Possibilities, Impossibilities & Conflict in Ethics: conference programme
International conference funded by the MSCA project MIGHT (‘Moral Impossibility: Rethinking Choice and Conflict’) and hosted by the Centre for Ethics as Study in Human Value, University of Pardubice
Date: 1-2 June 2023
Conference Venue: The historical building of the University of Pardubice, Room 03004 (nám. Čs. legií 565, 530 02 Pardubice I), Pardubice, Czech Republic
Keynote speakers:
Alice Crary (The New School for Social Research)
Raimond Gaita (Melbourne University) [online]
Sophie Grace Chappell (Open University) [online]
Gabriel Abend (University of Lucerne)
with a guest lecture by Aviad Heifetz (The Open University of Israel)
You can find more information about the conference and abstracts here.
Registration is free but required for attendance due to venue capacity. For information and registration, please email: silvia.capriogliopanizza@upce.cz
Conference programme
DAY 1
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
Joel Backström (Åbo akademi) ‘Longing and impossibility’
Yanni Ratajczyk (University of Antwerp) ‘Moral perception as Imaginative Apprehension: Moral Possibilities and Impossibilities’
Panel B: Contradictions
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
Jordi Chilton (KU Leuven) ‘Deep disagreements and moral progress’
Serhiy Kish (University of Pardubice) ‘Does deep moral disagreement exist?’
Panel B: Evil and trauma
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’
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Lunch break
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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
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
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
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
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
19 Conference dinner
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DAY 2
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
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
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’
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Lunch break
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14:30-15:30 Parallel sessions
Panel A: (Im)possibilities and non-human animals
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
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
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
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
17:00-18:00 Keynote
Gabriel Abend (Sociology, University of Lucerne):
‘Making things possible’
18:00-19:00 Conclusions and Reception