2015 Annual Conference

‘Globalisation and Global Justice’

Societas Ethica's 52nd annual conference. Linköping, Sweden, August 20th-23rd, 2015

We live in an age of globalisation, meaning that we are in various ways linked to distant people. Globalisation poses new challenges for ethics. The impact of our collective actions, in the form of consumption, production, banking, travelling, etc. transcends national borders and this means that the scope of our moral responsibility is becoming broader. The climate crisis, the financial crisis, the food crisis and the Ebola crisis are evidences of our global interdependence and of the vulnerability of and within the present world order. Business, politics and health care services are increasingly globalised, but does that also apply to ethics? Is there a need for a global ethics? What are the roles of churches and world religions in a globalised world, and what are the implications for ecumenism?

One aspect of globalisation is that national sovereignty is hollowing and the states are losing control. Important economic and political decisions shaping the future of societies are taken less and less at a domestic level and more and more at a global level within global institutions and corporations. Since economic globalisation affects how wealth and power is globally distributed, it has become indispensable to discuss social ethics in a global context and to develop principles of global justice. Cosmopolitanism is challenging nationalism but what does that entail?

Keynote speakers:

Prof Jan Aart Scholte, University of Warwick and University of Gothenburg, author of Globalization: A Critical Introduction (Palgrave 2000).

Prof Kok Chor Tan, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania and author of Justice, Institutions, and Luck (Oxford University Press, 2012,) Justice Without Borders (Cambridge University Press, 2004) and Toleration, Diversity, and Global Justice (Penn State Press, 2000).

Dr Lea Ypi, Senior Lecturer in Political Theory at London School of Economics, author of Global justice and avant-garde political agency. (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2011) and articles What's wrong with colonialism. Philosophy and Public Affairs. 41 (2), and Territorial rights and exclusion. Philosophy Compass, 8.

Prof William Schweiker, Professor of Theological Ethics University of Chicago, author of Theological Ethics and Global Dynamics: In the Time of Many Worlds (2004); Religion and the Human Future: An Essay in Theological Humanism (2008, with David E. Klemm); and, Dust that Breathes: Christian Faith and the New Humanisms (2010).

The conference also included panels on Inter-continental perspectives on global ethics, Global rectificatory justice, and Ethics and migration.

Through different parallel sessions Societas Ethica addressed the major moral questions regarding globalization and global justice. These sessions have focused on:

• Global ethics, global values, natural law and universalism

• Global justice; distributive and historical,

• International aid and humanitarian intervention

• The ethics of the global economy; financial market, fair trade and corporate responsibility

• Ethical challenges of the globalisation of social media and of information and communication technology

• Environmental challenges and global responsibilities

• Migration and ethics

• Nationalism, cosmopolitanism and global governance

• The role of churches, world religions, ecumenism/ inter-religious dialogues and secularism

• Open channel (for PhD-students)

Paper proposals should have contained no more than 800 words (excluding bibliography), and clearly present a moral question or argument addressing one of the aforementioned topics. The deadline was April 25, 2015. Papers could be presented either in English, German, or French.

The following two documents were to be sent as Word attachments to johanna.romare@liu.se:

Document 1: Your name, first name, email address, institutional address, the title of your abstract, the topic under which your paper proposal falls, and, if eligible, your application to participate in the Young Scholars’ Award competition (see information below).

Document 2: Your paper proposal including bibliography (max. 10 references), keywords and title with all identifying references removed. Please use Times New Roman 12 pt for body, references and keywords, and Ariel (bold) 16 pt for headline.

The abstract of the conference papers have been published in the conference proceedings. Selected papers from the conference have been published in a special volume of De Ethica: A Journal of Theological, Philosophical and Applied Ethics. De Ethica employs an independent, competitive peer-review process, and submission to the special issue is open to all, not only conference participants. For more information about the journal and submission guidelines, please see http://de-ethica.com.

Societas Ethica Young Scholars’ Award is awarded to the best presentation by a young scholar. Young scholars for the purpose of this competition are doctoral students and researchers who earned their degree less than two years ago and do not have a tenure-track academic position. For more information about Societas Ethica Young Scholars’ Award, please visit the website at www.societasethica.info.