Conference on The Political Philosophy of T. M. Scanlon
Justice, Rights and Institutions:
Themes from the Political Philosophy of T. M. Scanlon
Friday 22 - Saturday 23 May 2009
Time: 9am - 6pm each day
Venue: John Casken Lecture Theatre, Martin Harris Centre, University of Manchester
Speakers:
T. M. Scanlon (Harvard University)
Waheed Hussain (University of Pennsylvania)
Rahul Kumar (Queen's University, Canada)
A. J. Julius (University of California at Los Angeles)
Véronique Munoz-Dardé (University College London)
Serena Olsaretti (University of Cambridge)
Martin O'Neill (University of Manchester)
Michael Otsuka (University College London)
Mathias Risse (Harvard University)
Zofia Stemplowska (University of Manchester)
Leif Wenar (King's College, London)
Andrew Williams (University of Warwick)
Jonathan Wolff (University College London)
The event is co-sponsored by MANCEPT (the Manchester Centre for Political Theory) and by the Philosophy and Politics Discipline Areas of the School of Social Sciences, and is financially supported by the Royal Institute of Philosophy, the Society for Applied Philosophy, and the Analysis Trust.
Conference Aims and Description:
T. M. Scanlon, the Alford Professor of Natural Religion, Moral Philosophy, and Civil Polity at Harvard University, is one of the most significant moral and political philosophers of the past thirty years. His development of contractualism as a general view explaining the content of "what we owe to each other" represents one of the great systematic projects in recent moral and political philosophy
This conference will take advantage of Scanlon's presence in the UK to give the 2009 Locke Lectures at the University of Oxford, in order to bring him to Manchester for an intensive two-day exploration of themes from his political philosophy.
Although Scanlon's contractualist moral philosophy has received a significant degree of critical attention, there has perhaps not been the same degree of attention given to the distinctively political aspects or implications of Scanlon's project. The conference will aim to remedy this gap through a detailed exploration both of Scanlon's work in political philosophy, and of the implications for political philosophy of other aspects of Scanlon's work on topics in moral philosophy.
Papers at the conference will thus be of two broad types: (a) papers relating to Scanlon's treatment of issues such as freedom of expression, human rights, equality, punishment, contract, and the idea of tolerance, as collected in his book The Difficulty of Tolerance (Cambridge: CUP, 2003); and (b) papers that address the connections between issues in political philosophy and Scanlon's treatment of topics such as choice, responsibility, blame, intention, value, promising, and well-being in his books What We Owe to Each Other (Cambridge, Mass.: HUP, 1998) and Moral Dimensions (Cambridge, Mass.: HUP, 2008).
Contact
For any queries about this conference, please contact the conference organizer, Martin O'Neill
e-mail: martin.oneill (AT) manchester.ac.uk
Books by T. M. Scanlon:
What We Owe to Each Other (1998)
The Difficulty of Tolerance: Essays in Political Philosophy (2003)
Moral Dimensions: Permissibility, Meaning and Blame (2008)
Scanlon's Tanner Lectures:
The Significance of Choice (1986, published 1988)
The Status of Well-Being (1996, published 1998)
Miscellaneous:
Alex Voorhoeve Interview (2001) with Scanlon, "Kant on the Cheap" [from The Philosophers' Magazine]
Scanlon interview with Harry Kriesler (2007), part of UC Berkeley's "Conversations with History" video interviews
Thomas Nagel, "One-to-One" (Review of What We Owe to Each Other), London Review of Books, 1999
Scanlon's Berkeley Howison Lecture (2007) on "The Ethics of Blame" (video)
Elizabeth Ashford and Tim Mulgan, "Contractualism" (2007) in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (focuses on Scanlon's views)
John Locke Lectures, University of Oxford
School of Social Sciences, University of Manchester
Philosophy Discipline Area, University of Manchester
Politics Discipline Area, University of Manchester
Manchester Centre for Political Theory (MANCEPT)
Sponsors:
Royal Institute of Philosophy
Society for Applied Philosophy
Analysis Trust