New Perspectives on Free Will and Moral Responsibility

On November 10, 2007 some people you may have heard of will be at USF talking about free will, moral responsibility, and the like.

Speakers will include Joshua Knobe, Eddy Nahmias, Angela Smith, and Dan Speak. Responses will be given by Randy Clarke, John Fischer, Michael McKenna, and Dana Nelkin.

The motivating idea behind this one day conference was to create an opportunity where some up-and-coming-but-not-yet-tenured folks could give invited papers and receive replies by already-well-known-and-tenured stars. This will be something of an experiment, but if it all goes well I hope to repeat the process in subsequent years, thereby providing a semi-regular venue whereby junior folks could receive feedback by established stars and get some additional pre-tenure visibility. I would have loved to double the roster for this round, but given that this is an experiment and given time and space constraints I had to keep it to only four speakers and four respondents. Still, any Gardeners who feel like coming to SF in November to hang out at the conference are more than welcome.

(I've heard rumors that elsewhere there may be a general free will conference coming together for next year, so conference-interested people should keep their antenna up.)

More information and updates on the USF free will/moral responsibility conference, including the TBA schedule, will be posted here.

Comments

[Joe Campbell]

At the Bled Conference Tim O'Connor suggested that Indiana might be willing to host a FW conference spring or fall 2007. Let's all send Tim a note and ask him to do it!

[Tim O'Connor]

Say, what?!

O.k., since Joe insists, if my dept. approves the idea when we reconvene in early Sept., we will host an event here at Indiana U. Bloomington in Sept. '07. (If you've never been, Bloomington has a beautiful wooded campus, especially nice in the early Fall. Also, fish dinners can be had at a reasonable price here -- I'm told that this condition is one Joe Campbell now insists upon for any venue he frequents.)

If others follow through, this will be the first of a regular (annual?) series on free will and moral responsibility themes, rotating among West Coast (Riverside), Midwest (DELETED-->Indiana), and East Coast (FSU) venues. As you may recall, this idea was floated on the Garden by John Fischer after the successful INPC event in April.

[Kevin Timpe]

Not to detract from Riverside, but I'd also be willing to host one of the West Coast meetings here at USD--a few of the Gardeners had a potential preview at the SCP here this past February. Though I realize it might be hard to encourage people to come to a conference in San Diego....

(Plus, I think we could satisfy Joe's apparent fish dineer criterion.)

[Tim O'Connor]

*I* certainly won't object to a conference in San Diego.

Also, I saw after my comment above that Neil Levy previously suggested that the conference occasionally be held outside the US, to make travel easier for other philosophers. I second this idea, too. Oxford and Melbourne are good options, given Neil's jobs, and anywhere in Italy, for obvious reasons. :)

[John Fischer]

Yes, Kevin, I'd love it if you would host a conference in San Diego. Would you consider 2007-08 (on the assumption that Indiana works for fall of 07)?

My original idea has morphed into a new strategy, whereby we have a free will/moral responsibility every year, but not necessarily in specific places. I also like Neil's idea of having it overseas (relative to the US) at some point.

As regards fish dinners, great, as long as you are not having Fischer for lunch, or on a plate, or anything like that...

[Eddy Nahmias]

And Tim may remember our tipsy discussion playing pool at UF conference to incorporate a pool and/or ping pong tournament into a philosophy conference (I think the idea was to ask people to include examples from pool or ping pong into their papers but that would probably be more appropriate for metaphysics of causation than free will/moral responsibility). Anyway, even if it's not a formal component of the conference, much good philosophy can be done over a game of pool (not so sure about ping pong). Conferences at IU and then UCSD and then FSU sounds great (maybe GSU/Atlanta someday)! And thanks to Manuel for putting together the conference in San Fran (and inviting me).

[James Gibson]

Having a conference at IU first is a great idea, especially for Tim. This way, he can get a few practice games of ping pong in before coming out to CA. (Remember, Tim, there were - conveniently - no ping pong tables available when I flew out to Wheaton a couple years back). Start practicing!

[Kevin Timpe]

John et al.,

I'll definately do what I can to host it in 2008 if everyone is ok with that.

[John Fischer]

Since Tim is (tentatively) doing the conference in Sept of 07, I probably should have suggested that Kevin do it in 08-09, preferably fall of 08. But I supposed spring of 08 would also work. There's no reason why we couldn't do two in certain academic years.

I was amused by James's sentence, "Having a conference at IU first is a great idea, especially for Tim." James--Tim has many excellent ideas!

[Kevin Timpe]

I was figuring on the fall of 08. With the APAs and INPC, springs are already rather full for a number of us!