at play; what are or could be shared concerns (moral, social, religious, secular, …) of philosophers that motivate collective action in public policy; or how philosophers’ contributions, both theoretical and practical, may be dependent on regional and national contexts or times.

PHILOSOPHICAL ACTIVISM: a project overview by Laszlo Kosolosky and Gaston Meskens

What is philosophical activism? What makes philosophy into philosophical activism and how does it relate to the widely accepted notion of philosophy as first and foremost a reflective endeavour? If the 'love of wisdom' motivates, as it is said, a critical systematic approach and a reliance on rational argument, under what conditions then can this critical stance become an activist stance? How does such an activist stance affect the rationality and credibility of philosophical arguments?  And why, in general, should philosophy (not) be considered activism as such?

Answering these questions implies not only reflecting on what philosophy is, can be and perhaps should (not) be, but also on the motivations we might have to engage in philosophy and on the character of the fields and places where the philosopher seeks rapprochement as well as confrontation. Thinking through the question what philosophical activism could or should (not) be, is a self-reflective philosophical quest. At the same time, it is also an activist intervention in the positioning of philosophy in the real world.

'Philosophical Activism' comprises a series of one-day workshops that focus on the depths and widths of what it means to be philosophically active:

(Meta-) reflections from the field (Ghent, 15 February 2013), see http://www.philosophy.ugent.be/philosophicalactivism

Expressing discontent: Appropriate or not? And if so, when, where and how? (Ghent, 25 October 2013), see http://www.philosophy.ugent.be/philosophicalactivism2

Thank you to the sponsors of the event: Department of Philosophy, Global Policy Institute, CHESS, Centre for Academic Researcher Development (Durham Uni), Aristotelian Society, British Society for Philosophy of Science, Society for Applied Philosophy

Conference: INSEP2014 Sexualities and Freedoms - 14th - 16th July, 2014, Ghent University, hosted by CEVI

CONFERENCE WEBSITE

General Conference Theme – Sexualities and Freedoms

Sexuality is a nexus in which opposing pressures and strivings clash. It is a field of unescapable contestation, caught between discipline and revolt, governance and unruliness. All societies confine it, while most individuals strive for freedoms and self-determination.

Regulatory, legal, aesthetic, and moral frameworks concerning sexuality lie at the heart of all societies. They affect and structure what are considered permissible and non-permissible sexualities; they define and normalize accepted, ‘healthy’ and worthwhile forms of sexuality by setting these off against intolerable, deviant, perverse and pathological, and immoral sexualities. These frameworks are informed by values and norms, cultural backings, images of traditions and histories, and in turn reinforce these. But sexuality is a continuously changing and evolving domain, fuelled by, e.g., emancipatory movements, activism, politics, ethics, social, legal and cultural change, religion, modernisation and globalisation, and economic pressures and developments. It is a domain in which questions and issues of freedoms and liberties, justice and recognition are central. It is a vital aspect of self-determination, identity and well-being. These frameworks enable and disable our sexual freedoms and unfreedoms and provide the canvas against which the notion of sexual liberation and liberatory movements become meaningful. They promote, discourage, delineate and mould our individual sexual agency, identities, intimacies, choices and sexual possibilities.

The question then becomes: How should we frame and thematize sexual freedom? Who may make claims on which sexual freedoms? What are the limits of sexual freedoms? What is the relation between sexual freedom and liberation?  And what is the relation between freedom and liberties on the one hand and notions of ‘emancipation’, ‘progress’, ‘liberation’ and the like on the other?

For this conference we would like to focus on the dynamics, forms and contestations of sexual freedoms and unfreedoms, liberties and liberation ranging from the intimate and interpersonal, to the social and the national domain, and beyond: on a global scale.

The fourth international conference of INSEP welcomes papers, presentations and panels focusing on conceptual and theoretical debates, cultural and political analysis and empirical studies from which conceptual, ethical and political conclusions are drawn.

Possible Sub Themes

Whilst we welcome a wide and diverse range of papers focussed on the general conference theme, we are particularly keen to encourage submissions dealing with issues relating to sub-themes of particular interest.

  • Culture/Religion and Sexual Rights and Justice
  • Nations/Nationalisms and the Regulation of Sexualities
  • The ‘Sex Hierarchy’ – 30 years later
  • Progressive and Critical Appraisals of ‘Sexual Freedom’
  • Sexuality and Emancipation
  • Sexuality and Conservatism
  • Sexuality and (Neo-)Liberalism
  • The Limits of Sexual Freedom
  • Freedom and Consent
  • Sexuality and Responsibility
  • Feminist and other Liberatory Agendas Now
  • (Post)Feminist interpretations of Agency
  • Queer Deconstructions and Possibilities
  • Queer Ethics
  • Postcolonial Critiques and Racialized Sexuality
  • Global Sexual Agendas
  • Sexual Radicalism – Now and Then
  • ‘Sexual Politics’ – Then, Now and in the Future

Workshop: INSEP Workshop - Sexual Health – Sexological, Therapeutic and Normative Perspectives.

Ghent University - Monday 24 February 2014 – 10:00-13:00 & 14:00-16:00, Room 130.007

‘Sexual health’ has been a cause of increasing public concern across the Western world since the 1970’s. This has been fuelled particularly by concerns about the rising prevalence of sexually transmitted diseases amongst youth and the impact of HIV/AIDS on public consciousness about sexual risk, and a growing public awareness about sexual dysfunction, poor health and unhealthy deviation. But discussions on Sexual Health, on what it stands for, how to promote it and how it fits into a modernizing world have quickly taken on global, international and intercultural  dimensions.

Perspectives on sexual health are rooted in both reproductive health and medicalised approaches and sexological approaches to sexual deviancy and prevalence/incidence in practices. However, more recently these roots have been worked into a more comprehensive notion of ‘health and well-being’. The WHO now characterizes Sexual Health as a ‘state of physical, mental and social well-being in relation to sexuality, requiring a positive and respectful approach to sexuality and sexual relationships, as well as the possibility of having pleasurable and safe sexual experiences, free of coercion, discrimination and violence.’ Sexual Health can no longer be seen as independent of other notions and issues like sexual rights, sexual well-being, pleasure, education, public health, women’s rights, sexual agency and self-determination, and other characteristics that reflect sexual freedom and diversity.

Increasingly, this broader ‘sexual health’ paradigm becomes a catalyst pushing and informing practices, policies and research agenda’s on local, international as well as on global scales. It now serves as a guiding framework and ideal in (inter)national public health, educational and development policies and research. It is setting the agenda in, e.g., sexology and sex therapy, social and psychological research. It informs and underpins policies and activism aimed at promoting women’s rights and gender justice, the acceptance and recognition of diverse sexualities and identities and a wider sense of re-conceiving the pathologies and prejudices that govern legal and policy approaches to sexuality in society.

‘Sexual Health’, in short, has become a project. Insofar as it is a project, its identity, constituency and development is open to divergent interpretations and visions. It is important that these interpretations and visions should not solely be driven by the voices of institutions, vested interests and authoritative and powerful professional and governing bodies. Discussions on Sexual Health should also be informed from the field and by the lived experience and sexual lives of those to whom the concept and policies are addressed.  

In this workshop, we will seek to explore the project of ‘sexual health’ and its possible directions and futures. It will focus on sexological and therapeutic research and perspectives and normative and evaluative positions on redefining and reconceiving Sexual Health.  It is envisaged that this workshop will be both a day of discussion and exploration in itself, and a first meeting of what we hope will be a developing project within the network, with further workshops and publication possibilities.

Contributors in this first workshop include Dr. Meg Barker (The Open University, UK), Prof. Ann Buysse (UGent, BE) and Paul Reynolds (Edge Hill University, UK).

Attendance is free, but registration is required. Please email to .

Conference: INSEP2013 – The Value(s) of Sexual Diversity, 14th – 16th October, 2013, Ghent University

Hosted by CEVI – Centre for Ethics and Value Inquiry

Faculty of Arts and Philosophy
Ghent University, Blandijnberg 2
9000 Ghent – Belgium

(Download the CFP as pdf)

CONFERENCE WEBSITE

General Conference Theme – The Value(s) of Sexual Diversity

For this conference we would like to focus on the legal, political and ethical boundaries of diverse sexualities. By this we mean that we wish to ‘trouble’ current assumptions, dispositions and claims for the boundaries between legitimacy and illegitimacy in diverse sexual identities, sub-cultures and practices in both national and international contexts. These concerns can be represented in a number of areas of inquiry.

In the more (so-called) ‘tolerant’ context of the West, how are the lines drawn between what is sexually permissible and what is not permissible? What are the legal, ethical and political arguments that prescribe some diverse sexual practices, identities or fetishes, and where are the lines drawn between what can be prohibited, or regulated, or by absence of prescription permitted?  What part does the role of law and the idea of citizen rights and obligations play in the construction of prohibitions or regulation? How do arguments of prohibition, regulation and permission draw on broader ideas of tolerance, liberty and respect and dignity for difference or social protections and moral norms? What discourses or developments beyond the law are necessary for promoting respect for sexual difference?

What demands do the interstices of race, gender, class, culture, age and ability make on sexual diversity, and to what extent can diversity contain them? Can we make claims for respecting diverse sexualities and at the same time have constructive dialogues with countries and cultures that do not? How convincing are the ethical and political arguments that construct boundaries in a contemporary, increasingly globalized and multicultural  context? How and where do differing non-Western sexualities fit in? Is it oppressive to insist on universal principles for respecting sexual identities and difference? Where do we draw lines between legitimacy and illegitimacy?

Or, on an even more fundamental level: are sexual difference and diversity as such valuable?

The third international conference of INSEP welcomes papers, presentations and panels focusing on conceptual and theoretical debates, cultural and political analysis and empirical studies from which conceptual, ethical and political conclusions are drawn.

Sub Themes

Whilst we welcome a wide and diverse range of papers focussed on the general conference theme, we are particularly keen to encourage submissions dealing with issues relating to three sub-themes of particular interest.

BDSM: Legal, Cultural and Ethical Questions

At least one part of the conference will launch an INSEP project on the legal, cultural and ethical questions surrounding BDSM. This sexuality is important in its amalgam of practices, ascriptions of identity and sub-cultural community, and the  dichotomous positions it occupies in exploring the ethics and politics of sexual diversity, represented in its alternate representations as: pleasurable danger or dangerous pleasure; consensual pain or pathological cruelty; power exchange or sexualised oppression; imaginative sex or celebration of degradation. In this stream papers are welcomed that seek to develop ethical, political and legal arguments that both respect the sexual diversity within BDSM but tackle the questions raised about the scope and limits of its individual and social forms and practices. This part of the conference will involve both intellectual critique and the voices of practitioners.

Sexology and the Negotiation of Diversity

Sexology, in research and therapy, in the range of different approaches, techniques and practices it uses, has tended to position sexual diversity against a norm-deviance model of sexual behaviour. It has simultaneously adopted a pathological model of sexual difference and diversity whilst, in its transition from classical to modern to contemporary sexology, played a part of dissembling prejudices about sexual diversity. With bio-medical precepts and scientific methodology at the centre of sexological perspectives, sexual diversity provides a challenging area for sexologists who seek to promote and engage therapeutically with a healthy sexual identity and practice. Papers that explore the relationship between the scientific and therapeutic study of sexual diversity and the problems of comprehending sexual diversity outside pathological and norm-deviant structures are particularly welcome.

The Mainstreaming and Commodification of Sexual Diversity

Transgressive sexualities used to both challenge and define the boundaries of the normal and acceptable. Nowadays, in the West at least, these partisan sexualities have become increasingly standardised and commodified. Forms of deviance that once were pathologized have now become disarmed as fashionable (part-time) life-styles. Sexual practices once considered dangerous now serve as the canvas for the mass-marketing of sexual props and aids, books, films, etc. Pornography, e.g., has become ‘chic’ (and even sometimes art) and/or is being produced based on standardised formats. Kink has become the newest fashion. Opposition to heteronormativity sometimes digresses into complacent imago management. How much ‘sting’, then, is left in sexual diversity when the importance of being earnest is rapidly being superseded by the importance of feeling accepted? How does the pacification and neutralisation of difference hamper recognition and acceptance of non-standardised sexualities?

Acceptance Policy

INSEP seeks to provide a critical and dynamic space for cutting edge thinking, new research and key discussions and debates about issues of sexual ethics or politics, whether conceptual and theoretical discourse, analytical studies or aesthetically or empirically constituted insights.  INSEP sees the value in the fullest range of approaches to the study of sexual ethics and politics, including: gendered and feminist perspectives; distinctive lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and transsexual perspectives; queer perspectives; and approaches from more general positions such as liberalism, Marxism and democratic theory. The 2013 conference seeks to be an inclusive space for discussion, welcoming dialogue and vigorous debate, but not sectarianism. We consider paper proposals and panel proposals from any disciplinary field, and are willing to consider expositions that take less orthodox forms. To facilitate funding applications – please note INSEP has no funds of its own – we operate a ‘rolling’ process of abstract review and acceptance or rejection. Our turnaround time for refereeing is 10 days.

Submission & Timeline:  Submissions for papers (300 words), panels or workshops (500 word stipulating participants) should reach us by the final deadline of 16 July 2013. Normal acceptance/rejection notification – 10 days.  All delegates/paper-givers must register by September 15th 2013.

Please send abstracts to:

The conference fee for presenting delegates for the full three days is 200 Euros, which includes the conference pack, refreshments and a conference dinner. A concessionary rate of 150 Euros is available to presenting students and postgraduates. The rate for non-presenting delegates is 100 Euros, including refreshments, conference pack and the conference dinner.

Paul Reynolds
Tom Claes

Conference: Philosophical Activism – Expressing discontent: appropriate or not? And if so, when, where, and how? Ghent (Belgium) – October 25, 2013

CONFERENCE WEBSITE

The ‘Philosophical Activism’ initiative comprises a series of one-day workshops that focus on the depths and widths of what it means to be philosophically active.

In our second workshop, i.e., Expressing discontent: appropriate or not? And if so, when, where, and how? we welcome papers that

(1)    examine what the notion of discontent might entail from a philosophical perspective, and

(2)    elaborate on how discontent can and should be (philosophically) expressed on the border between science and society

For more on the focus of this workshop and the initiative, please see below.

The ‘Philosophical Activism’- Workshops seek to be an inclusive space of debate, welcoming dialogue and vigorous debate, but not sectarianism. We will consider paper proposals from a wide array of disciplinary fields as long as they raise and discuss issues that are relevant for philosophical reflection. The word limit for abstracts is 250 words.

Please send your abstract to: laszlo.kosolosky@ugent.be

Important dates

1 July 2013: Submission deadline

15 July 2013: Notification of acceptance

22 July 2013: Program online

25 October 2013: Conference

‘Philosophical Activism’ – Project Overview

What is philosophical activism? What makes philosophy into philosophical activism and how does it relate to the widely accepted notion of philosophy as first and foremost a reflective endeavor? If the 'love of wisdom' motivates, as it is said, a critical systematic approach and a reliance on rational argument, under what conditions then can this critical stance become an activist stance? How does such an activist stance affect the rationality and credibility of philosophical arguments?  And why, in general, should philosophy (not) be considered activism as such?

Answering these questions implies not only reflecting on what philosophy is, can be and perhaps should (not) be, but also on the motivations we might have to engage in philosophy and on the character of the fields and places where the philosopher seeks rapprochement as well as confrontation. 

Thinking through the question what philosophical activism could or should (not) be, is a self-reflective philosophical quest. At the same time, it is also an activist intervention in the positioning of philosophy in the real world.

'Philosophical Activism' comprises a series of one-day workshops that focus on the depths and widths of what it means to be philosophically active.

The workshops are co-organized by the Centre for Logic and Philosophy of Science (CLPS) and the Centre for Ethics and Value Inquiry (CEVI), both at Ghent University, Belgium.

Second Workshop theme – Expressing discontent: appropriate or not? And if so, when, where, and how?

In our second workshop, i.e., Expressing discontent: appropriate or not? And if so, when, where, and how?, we intend to (1) examine what the notion of discontent might entail from a philosophical perspective, and (2) elaborate on how discontent can and should be (philosophically) expressed on the border between science and society.

In this workshop we particularly welcome papers dealing with  two kinds of discontent: civil and scientific discontent.

Civil discontent we take to be the sum of civil initiatives, known as political activism, ethical activism, environmental activism, that originate from the ground up. These initiatives are often set in motion by a group of people who feel neglected when it comes to expressing their state of mind. Their goal is to spread their doubt, fear, worries with other people towards matters of public importance. In these initiatives activists sometimes resort to taking matters in their own hands by effectively engaging in protests and other kinds of actions. Examples in mind here are: anarchist movements, hacktivists, Occupy movements, indignados, et cetera.

Scientific discontent can be understood as the academic articulation of ones concerns. One of the issues at stake here is how dissent and consent govern contemporary scientific and societal discussions. In our society, there are these moments in which establishing a scientific consensus is imperative to solve urgent problems, for instance, as concerns climate change; achieving consensus on the causes and extent of global warming would facilitate policymaking and, moreover, send a convincing signal that doing nothing will have dire consequences. On the other hand, philosophers studying plurality and heterodoxy in science have raised questions concerning the ideal of the scientific consensus and the pernicious effects the consecration of scientific consensus might have.  When science meets society, the above dilemma is (regrettably) often the case.

The overall question, transcending both kinds, is to what extent can civil or scientific discontent have its place in a democratic or scientific framework? All submissions related to the topic of discontent will be considered for presentation.

Lecture & discussion: Dr. Tracey Sagar & Deborah Jones - The Student Sex Work Project - 17 May 2013

Location / Time: 17 May 2013 - Faculty of Philosophy & Literature

Dr. Tracey Sagar & Deborah Jones (Swansea University) will present their ongoing research & outreach project. The overall purpose of the Project is to  promote learning and understanding about student sex worker needs and associated issues, and to provide an innovative sexual health service to a marginalised population through an ethical, empowering research led framework.

The Project came about because of the following issues:

  • A lack of research in relation to student sex work in the UK.
  • The lack of policy acknowledgement in Wales that young people may be involved in sex work.
  • Student sex workers, as young people, should be entitled to receive sexual health advice within a safe and non-judgmental setting.
  • The need to provide an innovative service that reaches out to a specific population.
  • The need to begin to dialogue about student sex work in Wales. 

The Project is led by Swansea University in partnership with Terrence Higgins Trust, Cardiff and Vale University Health Board - Integrated Sexual Health Service, the National Union of Students Wales and Newport Film School.

More info via the Project Website: http://www.thestudentsexworkproject.co.uk/

Film Screening: Pink Camouflage - by Sarah Bracke, 2009 - 13 May 2013

Location / Time: 13 May 2013 - Faculty of Philosophy & Literature, Aud B., 17:30 - 19:30

"Gay rights" are often presented under the famous banner of "Clash of Civilisations": these hard-fought rights won in the West, under threat in the Islamic world and therefore in need of defence. However, between war, politics and sexuality, aren’t there many "dangerous liaisons"? In fact, doesn’t war need a narrative...Going against the tide of current discourse, and travelling between Lebanon and Belgium, this film offers a much needed-vision to pierce through our complacent consciences!
(from: http://www.nova-cinema.org/spip.php?article7674&lang=en)

Conference: Who is the Democratic Agent? - 1 & 2 March 2013

Organised by the Making Democracy Network

1st International Conference of the ‘Making the Democratic Agent’ Project
Hosted by the Center for Ethics and Value Inquiry - CEVI

Location / Time: 1-2 March 2013 - Faculty of Philosophy & Literature

CONFERENCE WEBSITE

There are voluminous libraries of texts that describe both how ‘democracies’ do work, and how different thinkers argue they should work. Within this literature, there is a wide range of: analysed or proposed systems and structures; organisational, institutional, group and network sketches and models; cultural, political, ideological and political economy approaches; and philosophical and empirical analyses.

One thing much of this literature addresses with a minor rather than a major key is the character and description of the political agent for whom democracies are supposed to operate, who colonise these structures, systems and models, who act for sectional or wider political interests and who thereby claim rights and take on responsibilities to democratic structures and those who subscribe to them. Who are these democratic agents? Autonomous people engaged in political contracts? Individuals who operate with self interest within political markets? Subjects shaped or moulded by the ideological, cultural and political apparatus of dominant forces or structures of the state itself? Subjects whose sense of self and engagement with the other is subject to a complex amalgam of psychoanalytic, linguistic and symbolic relationships and domains?; Agents who seeks to live ethical in ethical communities through their ideas and practices?:  Complex agents within autopoietic systems or agents within complex systems with disparate and multiple drivers and characteristics?

It is not that the democratic agent is ignored. Clearly it is possible to see the democratic agent in a wealth of theoretical and political texts and campaigns. This project, however, wants to bring the democratic subject to the fore, and ask: What characteristics, virtues, capacities, experiences, moral and political pedagogy and knowledge are necessary to be a democratic agent?; How does the democratic agent relate to political elites, political structures, bureaucrats, professions (particularly focused around the state) and intellectuals, and whether such distinctions can sustain within democratic societies?; What particular experiences and changes politicise (or depoliticise) the democratic agent and what cases can we draw from to understand them?; What are the obligations, responsibilities and duties that a democratic agent should have, and what rights should they enjoy?; Does taking the democratic agent seriously change our notion of politics altogether?

This project within the ‘Making Democracy’ network seeks to focus on the democratic agent as they are now, as they might become, as they change through politicisation (or depoliticisation), how they are or should be conceived and understood, and how they can make democracies in which they can exercise contingency but understand constraint, be free and yet accept the precepts of democratic community. The sorts of questions and areas posed above are a short and partial reflection of what might be asked about the democratic agent.

For the first international seminar, the focus for papers will be a simple yet elusive question: Who is the democratic agent? Suggested focuses are:

  • What characteristics, virtues and capabilities do or should the democratic agent have?

  • How do we ‘make’ the democratic agent, if we can make them at all, or how can they make themselves?

  • What moral or political pedagogy best promotes democracy and democratic agents participation in it?

  • What is the role of the intellectual in enabling democratic agents?

  • Do we need to rethink or dissemble current democratic systems and their political structures and processes to enable democratic agents?

  • What experiences best inform the democratic agent?

  • What are the obligations, responsibilities, duties and rights best describe a democratic agent?

These questions should not preclude submissions that take different questions in their approach to the seminar theme. We welcome discussion and position papers that speculate, question and think as much as (if not more than) polished pieces; and we hope to attract a group of scholars who will want to develop something more substantial from this small starting-point, in collaborative endeavor.

Conference: Morality or Ethics: Real Differences or Mere Semantics? - 25 & 26 February 2013

Location / Time: 25-26 February 2013 - Faculty of Philosophy & Literature

Organised and Hosted by CEVI at the University of Gent in association with CAPPE, University of Brighton 

CONFERENCE WEBSITE

Anglophone philosophy began to supplant discussions of morals with deliberations on ‘ethics’ in the 1980s. In reaction to both assertions of a ‘primacy’ of morality by established interests and competing claims for either moral universalism or moral relativism, ‘morality’ fell out of favour, to be replaced by ‘ethics’. Bernard Williams’ Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy is the seminal text representing this shift. In a similar vein, critical theorists influenced by Habermas have used a distinction between ethics and morality to rethink the ethical limits of particular communities, a defence of moral universalism that has come to be widely questioned in recent years.

At the same time, however, these moves – whatever their original merits – have been made problematic as both the elusiveness of the concept of ‘ethics’ and the business of ‘doing ethics’ proliferate so wildly that they have arguably become uselessly empty. Ethics is everywhere – in the media, in politicians’ “policies” and even in the market; and codes of conduct and organisational policies are replete with ethics. Consider for example the development of ‘professional ethics’, ‘research ethics’, ‘business ethics’, public service integrity and standards and ‘bio-medical ethics’. While these sound differently eccentric from ‘getting the morality right’, they constitute a contemporary mantra influencing political standards, policy and professional practice.

The result is that ‘ethics’ comes with as much baggage – different though that baggage is – as ‘morality’. The contemporary mantra of ‘getting the ethics right’ obscures and impedes thinking about the good, the right and the just no less effectively – perhaps more effectively? – than the moralism of ‘morality’.

This workshop thus seeks to:

  • explore and describe the conceptual and linguistic distinctions between ‘ethics’ and ‘morals’;
  • place the phenomena of the use of these two concepts in their context and explore the impasses they present in juxtaposition; and
  • begin to find ways to move beyond these impasses to make possible a clear consideration of what it might mean to say something is an ethical or a moral problem that avoids both moralism and the empty formulae of ethics – or to make clear why this cannot be done.

We welcome discussion and position papers that speculate, question and think as much as (if not more than) polished pieces; and we hope to attract a group of scholars who will want to develop something more substantial from this small starting-point.

All enquiries and abstracts should be sent to all three of the organisers:

Prof. Bob Brecher, CAPPE, University of Brighton - r.brecher@brighton.ac.uk  
Prof. Tom Claes, Director, CEVI, Ghent University - Tom.Claes@UGent.be
Paul Reynolds, Edge Hill University - reynoldp@edgehill.ac.uk

Workshop: Philosophical Activism - February 15, 2013

Location / Time: 15 February 2013 - KANTL, 14-17h

WORKSHOP WEBSITE

What is philosophical activism? What makes philosophy into philosophical activism and how does it relate to the widely accepted notion of philosophy as first and foremost a reflective endeavour? If the 'love of wisdom' motivates, as it is said, a critical systematic approach and a reliance on rational argument, under what conditions then can this critical stance become an activist stance? How does such an activist stance affect the rationality and credibility of philosophical arguments?  And why, in general, should philosophy (not) be considered activism as such?

Answering these questions implies not only reflecting on what philosophy is, can be and perhaps should (not) be, but also on the motivations we might have to engage in philosophy and on the character of the fields and places where the philosopher seeks rapprochement as well as confrontation. 

Thinking through the question what philosophical activism could or should (not) be, is a self-reflective philosophical quest. At the same time, it is also an activist intervention in the positioning of philosophy in the real world.

'Philosophical Activism' comprises a series of one-day workshops that focus on the depths and widths of what it means to be philosophically active.

In our first workshop, i.e. (Meta-)Reflections from the field, related notions such as global governance, peer review, pragmatism, and civil society will be discussed.

Invited speakers are Patrick Baert and Leida Rijnhout.

This workshop is organized and hosted by the Center for Ethics & Value Inquiry (CEVI), Ghent University, and the Center for Logic and Philosophy of Science (CLPS), Ghent University.

Venue: Koninklijke Academie voor Nederlandse Taal-en Letterkunde - KANTL

Lecture: Julia Driver - A Kantian Account of Moral Complicity - 10 September 2012

Location / Time: 10 September, 2012 - Blandijnberg 2, Room 2.16, Ghent University, 14-16h

Julia Driver (Washington University, St. Louis) will give a guest-lecture on: "A Kantian Account of Moral Complicity"

Sponsors: Centrum voor Ethiek en Waardeonderzoek (CEVI) & Centrum voor Geschiedenis van de Filosofie en Wetenschappen

 

Conference: INSEP - Connecting Sexual Ethics and Politics - 29th-31st August, 2012, Ghent University

Second International Conference of the International Network for Sexual Ethics and Politics

Hosted by CEVI – Center for Ethics and Value Inquiry

Location / Time: Universiteit Gent, Faculty of Arts & Literature

CONFERENCE WEBSITE

Sexual ethics and politics lie at the core of how we understand and practice our sexual lives. They form the basis from which we understand and engage with diverse and different sexualities. Both, however, are currently open to question. On the one hand, sexual ethics seems to be caught up in an abstract intellectual discourse, effectively separating it from practice. Sexual politics, on the other hand, has seen progressive advances through world-wide activism by grass-roots movements, NGO’s and national and international agents, but is often lacking a more self-critical and reflective stance. INSEP wants to activate a critical dialogue between sexual ethics and politics by connecting them and exploring the ways they can contribute to each other. The sexual is political and just as sexual politics could be enriched by emancipatory ethical thinking, sexual ethics should connect with contemporary sexual activism, politics and practices aiming at the realisation of sexual equality and justice.

General Conference Theme

In this conference we would like to focus on the construction, regulation and experience of contemporary sexual norms. By this we wish to ‘trouble’ current assumptions, dispositions and claims from different regulatory regimes for sexual identities, practices and differences in national and international contexts. Put simply, are today’s ‘progressive norms’ in contemporary Western societies really progressive?

For example, are civil partnerships, equality before the law and hate-crime legislation the end to gay and lesbian politics? What is the role of law and citizenship in promoting respect for difference? And what discourses or developments beyond the law are necessary for promoting respect for sexual difference. Can we make claims for respecting diverse sexualities and at the same time have constructive dialogues with countries and cultures that do not? Is it oppressive to insist on universal principles for respecting sexual identities and difference? Where do we draw lines of legitimacy and illegitimacy? Or, on an even more fundamental level: is sexual difference as such valuable?

After a successful launch conference last year, INSEP – the International Network of Sexual Ethics and Politics – announces their Second Annual Conference, to be held at the University of Ghent, Belgium, from Wednesday 29 to Friday 31 August, 2012.

This second international conference seeks papers, presentations and panels focusing on conceptual and theoretical debates, cultural and political analysis and empirical studies from which conceptual, ethical and political conclusions are drawn.

Sub themes

Three sub themes are of particular interest:

Is Sexual Equality Enough?

What is the connection between legal and political change towards greater equality and cultural experience and practices? Has the promotion of equality been progressive for all, for some, or in contradiction, for none? How do we understand and deconstruct persistent inequality? What does a political apathy against unequal and oppressive regimes say about the status of sexual equality in ‘progressive’ regimes?

Sexual Health & Well-Being

How should we rethink the notions of sexual health and well being? What does well-being add to the agenda for sexual health? Does the criminalization of HIV-transmission and pathologizing of bare backing, for example, constitute progressive health-regulation? How are medicalised sexual health programmes and risk-focused educational programmes contributing to health and well being? How does this work differently in international and different cultural contexts? What does the concept of sexual well-being demand for the sharing of knowledge about sexual practices and techniques?

Sexology, Therapy and the Boundaries of the Normal

What is the impact of the currently constituted science of sexology to understanding sexual difference and practice? To what extend is this a positive or negative contribution? How does it construct and defend notions of ‘normality’ and ‘perversion’ and what are the consequences of doing so? In whose interest is sexology practised? What key ethical and political questions should shape and mould a sexology of the future. What is the possible contribution of sexology as a western science to different cultures and traditions?

INSEP – http://www.insep.ugent.be/
Journal INSEP – http://www.insep.ugent.be/journal/jinsep/

Film Screening & Panel Discussion: The Price of Sex - on trafficking for sexual exploitation purposes - Monday 14 May 2012

Location / Time: Universiteit Gent, Blandijnberg, Aud A, 18:30-21:30 - free entrance

In collaboration with Piazza dell’ Arte 

The plight of trafficked people is often simply inhumane. The phenomenon of trafficking seems to boom in a globalized world – often with harrowing consequences and human tragedy. However, the issue of trafficking for sexual exploitation purposes also generates controversy lately. We cannot but do all we possibly can to assist victims, prevent further exploitation carousels and prosecute the traffickers – all this preferably in partnership with the (possible) victims of trafficking. But the ‘trafficking’ discourse, its moral and legal framing, and related initiatives of a so-called ‘rescue industry’ have lately been the subject of criticism as well. How to combat best trafficking? Is the notion of trafficking a useful notion in the fight against humanmisery related to, among others, awful working conditions in the sex industry? Can sex be work at all?

We start with the screening of the award-winning recent documentary on trafficking by the Bulgarian cineaste and photographer Mimi Chakarova: The Price of Sex (see priceofsex.org for more info and trailer) – a film about young Eastern European women who’ve been drawn into the world of sex trafficking and abuse. Chakarova’s documentary tell the story of her personal investigative journey, exposing the shadowy world of sex trafficking from Eastern Europe to the Middle East and Western Europe. Filming undercover she shows how, even though some women escape to tell their stories, sex trafficking thrives.

The screening will be followed by a panel debate on trafficking with the participatin of Dr. Nena Foster (health studies, UEL, UK), Prof. Nina Persak (criminologie, UGent), Dr. An van Dienderen (filmmaker) and Jelena Von Helldorff (member of the EC expert panel on trafficking; expert CEIPA, Centre for European and International Policy Action).

Workshop: After 9/11 - The Politics of Terror and the Terror of Politics - Monday 12 March 2012

Location / Time: Universiteit Gent, Blandijnberg, room 0.34, 13:00-18:00

Hosted and organized by CEVI-Ghent, in collaboration with CAPPE-University of Brighton, UK

Workshop Theme

The 9/11 attacks shocked the world. The staging and impact of the attacks categorically transcend the local. The attacks, televised worldwide in real time, stunned and choked all of us viewers, leaving us wondering who ‘they’ were, and who, where and how ‘we’ were in this highly mediatised ‘danse macabre’ of violence. The attacks have increasingly become an ever more global event and meme, permeating and altering politics, diplomacy, trust, secrecy, international relations and warfare; but also identity. They were larger than life and left a permanent imprint on our collective ways of experiencing, thinking and dealing with terrorism, international politics and religion, and ultimately, with ourselves and others.
Taking 9/11 as a cue, but also moving beyond, this one-day event seeks to question and explore the ways in which the politics of terror have touched, transformed and tainted our lives as extras on the stage of international politics. We also seek, however, to raise question about the terrors of the politics that have set the stage for, and have been imposed as a result of, the attacks, at once asserting and disrupting  the comfort zone of ‘politics as usual’ as the rightful ‘us’ versus the evil ‘them.’

Format

It is not our intention to stage a full-fledged conference, but rather to provide an informal and open space for discussion and thought. We have some 5 to 6 presenters who will give brief (20 minutes, or less) talks to kick off discussions.

Provisional Program

13:00 Workshop Welcome
13:10 – 13:50 - Bob Brecher - Why There is No Such Thing as Political Terrorism
13:50 – 14:30 - Vivienne Matthies-Boon - What Counts as Terror? Comments on (Post)Mubarak’s Egypt
14:30 – 15:10 - Sami Zemni - The Terror of Crisis: What’s Up With Multiculturalism?
15:10 – 15:30 - Coffee Break
15:30 – 16:10 - Gaston Meskens - Enforcing Trust? Why the Politics of Nuclear Terror Can Never Inspire a Political Dialectic on Nuclear Energy Technology
16:10 – 16:50 - Paul Reynolds - Discipline, Brutal Somatechnics and the Normalisation of Abjection: Biopolitics after 9/11
16:50 – 17:30 - Marko Stamenkovic - Not a Matter of Exposure(that destroys the secret but a revelation that does justice to it)
17:30 Workshop Close

Abstracts

Why There is No Such Thing as Political Terrorism
Bob Brecher
CAPPE - University of Brighton, UK

Naming as ‘terrorism’ the actions of the various political organizations attempting to effect change through violence aimed at terrorising their targets, both directly and indirectly, and thus at causing them to bring pressure to bear on their political masters to change course, is at once to misdescribe the pursuit of specific political ends as the pursuit of terror for its own sake and to conceal the terroristic nature of actions not thus described. ‘Terrorism’ names no genuine ideology: to talk of ‘terrorism’ misconstrues a practical and/or rhetorical tactic as a substantive position; effectively mislabels opponents of neo-liberalism; and enables western governments to ensure that the public literally does not see that some of their own actions are themselves acts of terror on a massive scale.

What Counts as Terror? Comments on (Post)Mubarak’s Egypt
Vivienne Matthies-Boon
Research in Ethics and Globalisation (REG) – Globalisation Studies Groningen (GSG), Groningen University, NL

During this session, I will raise some critical questions as to what counts as terror with specific reference to the state of Egypt.  For the last decade, many Western commentators have perceived politics in Egypt through a binary lens: either a stable dictator (who after all was a man of ‘peace’) or Islamic terrorists.  At the same time the international financial institutions hailed the privatisation initiatives of Mubarak’s regime as being the model for the Middle East. However, the Egyptian revolution seems to have brought both the binary perception as well as the financial model into disrepute.   It appeared that there was another way – that lodged in between the dictator and the radical Islamists were the ordinary people.  Ordinary people took to the streets because they suffered as a result of the economic policies of the Egyptian state – the very same policies that were heralded by the international institutions.  Yet, the response to this cry for dignity by Western powers appears to economic liberalisation couched in a rhetoric of procedural liberal democracy.  Now, the question, I want to raise here is: to what extent is procedural liberal democratic capitalism itself a form of political violence? Terrorism, after all, is defined by the US State Department as “the calculated use of unlawful violence or threat of unlawful violence to inculcate fear; intended to coerce or to intimidate governments or societies in the pursuit of goals that are generally political, religious, or ideological”.  When seeking to further institutionalize liberal capitalism in Egypt, are Western powers not themselves involved in a form of implicit terrorism, whose consequences are disastrous not only for the infrastructure of the state of Egypt but also for ordinary people?

The Terror of Crisis: What’s Up With Multiculturalism?
Sami Zemni
Center for Third World Studies - Middle East and North Africa Research Group, Ghent University

Since German Chancellor Angela Merkel declared “multiculturalism dead” in her country in November 2010, numerous other European leaders followed in her footsteps. With these statements, it seemed as if an idea that was already hotly discussed in different European countries since 9/11 and the subsequent War on Terror, obtained an official imprimatur. Europe, so is said, must ‘wake up’ and face the consequences of policies of ‘passive’ tolerance that have undermined social cohesion, brought about anxieties and fear within the native populations in regard to Islam and Muslims and have incited (Islamic) extremism.
As the attack on multiculturalism is not only expressed by marginal or extremist political parties, but also by influent and important political leaders, it does not suffice to state that the rhetoric on the failure of multiculturalism is nothing more than political posturing with only a marginal impact on policy. While it is true that this type of muscular discourse is fabricated to produce the image of „bold‟ and „brave‟ leadership (and recover part of the electorate of extreme right, populist and/or nationalist parties); the discourse on the failure of multiculturalism also hides and obscures important political restructurings of the European nation-states that started in the late 1970s as the consequence of global capitalism and the neoliberal reform of the economies.
In my presentation, I want to analyze how the idea of multiculturalism (whatever practical form it took from country to country) became prominent as it was masking the important socio-political changes and economic shifts of the 1970s. I will proceed my argumentation by claiming that the idea of a ‘crisis of multiculturalism’ just as much masks current landslide socio-economic changes. This so-called post-multicultural era ushers in a period of new liberal assertiveness that easily leads to muscular policies on integration and revive the nationalist grounding of certain rights. The terror of the War on Terror and the terror of crisis have not only revived European radical right and/or populist movements but have confronted liberalism with its own hidden limits.

Enforcing Trust? Why the Politics of Nuclear Terror Can Never Inspire a Political Dialectic on Nuclear Energy Technology
Gaston Meskens
CEVI, Ghent University

Tba

Discipline, Brutal Somatechnics and the Normalisation of Abjection: Biopolitics after 9/11
Paul Reynolds
Edge Hill University, UK

9/11 has afforded, with due irony and contradiction, a biopolitics that negates human dignity and reduces subject to ‘bare life’ in the name of defending humanity and individual liberty. From an apologia for security and judicial excesses to a justification for torture, rendition and sustained negations of the very laws and norms claimed to be defended, western states have normalized the bio-politics of abjection. Whilst there have been attempts to appeal to the worst examples as discretionary and localized ‘excesses’ or emergencies that required the suspension of normal conditions for exceptional acts in exceptional times, these belie the systematic and structural nature of this new bio-politics. Its techniques, discourses and effects speak to a new regime of subjection – a new hegemonising of ‘legitimate violence and constraint – a normalizing of the exception so that the exception is the norm. This paper will suggest fruitful ways of understanding and beginning to resist this.

Not a Matter of Exposure - (that destroys the secret but a revelation that does justice to it)
Marko Stamenkovic
CEVI – Ghent University

How can that be? How can the occupier be the victim?
If they take on the role of oppressor and victim then
I have no other choice but to also be a victim
and a murderer as well.
--Said, in the last confession to his Leader, towards the end of the movie Paradise Now

What is it about the act of suicide that inflicts a number of issues concerning our ways of looking and the new status of image in today’s media culture? Could a contemporary suicidal ritual be perceived as a transnational cultural phenomenon that increasingly delineates the margins of our social and political horizons? Does this radically alters the current state of globalization and clashes with our daily life and how? My current research questions mechanisms of exclusion in the context of the last decade’s worldwide resurgence of suicide-rituals. It was born precisely out of the need for a broader understanding of the concept, act and ideology of suicide as the way in which it can be turned into an expressive political gesture, a spectacular media event, and the picture of a falling man, which all transcend the local boundaries while performing political functions in radical situations on a global scale. Beyond its most common connotation (pertaining to, or leading to, self-destructive, ruinous act, fatal to one’s prospects or interests or life), my understanding of the term is rooted in the global repercussions of organized suicide-spectacles as transnational media events, and goes towards its paradigmatic value for our comprehension of the history of cultural and political changes over the last century and, more precisely, since September 2001

Conference: Whither Sexual Ethics and Politics? - 5-7 September, 2011, Ghent, Belgium

First International Conference of the International Network for Sexual Ethics and Politics - INSEP

5-7 September, 2011, Ghent, Belgium

Sexual ethics and politics lie at the core of how we understand and practice our sexual lives. They form the basis from which we understand and engage with diverse and different sexualities. Our explicit as well as implicit ethical thinking and feeling about sexuality is a significant way of understanding, analysing, evaluating and judging sexuality as a personal, public and social construct, exploring ascriptions of both positive and negative values to sexual practices that have impacts on those who do them and on societies in which they are done. Sexual ethics provides a means of reasoning about what is pathologised, prejudiced against and discriminated against and what is held up as healthy, virtuous and legitimate. Sexual ethics seeks to cut through discursive silences, aesthetic impressions, poorly reasoned judgements and illegitimate and oppressive state and public responses to erotic pleasures and desires. It forms the basis not simply for analyses of the vagaries and ills of contemporary moral values, legal rules and political and cultural discourse on sexuality; it allows us to explore and creatively imagine better values, discourse and rules in more enlightened societies. And this is, by its very nature, a political process. The sexual is political and just as sexual politics could be enriched by emancipatory ethical thinking, sexual ethics should connect with contemporary sexual activism, politics and practices aiming at the realisation of sexual equality and justice.

Conceived in this way, sexual ethics and politics are a way of grappling with and critically thinking through the problems and possibilities of our sexual  lives – with the many and diverse ways we think and respond to our and other people’s sexualities and the context of sexual rights and justice, and key developments such as sexual commerce and work, sexual health and illness, sexual liberty and repression.

We see sexual ethics as a critical and discursive enterprise, informed by transdisciplinary approaches but characterised by the application of reasoned deliberation and judgement and ethical thinking in sexual scholarship. Ethical discourse on sexuality is enriched by the insights brought by both empirical and theoretical work, and by concrete legal, cultural, social, social psychological and political analyses as well as philosophical engagement.

This conference seeks papers, presentations and panels focusing on conceptual and theoretical debates, cultural and political analysis and empirical studies from which conceptual, ethical and political conclusions are drawn. Whilst we welcome a wide and diverse range of papers, we are particularly keen to encourage submissions on the following three themes:

  • Sexual politics, sexual citizenship, sexual rights and sexual (in)justice
  • The scope and limits of legal regulations and socio-cultural change and activism as emancipatory tools
  • New philosophical and ethical thinking on questions of sexual morality

INSEP sees the value in the fullest range of approaches to the study of sexual ethics and politics, including: gendered and feminist perspectives; distinctive lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and transsexual perspectives; queer perspectives; and approaches from more general positions such as liberalism, Marxism and democratic theory. The 2011 conference seeks to be an inclusive space of debate, welcoming dialogue and vigorous debate, but not sectarianism.

For more information on the conference and on INSEP, please visit http://www.insep.ugent.be/.

Tom Claes
Associate Professor of Ethics
CEVI, Ghent University, Belgium

Paul Reynolds
Reader in Sociology and Social Philosophy
Edge Hill University, UK

Conference: The "9/11" Decade: Rethinking Reality - 31 Aug. - 2 Sept. 2011 - University of Brighton, UK

6th Annual International Interdisciplinary Conference

Hosted by CAPPE - Centre for Applied Philosophy, Politics and Ethics, University of Brighton, UK

Joint conference organisers:

  • Centre for Applied Philosophy, Politics & Ethics, University of Brighton;
  • Centre for Ethics and Value Inquiry, Ghent University;
  • Centre for Research Ethics & Ethical Deliberation, Edge Hill University;
  • Centre for Research in Ethics and Globalisation, University of Groningen

Invited keynote speaker: Geoffrey Robertson QC

CONFERENCE WEBSITE

It is no exaggeration to claim that the politics of the last decade have their origin in one event: the hijacking and flying of passenger aircraft into the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon. Since then wars, putatively justified as responses to this attack, have raged in Iraq and in Afghanistan. These wars have resulted in the growth of violent opposition to a perceived US imperial polity; have been used to justify the rewriting of long established legal frameworks protecting the people's rights have led to neurosis about the protection of borders which the age of global capital was supposed to bring to an end; and have seen the crippling of active leftist opposition to the opportunistic furtherance of the neo-liberal revolution.

This interdisciplinary conference seeks critically to rethink this last decade and to put into question the nostrums it would have us take for granted. We call for papers that:

  • challenge dominant paradigms for understanding terror, war, rights, citizenship, legitimacy, politics and the person;
  • address the shifts in our cultural landscapes that the securitisation of everyday life has  created;
  • rethink the architecture of Empire, the literature of "9/11" and the geography of the unending "war on terror."

Proposals are invited on any relevant topic and should be addressed to an interdisciplinary audience. Likely themes may include be the following, although the conference is by no means limited to these:

  • The architecture of terror: cities "at war"; designing the security society
  • "Just" war and asymmetrical warfare: aerial bombing; "suicide" bombing; drones
  • The politics of 2001-2011: the "war on terror"; rethinking empire, globalisation and sovereignty after "9/11"; the
  • re-articulation of Capital; the "shock doctrine"
  • Rethinking ourselves: torture; identity; Islamophobia; immigration, asylum and refugees
  • Culture after "9/11": art, literature, film and popular culture.
  • The politics of death after "9/11": "Remembrance" and memorialisation; counting the dead 
  • Philosophy and its limits: the language of terror and the terror of language; sincerity and conviction
  • Theorising resistance: rethinking the law; rethinking the political

Organising Committee: Vivienne Boon (University of Groningen), Bob Brecher (University of Brighton), Tom Claes (University of Gent), Nicola Clewer (University of Brighton), Mark Devenney (University of Brighton), Tarik Kochi (University of Sussex), Vicky Margree (University of Brighton), Mark McGovern (Edge Hill University), Aaron Winter (University of Abertay Dundee)

Lecture: Dr. Rudi Bleys - Globalisering en seksuele diversiteit - Monday 2 May 2011

Location / Time: Universiteit Gent, Blandijnberg, Aud B, 17:30-19:00

Het fenomeen ‘globalisering’ komt ook tot uiting op het vlak van seksuele diversiteit. Niet alleen worden locale varianten van seksuele diversiteit ‘hertaald’ in termen van LGBT identiteiten. (G)locaal en globaal LGBT activisme alsook de veranderende inter- en supranationale context omtrent mensenrechten, burgerschap en strijd tegen discriminatie werken deze globalisering van een LGBT politiek in de hand. Tegelijkertijd kunnen we een aantal spanningsvelden noteren, die het teleologisch verhaal van oprukkende emancipatie doorkruisen: (g)locaal vs. globaal ; seksuele versus culturele identiteit (Which trumps which?) ; minimaal (politic of indifference) vs. maximaal (politic of difference). De opmars van een globaal ethisch kader verhoudt zich op gespannen voet met projecties omtrent belichaming en creëert mogelijk nieuwe vormen van uitsluiting.

Rudi Bleys studeerde geschiedenis en filosofie aan de KULeuven en Boston University. Zijn doctoraal proefschrift werd uitgegeven als The Geography of Perversion (Cassell/New York University Press, 1995) en enige jaren later verscheen Images of Ambiente (Continuum, 2001). Na een decenniumlange werkervaring bij het Aidsteam en Sensoa is hij opnieuw actief als onafhankelijk onderzoeker en auteur.

Lecture: Prof. Roger Burggraeve (KULeuven) - Tussen Natuur en Beschaving - De visie van Emmanuel Levinas op racisme en broederschap - Wednesday 2 March 2011

Location / Time: Universiteit Gent, Blandijnberg, room 2.19, 16:00-17:30

Voor de filosoof Levinas (1905-1995) is de racistische genocide de meest verschrikkelijke  vorm van intermenselijk kwaad. Tegelijk formuleert hij de shockerende stelling dat we het telkens terugkerend racisme enkel kunnen begrijpen als we het verbinden met de ‘zijnspoging’ van de mens, namelijk met zijn natuurlijk
en ‘gezond’ streven naar identiteit en eigenheid. Vandaar zijn stelling over de wezenlijke ‘dubbelzinnigheid’ van het eigene en ‘tribale’. Vandaar ook zijn aandacht voor de ‘opheffing’ – behoud én overschrijding – van het eigene door de epifanie van het gelaat. Het gelaat openbaart een radicale alteriteit die van ethische aard is, in die zin dat ze tegelijk bedreigd is door allerlei vormen van geweld (gebruik en misbruik, retoriek, tirannie en terreur, haat, racisme…) én het verbod instelt: ‘Gij zult niet doden’. Daaruit vloeit voort dat de overschrijding van het racisme tot de ethische orde behoort, en dus – voorbij de ‘natuur’ - de orde van de menselijke beschaving instelt. Deze visie op beschaving veronderstelt volgens Levinas een ethische herijking van de ‘broederschap’ en dus een omkering van de trits van de Franse revolutie tot: “broederlijkheid, gelijkheid, vrijheid”.

Prof. em. Roger Burggraeve is Levinasonderzoeker en als ethicus verbonden aan de KU Leuven.

Lecture: Dr. Martin Mullins - Accounting, Finance & Philosophy: Capturing Value and Evaluating Risk in Modern Organizations - Thursday 24 February 2011

 Location / Time: Universiteit Gent, Blandijnberg,Aud B, 14:30-16:00

The starting point for this paper is the realization in accounting/finance literature that it is becoming increasing difficult to capture value and evaluate risk in modern organisations. In this post-industrial world, ideas, innovation and creativity are seen as the key to generating income and ultimately profit. These assets are, in the main, non-physical and reside in the minds and memories of  employees or in complex derivative instruments. Both contemporary practices in accounting and finance ensure that much of what is  of value simply elides these systems of quantification. We examine whether philosophical insights on the nature of memory (Bergson & Ricoeur) and on issues of around monetisation/quantification (Simmel) can throw new
light on these problemsand perhaps help us manage risk more appropriately.

Dr Martin Mullins is at the Department of Accounting and Finance at the Kemmy Business School -
University of Limerick, Ireland. He is Course Director for the BA International Insurance & European Studies and lectures on Insurance, Organisations & Markets. His broader research interests lie in Latin American politics and trade, political risk and risk Management in the public sector, and the displacement of conflict/risk from the public to the private sphere. In 2006 he published In the Shadow of the Generals Foreign Policy Making in Argentina, Brazil and Chile. Aldershot: Ashgate.

Lecture: Prof. Bob Brecher - Why Torture is Wrong, Everywhere, Always - Tuesday 22 February 2011

Location / Time: Universiteit Gent, Blandijnberg, room 2.41, 13:00-14:30

Bob Brecher is Professor in Philosophy at the University of Brighton and Director of its Centre for Applied Philosophy, Politics and Ethics. His published works include Torture and the Ticking Bomb (Blackwell Press, Oxford, 2007).
His lecture will offer a critical analysis on recent attempts to argue for and justify the legalization of interrogational torture as an accepted weapon in the War on Terror. Focussing in particular on the utilitarian arguments of America’s leading civil rights lawyer Alan Dershowitz in the so-called ‘ticking bomb’ scenarios, Brecher examines the practical implications for policy, the empirical question of the efficacy of torture, as well as its ethical implications. As a result, he suggests, torture is never the ‘least bad option’, does not work, even in ticking bomb scenarios and is always wrong.

Lecture: Dr. Harry van den Bouwhuijsen - In de schaduw van God - Friday 22 November 2010

cover Van den   Bouwhuijsen Location / Time: Universiteit Gent, Blandijnberg, Aud G, 11:00-13:00

In dit college worden twee stellingen uitgewerkt, afkomstig uit In de schaduw van God. Waarom binnen en christelijke cultuur natuurwetenschap wel en menswetenschap niet tot ontwikkeling kon komen. (Uitgeverij Klement, 2010)

Stelling 1: Veel van wat op dit moment als ‘menswetenschap’ wordt aangemerkt, is religieus geïnspireerde westerse folk psychology met dubieuze wetenschappelijke pretenties.

Stelling 2: De westerse nadruk op de universele toepasbaarheid van het begrip ‘mensenrechten’ staat de strijd voor een goede samenleving in niet-westerse landen in de weg.

Nadruk in dit college ligt op een voorbeeld dat een zekere actualiteitswaarde heeft: de opvatting dat uit het wezen van de mens kan worden afgeleid dat hij onvervreemdbare rechten heeft. Dit idee is ontstaan binnen de christelijke cultuur en blijkt alleen binnen die cultuur op een coherente manier gefundeerd te kunnen worden. Het idee dat mensen deze morele rechten van nature hebben, veronderstelt dat een aantal christelijke opvattingen over de mens als onproblematische achtergrondkennis worden ‘meegedacht’. Binnen de geseculariseerd-christelijke cultuur, waarin de opvatting dat mensen ‘van nature’ onvervreemdbare rechten hebben tot de achtergrondkennis behoort van waaruit men redeneert, is het niet nodig zich bewust te zijn van de christelijke herkomst van dit begrip. Dat ligt anders in niet-westerse culturen, waar de geseculariseerd-christelijke cultuur niet de achtergrond vormt van waaruit men denkt. Vooral het idee dat individuen van nature onvervreemdbare rechten kunnen hebben, blijkt hier regelmatig op onbegrip te stuiten, doordat de achterliggende christelijke visie op de mens als een moreel verantwoordelijk rationeel individu in deze culturen niet strookt met de wijze waarop men geleerd heeft zichzelf te beschrijven en te begrijpen. Nu de tijd (vrijwel) voorbij is dat het Westen zijn visie met geweld – militair of economisch – aan nieuwe supermachten als China en India kan opleggen, wordt de vraag urgent hoe het Westen deze landen met argumenten ervan kan overtuigen dat de geseculariseerd-christelijke opvatting van de mens als rationeel, moreel verantwoordelijk, rechten bezittend individu, moreel superieur zou zijn aan hun eigen tradities op het gebied van een juiste maatschappelijke ordening. Tot nu toe zijn westerse intellectuelen daar niet in geslaagd en het is, om een eufemisme te gebruiken, onwaarschijnlijk dat dit binnen afzienbare tijd anders zal zijn. Eerder is het zo dat de westerse nadruk op universele individuele mensenrechten bij de regeerders van een land als China in toenemende mate irritatie opwekt. De vraag is welke argumenten gevonden kunnen worden om de Chinese overheid ervan te overtuigen dat bepaalde praktijken, gegeven hun eigen tradities en opvattingen, onwenselijk zijn. Het probleem is dat antwoorden op die vraag, geformuleerd tegen de achtergrond van andere culturen, op dit moment nog niet of nauwelijks in de mondiale arena voorhanden zijn. Dit betekent niet dat die antwoorden niet bestaan; het betekent wel dat die antwoorden – als ze bestaan – op ontginning wachten door een menswetenschap die accepteert dat zij geen mono-culturele onderneming kan zijn

Harry van den Bouwhuijsen (1944) is an historian and cultural anthropologist. He has worked at the department of Cultural Anthropology at Utrecht University, the Netherlands, and the department of Comparative Science of Cultures at Ghent University, Belgium. He is the former editor of the journal Cultural Dynamics and published on Suriname history and culture, the history of terrorism, sociology of science and the theory of culture.

In 1996 he defended his PhD (in Cultural Anthropology) Play-Fellows of God. Towards an Anthropology of Science. Following up on this work, he defended in March 2010 a PhD in philosophy titled In de schaduw van god: Waarom binnen de christelijke cultuur natuurwetenschap wel en menswetenschap niet tot ontwikkeling kon komen (In the Shadow of God: Why within Christian Culture the Natural Sciences Could, but the Social Sciences Couldn't Develop) at the department of philosophy at Rotterdam University, the Netherlands.

New Book Out: Ronald Commers, Kritiek van het ethisch bewustzijn. Van liefde met recht en rede. Deel 2. Leuven: Acco, 2010

From the publisher's website:

Kritiek van het ethisch bewustzijn. Van liefde met recht en rede is een resumé van Commers’ jarenlange colleges aan de Universiteit Gent over wijsgerige ethiek rond een centrale stelling. De westerse ‘taal van de ethiek’ is het nooit te beëindigen proces van het menselijke ‘zeggen’ van het morele. Dit proces draait rond drie centrale inspiraties die de schat vormen waaruit de zich altijd ontvoogdende mensheid kan putten: de verstandelijke levenskunst die steunt op persoonlijke zelfvervolmaking; de naastenliefde in het ootmoedige besef van de individuele kwetsbaarheid en van het menselijke lijden; en ten slotte de gerechtigheid die telkens haar gelaat toont wanneer mensen hun lot samen in handen nemen. Het ethische domein herleid tot uitsluitend één van die inspiraties, is een leugen waarmee wij ons bedriegen en aan de zingeving van mens en wereld tekortdoen.

In dit boek, dat zowel een wijsgerige oefening is in synthetische interpretatie als een experiment in interpretatieve synthese, voert de schrijver de drie genoemde inspiraties van de westerse ‘taal van de ethiek’ terug tot hun gedenkwaardige oorsprongen. De verstandelijke levenskunst in het licht van de persoonlijke zelfvervolmaking. De naastenliefde in het licht van de existentiële kwetsbaarheid. En de gerechtigheid in het licht van de universele menselijke lotsverbondenheid in de strijd tegen ellende en slavernij.

Content (extended) (pdf) - Order this book from Acco

Lecture: Dr. Christian Maurer - Mandeville: Augustinian Moralist or Utilitarian? - Wednesday 3 November 2010

Location / Time: Universiteit Gent, Blandijnberg, room 2.19, 13:00-14:30 Fable of the Bees

Mandeville: Augustinian Moralist or Utilitarian?
Dr. Christian Maurer - University of Fribourg, Switzerland

Upon reading the works of the scandalous 18th-century moral philosopher Bernard Mandeville (1670-1733), most importantly his Fable of the Bees (1st volume 1714 / 1723; 2nd volume 1729) and his Enquiry into the Origin of Honour and the Usefulness of Christianity in War (1732), we are left with a rather puzzling impression, as highlighted by several commentators: On the one hand, Mandeville puts forward a rigorist account of moral virtue, according to which morality requires self-denial, and he encourages the view that human agents are incapable of performing actions that are virtuous in this sense. On the other hand, Mandeville notoriously emphasises the utility of vicious behaviour for society - the legendary subtitle of the Fable being  "Private Vices, Publick Benefits". In view of this, many commentators have discussed the question of how to correctly interpret Mandeville's 'real' position. Is he arguing for a reductio ad absurdum of the rigorist conception of morality and actually suggesting to instead focus on an action's consequences for society? Or is he, on the contrary, rather serious about his claim that morality is out of reach for human agents (which does not seem to exclude the possibility of a stable and prosperous  society of egoists)? In my paper, I would like to suggest some arguments for the second point of view. I shall draw on an analysis of his psychological theory, focussing in particular on the principles of self-love and self-liking, and discuss the distinction between moral virtue and the social virtues. I will thereby regularly take a look at the 17th-century French Augustinian moralists'  treatment of these themes and refer to some contemporaries of Mandeville's.

Lecture: Dr. Christian Maurer - Is Unconditional Love the Best Form of Love? - Thursday 4 November 2010

Location / Time: Universiteit Gent, Blandijnberg, room 6.10, 10:00-11:30

Is Unconditional Love the Best Form of Love? A Critique of the Thesis of Agapic Ascension
Dr. Christian Maurer - University of Fribourg, Switzerland

In this paper, I am going to focus on a particular question arising in the context of the distinction between different forms of love between persons: Is unconditional love better than conditional love? Several philosophers have suggested that unconditional love, i.e. love that does not depend on the presence of certain qualities in the beloved person, is in some sense better than conditional love. This claim is used to corroborate for example the assertion that agape is better than both eros and philia, and it seems to be held e.g. by André Comte-Sponville in his Petit traité des grandes vertues (1995), and by Karol Wojtyla in his Love and Responsibility (1960 / 1981). It is frequently argued that unconditional love is better than conditional love because it is more constant, and because it is non-egoistic. I shall suggest objections to these two arguments, questioning both the unrestricted desirability of constancy and the validity of the argument from egoism. Not all forms of conditional love have an egoistic dimension, and furthermore the assumption that love which is characterised by the complete absence of egoistic constraints is morally superior to other forms of love needs to be questioned.

Conference: Moral Responsibility: Analytic Approaches, Substantive Accounts and Case Studies - Monday and Tuesday 18-19 October 2010

KANTL, Ghent, Belgium

Moral responsibility is inescapable. All the more vexing, then, is that the very notion of moral responsibility continues to puzzle us. The issue of moral responsibility is far from a monolithic one. Rather, the precise definition of the problem and the corresponding set of possible approaches vary with, e.g., the level of abstraction, the domain of application, the meta-philosophical context, the theoretical desiderata, etc.

The purpose of this conference is to encourage and facilitate the productive interaction between these very different approaches, especially between (1) conceptual analyses and explications of moral responsibility and related notions, (2) substantive accounts, often based on rival sets of, e.g., social, political and religious belief systems, and (3) case studies in, e.g., biomedical, business, environmental, sexual and research ethics, or, e.g., relating to crimes against humanity, international politics and intervention, etc.

Plenary Speakers: Bob Brecher (Brighton University), Pekka Mäkela (University of Helsinki), Paul Russell (University of British Columbia), Maureen Sie (Erasmus University Rotterdam)

For further information, please see the CONFERENCE WEBSITE

The conference is organized and hosted by the Center for Ethics & Value Inquiry (CEVI), Ghent University, in collaboration with the Centre for Research Ethics and Ethical Deliberation (CREED, Edge Hill University) and the Centre for Applied Philosophy, Politics and Ethics (CAPPE, University of Brighton).

The conference is organized with the generous support of the Research Foundation Flanders – FWO and the Koninklijke Academie voor Nederlandse Taal- en Letterkunde (Royal Academy for Dutch Language and Literature).

logo fwo jpg      Logo KANTL

Conference: Third Biennial IGEA Conference - Global Ethics: 10 Years into the Millennium - University of the West of England, Bristol, UK - 30 June - 2 July, 2010 IGEA logo

What progress have we made in addressing the key ethical issues of our time such as global conflict, climate change, and international injustice?

Plenary speakers: Simon Caney (University of Oxford), Darrel Moellendorf (Director, Institute for Ethics and Public Affairs, San Diego State University), Shirin Ebadi (Iran, Nobel Peace Prize winner 2003), Thomas Pogge and Keith Horton will lead ASAP panel.

This conference invited papers and panels on all aspects of Global Ethics and encourages multidisciplinary papers which address the theory and practice of Global Ethics and global justice from academic, policy and practice perspectives. Issues considered included:

  • Development issues like progress towards achieving the MDGs and impact of post-colonial and post-development critiques on development ethics
  • Ecological crises such as global warming and the distribution of increasingly scarce natural resources
  • War and peace concerns such as the ethical issues arising from the War on Terror, humanitarian intervention, privatization of the military and the ethics of peace-keeping
  • Gender issues 20 years since CEDAW, for example, transnational feminism and reproductive rights
  • Human rights issues 60 years after the UDHR
  • Economic injustices and the global market
  • Global networks and civil society
  • Identity politics, multiple identities and transnationalism

For more information, please see the Network for Global Ethics & Human Rights website and the Conference Website

The conference was sponsored by the Journal of Global Ethics (http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/titles/17449626.asp), the Network for Global Ethics and Human Rights, University of the West of England (http://www.uwe.ac.uk/hlss/politics/index.shtml), and the Centre for the Study of Global Ethics, University of Birmingham (http://www.globalethics.bham.ac.uk/)

New book out: Tom Claes & David Seth Preston (Eds) Fronters in Higher Education. Amsterdam/New York, Rodopi, 2010, x, 242 pp.

From the publisher's website:

This latest edited book in the Idea of Education series, entitled ‘Frontiers in Higher Education’, began its
journey as working papers from a conference held in Budapest, Hungary in 2008. There are three main thematic sections in this volume: ‘Sociocultural Frontiers of Higher Education’ containing four chapters; ‘Limitations and Aspirations of the Academy’ comprising the six chapters, and two innovative final chapters presenting and reflecting on aspects of the ‘Technological Frontiers of Higher Education.’
This book is aimed at researchers of topics such as the future of higher education, globalisation
and cultural and social frontiers of higher education and related fields.

Contents - Order this book from Amazon or Rodopi

Lecture & discussion: Prof. Stan van Hooft on "Caring, Objectivity and Justice" - Wednesday 2 Juni 2010

Location / Time: Universiteit Gent, Blandijnberg, room 2.19, 13:00-14:00

Caring, Objectivity and Justice
Stan van Hooft - Deakin University, Australia

The argument of this paper is framed by a debate between the Principle of humanity and the Principle of Justice. Whereas the Principle of Humanity requires us to care about others and to want to help them meet their vital needs, and so to be partial towards those others, the Principle of Justice requires us to consider their needs without the intrusion of our subjective interests or emotions so that we can act with impartiality. I argue that a deep form of caring lies behind both approaches and so unites them. In the course of the argument, I reject Michael Slote’s sentimentalist form of an ethics of care, and expound Thomas Nagel’s moral theory, which seems to lie at the opposite end of a spectrum ranging from moral sentiments to impersonal objectivity. Nevertheless, Nagel’s theory of normative realism provides unexpected support for the thesis that a deep and subjective form of caring lies at the base of even our most objective moral reasons.

Visiting Scholar: Prof. Stan van Hooft - School of International and Political Studies (Deakin University, Australia) - May - mid June 2010

Dr Stan van Hooft Stan van Hooft lectures in Philosophy in the School of International and Political Studies, Deakin University in Australia. He has written in international journals on moral philosophy, philosophical psychology, bioethics, business ethics, and on the nature of health and disease. His more recent work has been on global ethics, cosmopolitanism and the political philosophy of international relations. Stan draws his philosophical inspiration from such classical philosophers as Plato, Aristotle and Kant, as well as such contemporary thinkers as Paul Ricoeur, Emmanuel Levinas and Bernard Williams.

He is a co-author of Facts and Values: An Introduction to Critical Thinking for Nurses (Sydney: MacLennan and Petty, 1995) and the author of Caring: An Essay in the Philosophy of Ethics (Niwot, CO: University Press of Colorado, 1995), Life, Death, and Subjectivity: Moral Sources
for Bioethics
(Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi, 2004), Caring about Health (Aldershot:
Ashgate, 2006), Understanding Virtue Ethics (Chesham: Acumen Publishers, 2006),
and Cosmopolitanism: A Philosophy for Global Ethics (Chesham: Acumen Publishers, 2009).

His current research centres on Global Ethics and Political Philosophy, the concept of caring in contemporary moral theory, the role of hope in politics and religion, and the concept of caring in moral theory.

Associate Professor van Hooft conducts Modern Socratic Dialogues in a variety of settings with professional groups, with the general public and with individuals, as well as with students studying at secondary schools and at Deakin University.

Workshop: Sexuality and Ethics: No Roses Without Thorns? - Tuesday 23 February 2010

Location / Time: Universiteit Gent, Blandijnberg, room 216, 17:30 - 19:30

Sexuality, ours and others', moves us all. We live in an age of sexual pluralism and are witness to and participant in a wide - to some bewildering - variety of sexual repertoires and meanings. Where to draw the lines, if any? Wat lines to draw? Based on what? In this workshop we'll confront ourselves with our own moral intuitions regarding sexuality and its many manifestations.

Workshop leaders: Paul Reynolds (Edge Hill U.) & Bob Brecher (U. of Brighton)

Paul Reynolds is Reader in Sociology and Social Philosophy and also Programme Leader in Sociology and Social Psychology in the Department of Social and Psychological Sciences
at  Edge Hill University in Lancashire in the United Kingdom. Bob Brecher is Reader
in Moral Philosophy at the University of Brighton, and Director of its Centre for Applied Philosophy, Politics and Ethics.

The workshop is a part of the course 'Seksuele en Relatie-ethiek' but is open to all those who dare to think.

'Meet the Author': a Lunch Meeting with Bob Brecher (U. of Brighton) - Tuesday 23 February 2010

Location / Time: Universiteit Gent, Blandijnberg, room 216, 11:30 - 13:00

Bob Brecher is Reader in Moral Philosophy at the University of Brighton, and Director of its Centre for Applied Philosophy, Politics and Ethics (CAPPE). Having initially started his career as a philosopher of religion, Bob Brecher moved into moral and political philosophy, in response partly to developing teaching duties, partly to the trajectory of actually existing neo-liberalism. Over the last ten or so years he has focused on applying the rationalist ethics he began to develop theoretically in Getting What You Want? A Critique of Liberal Morality (1998) in both his research and his institutional activities, a trajectory recognized by his Research Fellowship in the Centre for Philosophy & Public Affairs at St Andrews University. Brecher founded the journal Res Publica in 1995; Torture and the Ticking Bomb was published by Blackwell in its Public Philosophy series in 2007; and he
serves on a variety of NHS and other research and clinical ethics committees, editorial boards
and other ventures combining academic research and teaching with public engagement and dissemination.

All those interested are welcome. For more information about the books click the cover ...

Research Seminar: What Future, If Any, for Sexual Ethics? - Monday 22 February 2010

Location / Time: Universiteit Gent, Blandijnberg, room 106, 14:30 - 17:30

The notion of consent looms large in our day-to-day dealings with sexual issues.  If valid consent is obtained, so many believe, what more is there to say? But doesn't this mean that we waive all notions of good and bad sex, in favour of the more sterile notions of permitted vs. prohibited (forms of) sex? Has the current de facto morality of consent ousted more substantial perspectives in sexual ethics? Is it still worthwhile and feasible to develop and to defend ethical ideals and values concerning sexuality? How would an 'admirable sexuality' look like - or has this become an oxymoron? And what can philosophy learn us about sexuality? What can philosophy learn from our sexuality?

In this research seminar Bob Brecher, Tom Claes, Ronald Commers, Alicja Gescinska and Paul Reynolds will address these and related questions. After kicking off with some short interventions to get discussions started, we'll invite all those interested to think about and discuss the future, if any, of sexual ethics in an age of sexual pluralism.

All those interested are welcome.

Conference: Labour & Global Justice Conference - 19-20 November 2009 - Ghent

Organised by CEVI, with the support of the European Science Foundation.

The domain of Global Justice has substantially grown over the past twenty years, with important contributions from various fields such as political philosophy and International Relations. Practical issues such as poverty reduction and migration have received significant attention. Labour issues however, although connected to poverty reduction and migration, have been underrepresented as explicit issues tackled within global justice debates. This conference aims at drawing attention to labour issues emerging as explicit justice issues within the context of globalization.

Papers on: labour and trafficking, migrant worker experiences, health care migration, policy debates, citizenship, ...

Keynotes:

  • M. Ronald Commers (Ghent University)
  • Christien van den Anker (University of the West of England)
  • Jeroen Beirnaert (ITUC)
  • Patrick Taran (ILO)
  • Elodie Fazi (European Commission)
  • Jozsef Böröcz (Rutgers University)

Conference program

New Book Out: Ronald Commers, Kritiek van het ethisch bewustzijn. Van liefde met recht en rede. Deel 1. Leuven: Acco, 2009

Kritiek Cover From the publisher's website:

Kritiek van het ethisch bewustzijn. Van liefde met recht en rede is een resumé van Ronald Commers’ jarenlange colleges aan de Universiteit Gent over de wijsgerige ethiek rond één centrale stelling. De westerse ‘taal van de ethiek’ is het nooit te beëindigen proces van het menselijke ‘zeggen’ van het morele. Dit proces draait rond drie én slechts drie centrale inspiraties die de schat vormen waaruit de zich altijd ontvoogdende mensheid kan putten: de verstandelijke levenskunst die steunt op persoonlijke zelfvervolmaking; de naastenliefde in het ootmoedige besef van de individuele kwetsbaarheid en van het menselijke lijden; en ten slotte de gerechtigheid die telkens haar gelaat toont wanneer mensen hun lot samen in handen nemen om zich te bevrijden van de ellende en de slavernij. Het ethische domein herleid tot uitsluitend één van die drie inspiraties, is een leugen waarmee wij ons bedriegen en aan de zingeving van mens en wereld tekortdoen. In dit boek, dat zowel een wijsgerige oefening is in synthetische interpretatie als een experiment in interpretatieve synthese, voert de schrijver de drie genoemde inspiraties van de westerse ‘taal van de ethiek’ terug tot hun gedenkwaardige oorsprongen. De verstandelijke levenskunst in het licht van de persoonlijke zelfvervolmaking: het nooit te vergeten ogenblik van Hellas. De naastenliefde in het licht van de existentiële kwetsbaarheid: het persisterende ogenblik van de christelijke verkondiging. En de gerechtigheid in het licht van de universele menselijke lotsverbondenheid in de strijd tegen ellende en slavernij: het nooit te vergeten ogenblik van Israël en de joodse profetieën.

Contents (limited): Deel 1: De ‘taal van de ethiek’: Stelling en thema; Deel 2: Het menselijke leven: boodschap van de antieken?; Deel 3: Het menselijke tekort: Erbarmen en waardigheid; Deel 4: Menselijke vrijheid en maatschappelijke orde; Deel 5: Het naturalisme in de ethiek en zijn kritieken; Deel 6: De gerechtigheid en de ander

Content (extended) (pdf) - Order this book from Acco

Lecture: Untangling Sexual Consent - Paul Reynolds (CREED - Edge Hill, UK) - 3 Februari 2009

This lecture will seek to untangle some of the ethical problems and issues around sexual  consent. Drawing first from the sexual consent literature it will seek to outline the key ideas and questions. Then it will turn to two other fields in which consent is  significant, research ethics and bio-ethics, to see if their handling of consent offers any additional insight before exploring some key conceptual issues: Dissembling the Private/Public Divide, Reconceiving the Romance/Reason Dichotomy, Rethinking Bodily Integrity and Relational Reciprocity, Rethinking Sexual Consent outside of Perfectability - Autonomy, Contingency, Culture.

Paul Reynolds is Reader in Sociology and Social Philosophy and also Programme Leader in Sociology and Social Psychology in the Department of Social and Psychological Sciences at  Edge Hill University in Lancashire in the United Kingdom.

Location / Time: Universiteit Gent, Blandijnberg, 0.01, 16:00

Lecture: Mondiale rechtvaardigheid: ontwikkeling, armoedebestrijding en sociale bescherming - Dr. Francine Mestrum (Ghent University, Attac) - 10 December 2008

(Global Justice: Development, Poverty Reduction and Social Protection)

Location / Time: Universiteit Gent, Blandijnberg, Aud. B, 19:00

New book out: M.S. Ronald Commers, Wim Vandekerckhove and An Verlinden (Eds.) Ethics in an Era of Globalization. Ashgate, 2008.

Cover Ethics in an Era of Globalization From the Publishers Website:

This much-needed volume represents all that is new in the field of global ethics. It recognizes the emergence of the search to move beyond relativism and the study of ethical aspects of globalization, acknowledging aspects of globalization that make ethical reasoning itself a challenging task. As such the young field of global ethics is a search for new approaches and methodologies that go beyond existing ones and succeed in addressing these ethical issues of globalization. This volume presents these new developments, focusing specifically on how to re-conceive ethics in order to come to grips with ethical and political life today. It sets out an agenda for the field of global ethics, addresses the critiques and illustrates the rapprochement of global ethics. This is a valuable collection of essays that connect theoretical innovation with substantive issues in the public realm and hence is suitable for a wide audience across philosophy, politics, international relations and development studies.

Contents: Introduction, M.S. Ronald Commers, Wim Vandekerckhove and An Verlinden; Part I What is the Task of Global Ethics?: The new global ethics and its 3 faces, Carol C. Gould; Globalization between economism and moralism, Gérald Berthoud; Bridging the gaps in global ethics: grounded cosmopolitan praxis, Christien van den Anker; Justice in a world gone mad: assessing the ethical landscape of globalization, Rebecca Todd Peters. Part II Is Global Ethics Possible?: Global ethics and world citizenship, M.S. Ronald Commers; Why and what global ethics?, Heather Widdows; Cosmopolitanism and community, Nigel Dower; Community and society on a transnational scale, Peter Caws. Part III How Can We 'Do' Global Ethics?: Global poverty: development ethics meets global justice, Asunción Lera St. Clair; Reflections on global responsibilities and the nature of morality, Thomas Mertens; Global ethics as dialogism, An Verlinden; Redistributing global inequality: a thought experiment, József Böröcz; Index.

Reviews:

'The most helpful book I have seen on the new field of global ethics. A survey and extension of current work that tries to rethink ethics in and for a globalized world, it occupies a fruitful middle ground that links the experiences and concerns of thoughtful practitioners, citizens and activists to the careful reasoning of philosophers.' Des Gasper, Institute of Social Studies, The Netherlands

'As an emerging field in Applied Philosophy, Political Science and International Relations, Global Ethics needs a specification of its nature and scope. This volume admirably fulfils this role by defining the unique ethical challenges that globalisation has engendered and by reminding us of the moral resources for meeting these challenges that are inherent in our humanity.' Stan van Hooft, Deakin University, Australia

Contents (pdf) / Introduction (pdf) / Infosheet (pdf) - Order this book from Amazon or Ashgate

Lecture: Mondiale rechtvaardigheid. Een Levinasiaans perspectief - Prof. Roger Burggraeve (KULeuven) - 3 December 2008

(Global Justice: A Levinasian Perspective)

Location / Time: Universiteit Gent, Blandijnberg, Aud. B, 19:00

Lecture: Terrorism and Cosmopolitan Responsibilities - Dr. Nigel Dower (University of Aberdeen) - 25 November 2008

Location / Time: Universiteit Gent, Blandijnberg, Aud. B, 19:00

Lecture: From the Fight Against Poverty to the Fight Against the Poor - Prof. Ricardo Petrella (UCL) - 12 November 2008

Location / Time: Universiteit Gent, Blandijnberg, Aud. B, 19:00

Research Seminar: Water & Poverty -  Prof. Ricardo Petrella (UCL) - 12 November 2008

Co-organised with Universiteit voor het Algemeen Belang

Location / Time: Universiteit Gent, Blandijnberg, Aud. B, 16:00 - 18:00

Lecture: Waarom het klimaatprobleem een ethisch vraagstuk is. Bouwstenen voor een transitie naar een ecologisch duurzame en rechtvaardige samenleving -  Dr. Peter Tom Jones (KULeuven) - 29 October 2008

(Why the Climate Problem is an Ethical Problem)

Location / Time: Universiteit Gent, Blandijnberg, Aud. B, 19:00

Lecture: Van eiland tot wereld. Appèl voor een menselijke samenleving -  Dirk Barrez (Journalist & Documentary Director) - 22 October 2008

Location / Time: Universiteit Gent, Blandijnberg, Aud. B, 19:00

Lecture: Seksualiteit en Mensenrechten  -  Prof. Eva Brems (Ghent University) - 7 May 2008

(Sexuality and Human Rights)

This presentation is part of a lecture series on 'Sexuality, Globalization, and Ethics' (Actual Philosophy), organised by CEVI, in collaboration with the Department of Philosophy & Moral Sciences

Location / Time: Universiteit Gent, Blandijnberg, Aud. A, 20:00

Lecture: Seksualiteit en emancipatiebewegingen in historisch perspectief -  Dr. Evert Peeters (KULeuven) - 30 April 2008

(Sexuality and Emancipatory Movements in historical Perspective)

This presentation is part of a lecture series on 'Sexuality, Globalization and Ethics' (Actual Philosophy), organised by CEVI, in collaboration with the Department of Philosophy & Moral Sciences

Location / Time: Universiteit Gent, Blandijnberg, Aud. A, 20:00

Lecture: Sexual Virtues and Everyday Experiments: The Importance of Being Ordinary -  Prof. Jeffrey Weeks (London South Bank University, UK) - 23 April 2008

This presentation is part of a lecture series on 'Sexuality, Globalization and Ethics' (Actual Philosophy), organised by CEVI, in collaboration with the Department of Philosophy & Moral Sciences

Location / Time: Universiteit Gent, Blandijnberg, Aud. A, 20:00

Lecture: Queer studies, seksualiteit en globalisering -  Dr. Alexis Dewaele (Steunpunt Gelijkekansenbeleid, Consortium Universiteit Antwerpen - Universiteit Hasselt) - 16 April 2008

(Queer Studies, Sexuality and Globalisation)

This presentation is part of a lecture series on 'Sexuality, Globalization and Ethics' (Actual Philosophy), organised by CEVI, in collaboration with the Department of Philosophy & Moral Sciences

Location / Time: Universiteit Gent, Blandijnberg, Aud. A, 20:00

Lecture: Seksualiteit in verschillende culturen -  Prof. Marleen Temmerman (Head of the Obstetrical Department of the Ghent University Hospital and Director of the ICRH) - 9 April 2008

(Sexuality in Different Cultures)

This presentation is part of a lecture series on 'Sexuality, Globalization and Ethics' (Actual Philosophy), organised by CEVI, in collaboration with the Department of Philosophy & Moral Sciences

Location / Time: Universiteit Gent, Blandijnberg, Aud. A, 20:00

Lecture: Sex Work, Humiliation and Human Dignity -  Dr. Maggie O'Neill (Loughborough University, UK) - 19 March 2008

This presentation is part of a lecture series on 'Sexuality, Globalization and Ethics' (Actual Philosophy), organised by CEVI, in collaboration with the Department of Philosophy & Moral Sciences

Location / Time: Universiteit Gent, Blandijnberg, Aud. A, 20:00

Lecture: Allemaal (een beetje) anders: jongeren, seksualiteit en culturele diversiteit -  Dr. Telidja Klaï (SENSOA) - 12 March 2008

(We're All - a bit -  Different: Youth, Sexuality and Cultural Diversity)

This presentation is part of a lecture series on 'Sexuality, Globalization and Ethics' (Actual Philosophy), organised by CEVI, in collaboration with the Department of Philosophy & Moral Sciences

Location / Time: Universiteit Gent, Blandijnberg, Aud. A, 20:00

Lecture: Seksualiteit, Globalisering en Moderne Omgangsvormen -  Dr. Cas Wouters (Utrecht University & Amsterdam School for Social Science Research) - 5 March 2008

(Sexuality, Globalisation and Modern Manners)

This presentation is part of a lecture series on 'Sexuality, Globalization and Ethics' (Actual Philosophy), organised by CEVI, in collaboration with the Department of Philosophy & Moral Sciences

Location / Time: Universiteit Gent, Blandijnberg, Aud. A, 20:00

Lecture: Seksualiteit, Globalisering en Ethiek - een Introductie  -  Prof. Tom Claes (Ghent University, CEVI) - 27 Februari 2008

(Sexuality, Globalisation and Ethics - an Introduction)

This presentation is part of a lecture series on 'Sexuality, Globalization and Ethics' (Actual Philosophy), organised by CEVI, in collaboration with the Department of Philosophy & Moral Sciences

Location / Time: Universiteit Gent, Blandijnberg, Aud. A, 20:00

New book out: Tom Claes, Frank McMahon & David Seth Preston (Eds) Education and Leadership. Amsterdam/New York, Rodopi, 2008, VII, 357 pp.

From the publisher's website:

This truly international book brings together authors from different regions of the world including North America, South Africa, Europe, Iran and Russia all of whom are concerned with aspects of the challenges involved in the expansion of higher education, both in student numbers and areas of study. Some are concerned about the loss of guiding principles which steered university education for centuries. The traditional purposes of higher education have come under such pressure that we have achieved “conflicting models of the university” (Claes) and “ambiguity” in regard to teaching and research (Simons et al). For others, the problems are at a different stage. Contributions from South Africa look at three challenges: Can we provide enough places in higher education? How do we deal with institutional mergers? How do we make staff development effective in a situation in which English is the first language of less than five percent of the staff? Young scholars in Russian regions face formidable hurdles in achieving academic careers while the best law graduates in Canada are faced with the ethical dilemma of personal career advancement or social justice (Topsakal). The problem of integrating nursing into a traditional Irish university is reviewed by Grant while the role of a university in regional development is addressed from a Greek perspective by Papaelias et al. The comparative international approach features in research into teacher job satisfaction in India and Iran while McMahon reviews the impact of the Bologna Process.

Contents: Introduction; Part 1 Educational Issues: Tom Claes, Conflicting Models of the University: Traditionalist And Innovative Views and the Semantic Horizon of ‘The University;’ Jayne R. Beilke and Laurie Mullen, Problematizing Pedagogy in the New Scene of Teaching; Linda A. Du Plessis, Can Staff Development Efforts Sustain the Changing Landscape of Higher Education?; Anne Grant, The Changing Landscapes of Education: The Integration of Pre-Registration Nursing Education within Higher Education; Kirti Menon, Knowledge, Perceptions and Attitudes to Mergers at the University of the North; Maarten Simons, Toon Braeckman, Jan Elen and Mariette Hellemans, The Relation Between Research and Education in the Self-Understanding of Universities: an Exploration of Ambiguity in the Case of ‘Guided Independent Learning;’ Part 2: Leadership and Governance: Zühal Okan, Working with the Teachers to Promote an Effective Learning/Teaching Environment; Abbas Madandar Aranai & Parvin Abbasi, A Comparative Study of Secondary School Teachers’ Job Satisfaction in Relation to School Organizational Climate in Iran and India; Jülide Inözü, Seden Tuyan and Emine Çakir Sürmeli, Foreign Language Student Empowerment Through Affective Coaching; Thomas Herdin, The Cultural Dimension of Leadership; Part 3 Further Educational Issues: Frank McMahon, The Impact of the Bologna Process on the Design of Higher Education Programmes in Europe; Theodoros Papaelias, Gregory Gikas and Pericles Tangas, Regional Development Through Tertiary Education; Amy Swiffen, Authority, Recognition, and Dialogue; Kirti Menon and Nhlanhla Cele, Reviewing Access to Higher Education in South Africa; Aisha Topsakal, Doorkeepers-in-Training? Kafka, The Law Faculty and Access to Justice; Theodoros Papaelias and Eleftheria Dogoriti, An Inquiry into the Nature of Higher Education in a Developing Country: the Case of Greece; Natalia Forrat and Artyom Kosmarski, Professional Careers of Young Scholars in Russian Regions: Institutional Conditions and Personal Strategies

Infosheet & Contents (pdf) - Order this book from Amazon or Rodopi

Lecture: War, Peace, Security and the Question of Ethics -  Dr. Nigel Dower (University of Aberdeen) - 28 November 2007

Location / Time: Universiteit Gent, Blandijnberg, Aud. A, 19:00

Lecture: Is Global Citizenship Either Possible or Desirable -  Dr. Nigel Dower (University of Aberdeen) - 21 November 2007

Location / Time: Universiteit Gent, Blandijnberg, Aud. A, 19:00

Lecture: Stedelijkheid en verdraagzaamheid -  Bob Cools (Honorary Mayor of Antwerp) - 10 October 2007

(The City & Tolerance)

Location / Time: Universiteit Gent, Blandijnberg, Aud. A, 19:00

Lecture: Stedelijkheid planetair beschouwd -  Bob Cools (Honorary Mayor of Antwerp) - 3 October 2007

Location / Time: Universiteit Gent, Blandijnberg, Aud. A, 19:00

Workshop: Maatschappelijk Verantwoord Investeren (MVI) - 23 April 2007

Maatschappelijk Verantwoord Investeren (MVI) staat volop in de belangstelling, de overheid neemt wetgevende initiatieven en grote financiële groepen ontwikkelen hun eigen model van MVI. Ook de pers heeft toenemende aan¬dacht voor dit fenomeen en zal daarbij — onvermijdelijk — optreden als informatiefilter. Sommige elementen zullen op ruime aandacht kunnen rekenen, terwijl andere verzwegen worden. En zoals we onderhand wel weten: Perception is reality. Daarom richten het Centrum voor Economie en Ethiek (K.U.Leuven) en het Centrum voor Ethiek en Waardenonderzoek (UGent) een workshop in over de interactie tussen de pers en de MVI actoren. Een viertal sprekers behandelen de berichtgeving over MVI initiatieven vanuit verschillende invalshoeken. Uit Noorwegen krijgen we verslag van de pers¬bericht¬geving betreffende het Noorse Pensioenfonds. Een vertegenwoordiger van Total, waarvan de aanwezigheid in Birma ondertussen uitgegroeid is tot een symbooldossier, behandelt zijn ervaring met berichtgeving omtrent gecontesteerde activiteiten. Netwerk Vlaanderen zal als NGO de andere zijde tonen en aantonen dat ook NGO’s worstelen met de pers. Tenslotte zal een specialist in bedrijfsethiek de invalshoek van een MVI-belegger vergelijken met de invalshoek van een rechtbank. De presentaties worden gevolgd door een open debat tussen publiek en een panel waarin naast de sprekers ook de pers zelf vertegenwoordigt is.

Het initiatief richt zich naar financiële professionals, naar journalisten en opinie¬makers en iedereen die geïnteresseerd is in de ontwikkeling van maatschappelijk verantwoord beleggen.

Program:

13.15–13.30 Introduction - Prof. dr. Luc Van Liedekerke, K.U.Leuven
13.30–14.00 Media perceptions of the Norwegian Pension Fund - Prof. dr. Christian Alm
14.00–14.30 Lessons learned from Birma - Mr. Lasalle (Total SA)
14.30–15.00 NGO media relations - Luc Weyn, Netwerk Vlaanderen
15.00–15.10 Break
15.10– 5.30 The investor and the judge - Dr. Wim Vandekerckhove, UGent
15.30–16.00 Panel discussion with participation by the speakers and Mr. Ruben Mooijman (De Standaard) - Moderator: Prof. dr. Luc Van Liedekerke
16.00 Einde

Location / Time: MSI 03.18 (Parthenonzaal), Erasmusplein, Leuven

New book out: Wim Vandekerckhove, Whistleblowing And Organizational Social Responsibility: A Global Assessment. Ashgate, 2006

From the publisher's website:

Whistleblowing Cover Establishing a policy and building a culture that helps to protect organizations from financial wrong-doing, criminal or civil liability and permanent damage to corporate reputation has become a central theme of contemporary corporate polices towards 'whistleblowing'. This book is amongst the first to provide a detailed and full-length analysis of the meaning and various justifications of whistleblowing policies. While the legitimization of organizational whistleblowing suggests an adaptation of organizations to public opinion, this book examines the wider legitimization whistleblowing policies have been given, considering whether the establishment of 'policies' genuinely leads to the implicit institutionalization of whistleblowing itself. The book's particular focus is upon what kinds of 'whistleblowing' societies and organizations actually want, and whether policies developed as a result meet expectations.

Reviews:

'During the past decade, Western countries have introduced a large amount of whistleblowing legislation. We analysed the cases, discussed best practices and policy effectiveness, but nobody ever questioned the legitimation structures behind the legislation. A timely book that reveals the true ethics of whistleblowing policies.'
Luc Van Liedekerke, University of Leuven and Antwerpen, Belgium

'…Vandekerckhove offers an exhaustive analysis of legitimization constructs and legislative implementations of whistleblowing policies all over the world…a must read for all practitioners that have to sell, market, oppose, lobby, or use a particular whistleblowing policy…'
Ethical Perspectives

Contents (pdf) / Introduction (pdf) / Infosheet (pdf) - Order this book from Amazon or Ashgate

Lectures & Workshop: Issues in Global Ethics - 25 November 2006


World Poverty - Prof. Thomas Pogge (Yale University, USA)
- Co-referent: Dr. Christien van den Anker (University of the West of Engeland, UK)

A Global Ethic: Possible or Desirable?- Dr. Nigel Dower (University of Aberdeen, UK)
- Co-referent: Pro. Ronald Commers (CEVI, Ghent University)

Voor onderzoekers, ngo-medewerkers, beleidsmedewerkers)

Location / Time: Universiteit Gent, Blandijnberg, Aud B, 09:30 - 12:00

Conference: CEVI Global Ethics Lectures - 24 November 2006

Program

Human Rights and Global Health - Prof. Thomas Pogge (Yale University, USA)
Varieties of Cosmopolitanism - Nigel Dower (University of Aberdeen, UK)
Cosmopolitan Democracy - Christien van den Anker (University of the West of Engeland, UK)

Location / Time: Universiteit Gent, Blandijnberg, Aud B

Conference: First IGEA 2006 Global Ethics Conference - “What is Global Ethics and How to Research it?” - 27-29 April, 2006 – Ghent University, Belgium

Hosted by the Center for Ethics & Value Inquiry (CEVI) at Ghent University, Belgium & partly supported by the FWO Research Network 'Labor 1500-2000'

Keynote Speakers:

  • Carol Gould (Center for Global Ethics, George Mason University, USA)
  • Christien van den Anker (University of the West of Engeland, UK)
  • Gérald Berthoud (Institute of Anthropology and Sociology, University of Lausanne, CH)
  • Asuncion St.Clair (University of Bergen, Norway)
  • Rebecca Todd Peters (Elon University, North Carolina, USA)
  • Thomas Mertens (Radboud University Nijmegen, NL)
  • Ronald Commers (CEVI, Ghent University, BE)

Conference Website

Selected papers were published as a special issue of the Journal of Global Ethics, vol 3 (2), 2007

Keynote lectures along with other chapters were published with Ashgate as an edited volume: Commers, Vandekerckhove & Verlinden (eds) Ethics in an Era of Globalization (Ashgate 2008)

New book out: Suzan Langenberg & Wim Vandekerkckhove (Red.) Hoe vrij is de markt zonder (spirituele) grenzen? Antwerpen/Apeldoorn, Garant, 2005.

13 May 2005: Het Vlaams Netwerk voor Zakenethiek nodigt uit op de persconferentie op 13 mei in de Triodos Bank te Brussel. Zij stelt er haar nieuwste publicatie voor 'Hoe vrij is de markt zonder (spirituele) grenzen' over spirituele grenzen aan de economie. De publicatie is de neerslag van een internationale activiteit over boeddhisme als basis voor ethiek in economie en bedrijfsleven, die doorging in het najaar van 2004. Organisatie i.s.m. met CEVI en het Centrum voor Economie en Ethiek (CEE) K.U.Leuven.

Cover Langenberg & Vandekerckhove 2006 About the book:

From the Publisher's Website:

Het begin van de 21 ste eeuw is getekend door een golf van terreur. Het versplintert het ooit gewaande westerse veiligheidsgevoel en het genereert angst. Een nieuwe angst die anderzijds bevestigd wordt door een totaal andere bedreiging: de nabije overstroming van de aarde en haar rijkdommen. Alarmerende milieurapporten volgen elkaar in ijltempo op. Verdragen als Kyoto, afspraken als de Copenhagen akkoorden, conferenties rond Maatschappelijk Verantwoord Ondernemen `bevelen' dat we de onomkeerbare destructie van de aarde moeten stoppen. Maar wie zijn `wij' en wie neemt hier het gezag het roer van het wereldschip 180° te keren? Was er begin jaren `70 een eerste golf van milieubewustzijn waar te nemen, nu zijn we inmiddels aan een volgende reflectie toe, een reflectie over de vergaande effecten van de economische voortgang. Op dit moment lijkt er geen alternatief te bestaan voor het kapitalistische economisch model. Alternatieve modellen zoals de plan-economie of de cooperatieve economie zijn van het toneel verdwenen of schuiven in de richting van het kapitalistische model (China). Maar het objectief van eeuwige economische groei lijkt wegens zijn rampzalige ecologische voetafdruk niet veralgemeenbaar voor de hele wereld. Zeker niet wanneer we bedenken dat de explosieve groei-economieën China en India gelijkaardige consumptiepatronen beginnen te vertonen als het westen met alle gevolgen vandien. Is er een alternatief denkbaar? Ethische en ecologische reflecties zijn aan een verdere verdieping toe met vragen als: hoe willen we leven, nu en straks? Hoe moet het bedrijfsleven er dan uit zien? Wie heeft wel en wie geen toegang tot kennis, industrie en welvaart? En in welke verhouding staat dat alles tot het algemeen welzijn, tot menselijk geluk?

Met bijdragen van Laszlo Zsolnai, Luc Van Liedekerke, Ronald Commers, Toon Vandevelde, Machiel Karskens, Bert van de Ven, Marc Bontemps, Suzan Langenberg en Wim Vandekerckhove.

Read a review on Ethische Perspectieven

Order this book via the publisher's website or via Proxis

Lecture: Love Online: The Challenge of Romantic Relationships - Prof. Aaron Ben-Ze'ev (University of Haifa) - 27 April 2005

Prof. Ben-Ze'evs onderzoeksterrein is de psychologie en filosofie van emoties, de verhouding van emoties tot ethiek, seksuele ethiek, enzovoort. Hij is auteur van o.a. In the Name of Love (Oxford: Oxford University Press: forthcoming); Love Online: Emotions on the Internet (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004); The Subtlety of Emotions (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2000); The Perceptual System: A Philosophical and Psychological Perspective (New York: Peter Lang, 1993). Daarnaast publiceerde hij artikels in o.a. American Philosophical Quarterly, Analysis, The Monist, Journal for Value Inquiry, Philosophical Quarterly, Philosophical and Phenomenological Research, Behavioral and Brain Sciences, Consciousness & Emotion, Philosophical Explorations, British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, Metaphilosophy, Journal of Social Philosophy, etc.

Location / Time: Universiteit Gent, Blandijnberg, Aud. B, 17:15

New book out:  Frank McMahon & Tom Claes (eds) Probing the Boundaries Of Higher Education. Oxford: Interdisciplinary Press, 2005.

Probing Cover The articles in this volume address various pressing issues in contemporary Higher Education: What a university should be; where the idea of what a university is should come from; what higher education ‘is’; what the aims of higher education should be; what language best expresses the idea of education - The nature of education; the role of liberal arts education; ‘instruction’, ‘training’ and ‘vocational training’; the changing roles of and between universities, colleges, and polytechnics; the ‘usefulness’ of education; the ‘value’ of education; learning and distance learning; learning and open learning. - The changing landscapes of education; ‘students,’ ‘pupils,’ ‘learners’ and ‘customers;’ ‘lecturer,’ ‘teacher,’ ‘tutor,’ ‘mentor;’ the rise and impact of student services; course review and evaluation; modularisation; the costs of education. - The ‘business’ of the university - academic freedom and the rise of managerialism; wealth creation; intellectual capital; intellectual copyright; knowledge and research; knowledge and teaching; the preservation of knowledge in libraries, museums, galleries; the diffusion of knowledge through publishing, multimedia, and the Internet. - External issues impacting on education: funding education; private sector involvement; government involvement; Academic Audit; Research Assessment Exercise; QAA; Teaching Quality Assessment. -  Internal issues impacting on education: key skills, transferable skills; access to education - ties with schools; life-long education; adult education; returning to learning; education as a ‘right’; fees, grants, and loans.  The role of the university in society; the contexts of the university; the needs of society; reconceiving the place and work of the university.

Contents (pdf) / Introduction / Download the book rom the publisher's website

Seminar & Lecture: Ondernemen binnen grenzen - Boeddhistische economie - 20 November 2004

In samenwerking met het Vlaams Netwerk voor Zakenethiek en het Centrum voor Economie en Ethiek (CEE Leuven) organiseert het Centre for Value Inquiry te Gent (CEVI) een internationale bijeenkomst met de titel 'Business within Limits'.

In de namiddag is er een academische sessie, voorgezeten door Ronald Commers (CEVI, Universiteit Gent), waarbij een introductie door Laszlo Zsolnai becommentarieerd zal worden door Bert Van de Ven (Universiteit Tilburg), Toon Van de Velde (Universiteit Leuven) en Machiel Karskens (Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen). Daarna is er tijd voorzien voor een forumdebat en open discussie.

‘s Avonds is geeft Laszlo Zsolnai een lezing die door Luc Van Liedekerke (Universiteit Leuven) van een co-referaat zal worden voorzien.

Plaats : KULeuven

Seminar: Reaching Consensus – a Dynamic Model of Opinions under conditions of Limited Trust - Prof. Rainer Hegselmann (University of  Bayreuth) – 25 March 2004

Location / Time: Universiteit Gent, Het Pand, 14:00

Seminar: Solidarity and Rational Egoists - Prof. Rainer Hegselmann (University of  Bayreuth) – 24 March 2004

Rainer Hegselmann obtained his master's degree in social sciences in 1973 at the University of Bochum, Germany. He took his PhD in philosophy from the University Essen in 1977. He was professor of philosophy at the University of Bremen 1988-1996. In the academic year 1994/95 he was fellow in residence at The Netherlands Institute For Advanced Study (NIAS). 1995 he was guest professor at the Institute For Advanced Study in Vienna, Austria. Since 1996 he is professor of philosophy at the University of Bayreuth, Germany. His main research interests concern modelling and simulation of social dynamics, moral philosophy, philosophy of science, and the history of early analytical philosophy.

Location / Time: Universiteit Gent, Het Pand, 14:00

Lectures: Globalisation and the New Involvement of and in Business Organisation II – 11 February 2004

  • Bert van de Ven (Tilburg University)
  • Geert Demuijnck (Lille University)
  • Walter Van Trier (Antwerp University)

Location / Time: Universiteit Gent, Het Pand, 14:00

Conference: Modernity, the Moral Domain and the Task of the Moral Philosopher: Rethinking the Moorean and Deweyan scientific project in ethics (1903-2003) – 19 December 2003

Keynote Speakers

  • Asger Sorensen (Copenhagen Business School)
  • Louis Logister (Catholic University Nijmegen)
  • Jennifer Welchman (University of Alberta)
  • Ronald Commers (Ghent University)
  • Tom Viaene (Ghent University)

Location / Time: Universiteit Gent, Het Pand, 14:00

Conference: Trafficking in Human Beings ... Humanitarian Motives, Repressive Means? – 15 November 2002

Organised in collaboration with Unesco Center Flanders & Payoke

Speakers

  • Ronald Commers (UGent) - Introduction
  • Jo Doezema (U of Sussex & NSWP) - The Intertwining of Trafficking and Prostitution as Ideology
  • Christine Van den Ancker (Center for Global Ethics, University of Birmingham) - On the Necessity and Impossibility of Global Institutions to realize a Humanitarian and Cosmopolitan World
  • Svetlana Iliina (Moscow University, project manager Free Clinic, Belgium) - Sex Work Migration to and From Moscow
  • Elaine Pearson (Anti-Slavery International) & Bruno Moens (Payoke, Antwerp) - Human Trafficking, Huma Rights: Redefining Victim Protection

Location / Time: Universiteit Gent, Het Pand, Priory Room

Lectures: Globalisation and the New Involvement of and in Business Organisation I – 3 December 2003

  • Ronald Commers (Universiteit Gent)
  • Herman Siebens (Vlaams Netwerk voor Zakenethiek)
  • Luk Bouckaert (Universiteit Leuven)

Location / Time: Universiteit Gent, Het Pand, 14:00

New Book out: Ronald Commers & Jan Blommaert (red) Het Belgische asielbeleid: Kritische perspectieven. Epo, 2001

Asielbeleid Cover From the publisher's website:

Na de nogal euforische periode waarin veel mensen zonder papieren een aanvraag tot regularisatie van het verblijf konden indienen, wordt het Belgische asielbeleid weer met zichzelf geconfronteerd. Het zit net als in de andere Europese landen in een diepe crisis, zowel praktisch als moreel en politiek-ideologisch. Hoe komt dat? Dit boek toont aan dat het beleid in verband met migratie en asiel steevast blijft denken in termen van verwijdering en van uitsluiting. Afkeer van verregaande diversiteit en allergie voor 'de problemen van de anderen' is daarbij alomtegenwoordig. Een dergelijk beleid kan geen menselijke oplossing bieden voor de opvang. Gepoogd wordt de contexten van migratie en asiel aan te duiden en te verhelderen vanuit een andere visie, de visie 'van onderuit'; dat wil zeggen, van de asielzoeker zelf als slachtoffer van een uitsluitingsproces op wereldschaal. Daaruit volgen aanbevelingen voor een andere aanpak. Op die wijze wensen de auteurs ook duidelijk afstand te nemen van een voorstelling over het expertise-denken zoals dat gemakshalve in academische en regeringskringen wordt gehanteerd.

Contents: Vooraf; Inleiding; Deel 1: Algemene en ethische perspectieven: De financialisering van de wereld als achtergrond - Ronald Commers; Asiel en illegale immigratie - Gily Coene; Mensensmokkel en mensenhandel - Gily Coene; Ethische verantwoording - Ronald Commers en Wim Van Canneyt; Nood aan een uitbreiding van de bescherming van vluchtelingen in België - Pieter De Gryse; Van onderaan gezien: asielzoekers aan het woord - Jan Blommaert; Deel 2: Juridische perspectieven: Het Belgische vreemdelingenbeleid versus de rechtsstaat en het behoorlijke bestuur - Nik Vanderscheuren met medewerking van Isabelle Poppe; De recente evolutie van het migratie- en vreemdelingenbeleid in België - Isabelle Poppe; Asielbeleid in Europa - Kris Pollet; Conclusie: De vreemdeling, de genode gast - Ronald Commers; Bijlage: Illustraties bij hoofdstuk 7 - Nik Vanderscheuren en Isabelle Poppe; Noten

Order this book via the publisher's website

New book out: Ronald Commers, De val van Eros. Over seksuele armoede vandaag. Antwerpen / Baarn: Houtekiet, 2000.

Commers De hedendaagse maatschappij wordt gekenmerkt door morele verdwazing. Ronald Commers peilt naar de oorsprong ervan en gaat in het bijzonder na op welke wijze er na de Tweede Wereldoorlog is omgesprongen met de menselijke seksualiteit. De seksualiteit is de laatste jaren, gestimuleerd door een radeloze mediacultuur en doldraaiende economie, een lucratief consumptieartikel geworden. Op die manier wordt de erotische beleving, bron van het menselijk herstel en fundament van het geluk, opnieuw gekooid en gedegradeerd. De ‘kunst van de minne’, de ars amatoria, is meer dan ooit een illusie geworden. Met anderen betwijfelt de auteur o de westerse mens zich na de verschillende ‘seksuele revoluties’ wel echt heeft bevrijd.

Contents: Woord vooraf; 1 De minne en de afgeprijsde schunnigheid; 2 De rituelen van de liefde in het regime van de bewaakte lust; 3 Een korte geschiedenis van de fatale begeerte: Charles Darwin en de seksualisering van het verlangen; 4 Een korte geschiedenis van de fatale begeerte: de marginalen en de winst; 5 De fantasmen van de seksuele ellende. De eerste wereldoorlog en het interbellum; 6 Seksuele revoluties: de illusie van de herwonnen liefdeskunst. Een historisch kader van de seksuele revoluties; 7 De cultus van de dood en de therapie van de begeerte; 8 Lederen laarzen, gouden muiltjes: kroniek van de seksuele ellende na de tweede wereldoorlog; 9 De liefde tussen ‘U’ en ‘Jij’: Over fusie en distantie; 10 Eros verzorgd als utopie; Bibliografie