Conference - Call for Papers
Venue: University of Pardubice, Czechia, 10-12 September 2025
Confirmed Keynotes:
- Linda Radzik (Texas A&M), author of The Ethics of Social Punishment: The Enforcement of Morality in Everyday Life
- Brandon Warmke (Florida), co-author of Moral Grandstanding: the Use and Abuse of Moral Talk and Why It’s OK to Mind Your Own Business
Recent years have seen widespread concerns about the quality of our public moral and civic discourse, especially but not only online. Misinformation, disinformation, epistemic bubbles and echo chambers, increased polarisation, moral grandstanding: all have been claimed to harm the quality of such discourse. Recent philosophical work in this space has included analyses of the pros and cons of moral grandstanding (or ‘virtue-signalling’); informal ‘social punishment’ (e.g. sanctions such as boycotts or online naming and shaming campaigns); and the rise of ‘private censorship’ (e.g. social media deplatforming). How, in such an environment, should we pursue the necessary task of public moral discourse?
This conference aims to explore these themes. We invite presentations on topics including (but not limited to) the following:
- How should we best think about the nature of moral criticism? What are its connections to social punishment (e.g. Radzik), protest (e.g. Pettigrove) or conversation/drawing each other’s attention to moral concerns (e.g. Dover, Springer)?
- When might ‘social punishment’ be permissible? Is it ever morally required? What are its scope and limits? How can we avoid a climate of fear inimical to healthy moral discourse (Messina)?
- What role, if any, should anger play in moral criticism? In the face of perceived injustice, is there a ‘case for rage’ (Cherry), or is anger always objectionable and/or counter-productive?
- Are there situations in which public protest is morally required of us? What are the scope and limits of ‘minding your own business’ (e.g. Radzik, Tosi & Warmke)? When does the expression of moral concern become moralism? When, if at all, is moralism defensible? Is there ever a case for moral grandstanding? What would morally responsible uses and forms of activism look like?
- What light can recent work on individual or collective virtues and vices shed on our understanding of moral criticism? For instance: How can the vices of pride (e.g. self-righteousness, intellectual arrogance) be avoided? How can virtues such as generosity of spirit towards one’s opponents be cultivated, and what (if any) are the limits to this? Does a virtues and vices lens simply ignore more systemic issues, or can it importantly complement a focus on them?
We invite papers (from philosophical or other disciplinary perspectives) on these and related matters of great importance to the quality of our moral and civic life. The conference will be hosted by the University of Pardubice’s Centre for Ethics as Study in Human Value. The conference language will be English. We plan to explore a possible journal Special Issue based on this event.
Please send abstracts in English of up to 500 words (not including references) to Professor John Lippitt (johnandrew.lippitt@upce.cz) by 1st May 2025. Please include your full name, title and affiliation in the body of the email. Early submissions welcome.
This conference is hosted under the auspices of the ERC-CZ project “Combatting Self-Righteousness” (grant no. LL2308) led by Professor John Lippitt and generously supported by the Czech Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports (MŠMT).