Reasons of Love
International Conference
Institute of Philosophy, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (Belgium)
30 May-1 June 2011
This conference’s title is ambiguous on purpose. The relationship between love and reasons for action is highly interesting and complicated. It is not clear how love is related to reasons. Love might be a response to certain normative reasons, since it seems fitting to love certain objects.
However, love also seems to create reasons and not to be a response to certain appropriate reasons. Love’s relationship to morality is also complex. It is not clear how the normative reasons for acting morally are related to the reasons of love. It is sometimes argued that love is not a virtue because the reasons for acting morally are not the same as the reasons for acting lovingly. But the notion of ‘unprincipled virtue’ seems to make room for love as a motive of morally praiseworthy actions.
This conference seeks to provide an opportunity to discuss these issues. Related questions are the following: Do ‘the reasons of love’ constitute a genuine, distinctive category of reasons? Are different kinds of love related to different kinds of reasons? What are the requirements of love, as opposed to the requirements of duty? Are love’s reasons rational or non-rational? Can love require to act immorally? If so, are love’s requirements more or less important than those of morality? Is an action out of love more praiseworthy than an action done out of a sense of duty? Are there normative reasons for acting lovingly and to what extent do they justify partiality? How are we to understand ‘acting lovingly’?
Keynote speakers:
Diane Jeske (Iowa), Michael Smith (Princeton) and R. Jay Wallace (Berkeley)
CALL FOR PAPERS
We invite abstract submissions on any issue related to the main topic as stated above. Graduate students are encouraged to participate.
The deadline for submission is December 1, 2010. Notification of acceptance will be sent by January 20, 2011. Abstracts of 1500-2000 words should be sent to Esther.Kroeker@hiw.kuleuven.be and Katrien.Schaubroeck@hiw.kuleuven.be.
At the conference 40 minute slots will be available for presentation, followed by 20 minutes of discussion.
A selection of papers will be submitted to Philosophical Explorations for publication.
Conference organizers:
Esther Kroeker, Katrien Schaubroeck, Stefaan E. Cuypers, Willem Lemmens
More information here.
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