2012 Tennessee Value and Agency "TVA" Conference

The Tennessee Value and Agency (TVA) conference is an annual event aimed at encouraging philosophical conversation about topics pursued by established research clusters at the University of Tennessee Department of Philosophy.  The 2012 inaugural conference is focused on philosophy in the broad tradition of Rawls and Kant.

2012 Conference – November 16-18, 2012
Themes from the Moral Philosophy of Rawls and Kant

John Rawls spent most of his career writing about justice and democratic political systems, but scattered throughout his earliest papers, course lectures and books are suggestive remarks and undeveloped ideas about moral philosophy more generally, including its proper methodology, the role of normative ethical theory, the relevance of empirical psychology as well as substantive positions on moral topics ranging from supererogation to guilt, shame and love.  Perhaps Rawls' greatest influence in moral philosophy so far has been through his students and colleagues, who have in various ways developed, refined and reworked dominant themes in an evolving tradition of moral philosophy that many of them share with Rawls and Kant.

The conference will feature papers that engage with or criticize themes from the moral philosophy of John Rawls and Immanuel Kant will be considered for the 2012 TVA conference.  There will also be papers that interpret and extend Rawls' own moral views and those that engage in substantive moral philosophy in a manner that is consistent with Rawls' views on the proper aims and methods of moral philosophy.  And there will be ones that are in the Kantian and Rawlsian tradition of moral and political philosophy more generally, including those that engage with contractualism or constructivism, take up issues about the nature of reasons and rationality, and examine the place of moral psychology in normative theory.

Program

Friday, November 16, 2012

• 1:45–2:00 Welcome
• 2:00–4:30 Panel on Justice as Fairness
  Reconciling Freedom and Equality, JON MANDLE, University at Albany, SUNY
  Distributive Justice and Rawls's Idea of a Social Minimum, REX MARTIN, University of Kansas
  Rawlsian Perfectionism, STEVEN WALL, University of Arizona
• 4:30–4:45 Break
• 4:45–6:30 Keynote address
  The Intuitive Problem of Free Will and Moral Responsibility (Paper), PAMELA HIERONYMI, UCLA
  Chair: Erin Taylor, Cornell
• 6:30–7:00 Reception
• 7:00–9:00 Dinner/Reception, Bridgeview Grill

Saturday, November 17, 2012

• 9:00–10:00 Continental breakfast
• 10:00–11:00 Mentalism or Proceduralism?: A Kantian Construal of Rawls's Linguistic Analogy, MICHAEL DEEM, Notre Dame
• 11:00–12:00 Post-Kantian Constructivism, JAMES GLEDHILL, University of Frankfurt
• 2:00–4:30 Panel on Stability
  Needing Happiness? Stability and the Need of Reason, KATE MORAN, Brandeis
  Self-Respect, Solidarity, and the Demands of Justice: Early Rawls on Political Community, RAFEEQ HASAN, University of Chicago
  Rawlsian Stability, JON GARTHOFF, University of Tennessee
• 4:30–4:45 Break
• 4:45–6:30 Keynote address
  Ideas of the Good in Moral and Political Philosophy, THOMAS M. SCANLON, Harvard
  Chair: Bradford Cokelet, Miami
• 7:00–9:00 Dinner (by invitation)

Sunday, November 18, 2012

• 9:00–10:00 Continental breakfast
• 10:00–11:00 Respect for the Moral Law: The Emotional Side of Reason, JANELLE DEWITT, King's College
• 11:00–12:00 Unity of Reasons, ADAM CURETON, University of Tennessee
• 12:00–1:00 "The Will is Nothing Other Than Practical Reason": Willing and Public Legislation in Kant's Groundwork, LARRY KRASNOFF, College of Charleston
• 1:00–1:15 Closing

Location

The conference will take place in room 1210 of McClung Tower, which is located at 1201 Volunteer Blvd.  It is about 1.5 miles from the Crowne Plaza, which is located at 401 West Summit Hill Dr.