We're excited to announce the final programme for the Possibilities, Impossibilities, and Conflict in Ethics International Conference which begins tomorrow (June 1-2). We hope to see you there! Please see the schedule below, including information about the keynote addresses from:
- Alice Crary (The New School for Social Research): Political Possibilities
- Sophie Grace Chappell (The Open University): On being ‘the only thing to do’: practical reasoning and practical necessity
- Amber Elise Sheldon (Boston University): The Moral Impossibility of Eating Lab-Grown Meat
- Camilla Kronqvist (Åbo Akademi): What cannot be done? The possible and impossible in moral conversations on gender
- Aviad Heifetz (The Open University of Israel): Simone Weil on moral impossibility and moral dexterity
- Gabriel Abend (University of Lucerne): Making things possible
DAY 1
THURSDAY 1 JUNE 2023
8:30-9:00 Registration and Welcome
9:00-10:00 Keynote
Alice Crary (The New School for Social Research, New York) ‘Political Possibilities’
Coffee break
10:20-11:20 Parallel sessions
Panel A: Impossibility and the other (Chair: Antony Fredriksson)
Joel Backström (Åbo akademi) ‘Longing and impossibility’
Yanni Ratajczyk (University of Antwerp) ‘Moral perception as Imaginative Apprehension: Moral Possibilities and Impossibilities’
Panel B: Contradictions (Chair: Ondřej Beran)
Sasha Lawson-Frost (Durham University) ‘Towards an ethics of contradiction: Simone Weil and the difficulty of philosophy’
Matt Dougherty (University of Vienna) ‘The Ethical “Excluded Zone”’
Short break
11:30-12:30 Parallel sessions
Panel A: Deep disagreement (Chair: Ryan Manhire)
Jordi Chilton (KU Leuven) ‘Deep disagreements and moral progress’
Serhiy Kish (University of Pardubice) ‘Does deep moral disagreement exist?’
Panel B: Evil and trauma (Chair Ondřej Beran)
Agata Łukomska (University of Warsaw) ‘The “Thick” Concept of Evil as a Conveyor of Moral Impossibility’
Jack Idris Sagar (University of Bristol) ‘Trauma, History and The Moral Impossibility of Explanation’
12:30 – 14 Lunch break
14:00-15:00 Keynote:
Sophie Grace Chappell (Philosophy, The Open University) ONLINE
‘On being ‘the only thing to do’: practical reasoning and practical necessity’
Coffee break
15:20-16:20 Parallel sessions
Panel A: Moral Necessity (Chair: Antony Fredriksson)
Kyle Fruh (Duke Kunshan University) ‘The Compulsion of Moral Heroes: Practical Necessity Rather than Illusion, Obligation or Virtue’
David Peroutka (Jan Evangelista Purkyně University & Charles University) ‘Moral necessity: Freedom when there is no choice’
Panel B: Certainty and doubt (Chair: Ryan Manhire)
Konstantin Deininger (University of Vienna) ‘“There’s Nothing Else to Think But …”: On the (Im)Possibilities of Moral Certainties’
Samuel Laves (Nova University Lisbon) ‘Wittgenstein and the Logical Possibility of Moral Doubt’
Short break
16:30-17:30 Parallel sessions
Panel A: Social norms and limits (Chair: Niklas Forsberg)
Jon Bebb (University of Manchester) ‘Representing Normal Possibilities’
Krzysztof Sołoducha (Military University of Technology Warsaw) ‘Methods and conditions of creating hybrid ethics for AGI-machines’
Panel B: The limits of psychology (Chair: Laura Candiotto)
Jenny Zhang (University of Edinburgh) ‘The Possibilities of Moral Life and the Impossibility of Moral Psychology’
Konstantin Eckl (University of Vienna) ‘The limits of moral emotions - possible and impossible uses of the Yuck Factor in Bioethics’
17:45 Walking tour of Pardubice with Peter Tuck
19 Conference dinner at Galerie Café
DAY 2
FRIDAY 2 JUNE 2023
9-10 Keynote: Raimond Gaita (Melbourne University) reflections on moral impossibility and the unthinkable
Coffee break
10:20-11:50 Parallel sessions
Panel A: Obligation and impossibility (Chair Matti Syiem)
Etye Steinberg (University of Haifa) ‘Unthinkable Actions’
Olof Leffler (University of Pavia) ‘Kantian Doubts about Categorical Imperatives’
Matilde Liberti (University of Genoa) ‘Yet another distinction in Aristotle’s moral psychology: Inverse Akrasia and Moral Impossibility’
Panel B: Conflict and incommunicability (Chair Lesley Jamieson)
Olli Lagerspetz (Åbo Akademi) ‘The Morally Unsayable and “Reality”: The Case of “Im Westen nichts Neues”’
John McGuire (University College Dublin) ‘Conspiracy Thinking and Political Impossibility’
Silvia Caprioglio Panizza (Centre for Ethics, Pardubice) ‘Talking across mutually impossible worlds’
Short break
12:00-13:00 Guest lecture: Aviad Heifetz (The Open University of Israel)
‘Simone Weil on moral impossibility and moral dexterity’
13 – 14:30 Lunch break
14:30-15:30 Parallel sessions
Panel A: (Im)possibilities and non-human animals (Chair Mira Reyes)
Amber Elise Sheldon (Boston University) ‘The Moral Impossibility of Eating Lab-Grown Meat’
Erich Linder (University of Vienna) ‘Seeing possibilities in animal ethics’
Panel B: Feminist and queer impossibilities (Chair Olena Kushyna)
Camilla Kronqvist (Åbo Akademi) ‘What cannot be done? The possible and impossible in moral conversations on gender’
Salla Aldrin-Salskov & Niklas Toivakainen (University of Helsinki/ Åbo Akademi) ‘The sense of “ab-sense”: on the impasse at the heart of ethics’
Coffee break
15:50-16:50 Parallel sessions
Panel A: Resistance in fiction and music (Chair Lesley Jamieson)
Pedro Rapallo Zubillaga (California State University) ‘Impossibly Immoral Fictions and How to Understand Them’
Salla Aldrin Salskov & Ryan Manhire (Åbo Akademi University) ‘Moral Possibilities and Impossibilities in Kendrick Lamar's “Auntie Diaries”’
Panel B: Making climate change impossible (Chair Niklas Forsberg)
David Rozen (Centre for Ethics, Pardubice), Alex Putzer (Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies, Pisa) ‘The moral impossibility of destroying the conditions for human well-being’
Geraldine Ng (Philosophy Lab CIC) ‘Climate change, moral hopelessness, and Nietzsche’s splendid individual’
Short break
17-18 Keynote: Gabriel Abend (Sociology, University of Lucerne)
‘Making things possible’
18:00 Conclusions and Reception
19 Dinner at Tandoor Pardubice
This conference is part of the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowship Project 2020 "Moral Impossibility: Rethinking Choice and Conflict (MIGHT).
This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement No 101026701.