Tuesday 17th March - Thursday 19th March 2009
Salzburg, Austria

Call for Papers
On any given day each one of us faces a plethora of decisions from the mundane to the significant. Many of these decisions involve ethical dimensions (that is, "ethical" in the sense of having to do with morality, not merely particular professional codes of conduct). Ethical considerations have an impact on how we conduct ourselves at work as well as how we deal with our personal interaction with lovers, family, friends, neighbours, acquaintances, and strangers. Choices about what (if any) type of car we should drive, what clothes we should wear, and what food we should eat all can be laden with moral import. Thus questions of how we do think about ethical matters and questions of how we should think about them can have a profound impact on all of our lives.

This inter- and multi-disciplinary conference will explore the role, character, nature and place of ethics in everyday life. It will examine how ethical considerations do, can, and should play a part in our daily lives. To encourage innovative trans-disciplinary dialogues, we warmly welcome papers from all disciplines, professions and vocations.

Papers, presentations, reports and workshops are invited on issues on or broadly related to any of the following themes:

1. What sorts of decisions in our personal lives do we identify as moral or ethical ones? How do we distinguish and balance moral considerations from non-moral ones in those decisions? How wide a range of everyday, mundane activities should be regarded as raising ethical questions?
2. What ways do we think about ethical questions? How do considerations of justice or of care play a role? Do utilitarian, virtue-based, or duty-based considerations influence how we think about ethical issues? Should they?
3. What significance does how people do think about ethical decisions have for the question of how they should think about them?
4. What role does religion play in shaping moral aspects of character? Do religious traditions influence secular thinking about ethics?
5. What ethical demands do personal relationships with family or friends place on us? Does the role of "parent" or "spouse" create particular ethical responsibilities? What special ethical considerations do sexual relationships involve? Do we also have ethical obligations to strangers, whether they are from our society or more distant ones, that conflict with our obligations to friends and lovers?
6. What special moral obligations over and above profession-specific codes of ethics do we face based on our occupations? How do we balance these moral demands with our other moral obligations?
7. How does moral education effect our ethical thinking and ethical behaviour as adults? How should ethical issues be addressed in the education of children? What is the typical pattern of moral development for people as they grow up?
8. How does ethical thinking vary from culture to culture, from society to society, or in different historical eras? Can the ways people conceive of ethical questions in cultures or in times different from ours be criticized by us?
9. How are ethical questions of everyday life portrayed in literature, art, or music? Do these accurately reflect real ethical questions? Can these representations be influential in changing how we actually do think about ethical issues, whether for the better or worse?
10. How are personal ethical values and judgments related to how we do or should make political decisions

Papers, panels and workshops will also be considered on any related theme.

500 word abstracts should be submitted by Friday 3rd October 2008. The abstract will be double blind peer reviewed (where appropriate). If an abstract is accepted for the conference, a full draft paper should be submitted by Friday 6th February 2009.

500 word abstracts should be submitted to both Organising Chairs; abstracts may be in Word, WordPerfect, or RTF formats, following this order:

a) author(s), b) affiliation, c) email address, d) title of abstract, e) body of abstract

We acknowledge receipt and answer to all paper proposals submitted. If you do not receive a reply from us in a week you should assume we did not receive your proposal; it might be lost in cyberspace! We suggest, then, to look for an alternative electronic route or resend.

Joint Organising Chairs

David White
Department of Philosophy
University of Calgary,
Calgary
Canada
E-mail: whitedm@ucalgary.ca

Rob Fisher
Network Leader
Inter-Disciplinary.Net,
Freeland, Oxfordshire,
United Kingdom
E-mail: eel@inter-disciplinary.net

The conference is part of the ‘Critical Issues’ programme of research projects. It aims to bring together people from different areas and interests to share ideas and explore various discussions which are innovative and exciting.

All papers accepted for and presented at this conference will be eligible for publication in an ISBN eBook. Selected papers will be developed for publication in a themed hard copy volume.

For further details about the project please visit: http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/ptb/persons/eel/eel.html

For further details about the conference please visit: http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/ptb/persons/eel/eel1/cfp.html