On a lovely weekend in September, over a hundred philosophers from around the world descended on Madison to take part in the 7th Annual Metaethics Workshop, organized by Russ Shafer-Landau, chair of the Philosophy Department.
Shafer-Landau founded the workshop in 2004, and UW-Madison has played host to the gathering ever since.
The workshop featured a dozen talks and lots of interesting conversation.
The keynote speaker was Stephen Darwall, a distinguished philosopher from Yale University. He was joined on the program by eleven other philosophers, whose papers were selected from over 100 submissions.
The workshop has now become the focal point in the international philosophical community for work done in this area.
Recently, a reviewer in Ethics, the preeminent journal in the field, wrote that "In just a few years, the Wisconsin Metaethics Workshop has become the most prestigious ethics conference in the United States, and arguably the world."
Metaethics is that area of ethical theory in which foundational questions about the status of morality are explored. Rather than focusing on what makes actions right or wrong, or good or bad, those doing research in the area ask about whether morality is objective, whether we can have moral knowledge, whether it is always rational to do one’s duty.
The workshop is designed to present work in progress by leading lights, mid-career philosophers, and up-and-comers in the field.
It's an especially exciting opportunity for UW-Madison graduate students, as they get plenty of opportunities to talk with those whose work they may have read, and to develop professional networks with other like-minded philosophers.
More information about the workshop is available at:
https://mywebspace.wisc.edu/shaferlandau/web/metaethics/workshop_2010/
See photos from the 2010 workshop: