Conference Themes
The title of the conference is “Agency and Action.” While any topic in the theory of action and related areas such as moral psychology, free will, and the philosophy of mind is fair game at this conference, conference participants are especially encouraged to consider questions about the nature of agency. Such questions might include (but certainly are not limited to):
What is the relationship between being a human being, being a person, and being an agent?
Is our best theory of agency naturalistically acceptable?
Can we account for agency without having to appeal to agent causation?
Is the identification approach to agency as developed most fully by Harry Frankfurt still promising?
If the identification approach is still promising, should we adopt a broadly hierarchical theory of identification or a theory centered around normative judgments?
What role if any do notions of caring and love have to play in agency?
What role if any do notions of volitional necessity and impossibility have to play in agency?
What role if any do reasons for action have to play in agency?
Instead of focusing directly on the nature of agency, some might prefer to examine the implications of issues about agency to a one or more of a range of related topics such as (but again certainly not limited to):
Freedom
Moral, Legal, and other Kinds of Responsibility
Autonomy
Personal Identity
Metaethics
Moral Psychology (e.g., Humean and anti-Humean theories of motivation, motivational internalism, reasons internalism)
Mental Illness (e.g., inserted thoughts, alien voices)
Applied Ethics (e.g., abortion, treatment of comatose patients, treatment of severely handicapped patients)
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