Congratulations to Simon Cabulea May, John Schwenkler, and Nathanael Stein for being granted tenure. For more information about these faculty, follow the links in their names. 

The Department of Philosophy will host the 2017 Philosophy and Science of Self-Control Conference, sponsored by the John Templeton Foundation and the William H. and Lucyle T. Werkmeister Endowment, from June 9-11, 2017, at the Augustus B. Turnbull III Conference Center. The conference program and other information will be posted closer to the date on the Conference page of the Philosophy and Science of Self-Control project website.

Philosophical theories of agency and responsibility have focused primarily on actions and activities. But, besides acting, we often omit to do or refrain from doing certain things. Omitting or refraining, like acting, can have consequences, good and bad. And we can be praiseworthy or blameworthy for omitting or refraining. However, omitting and refraining are not simply special cases of action; they require their own distinctive treatment. 

Philosophers defend theories of what well-being is but ignore what psychologists have learned about it, while psychologists learn about well-being but lack a theory of what it is. In The Good Life, Michael Bishop brings together these complementary investigations and proposes a powerful, new theory for understanding well-being. 

December 4th-6th, 2015

Augustus B. Turnbull III Conference Center

555 W. Pensacola St.

See the conference website for more details.

FSU's Department of Philosophy, together with the editors of the Brains blog and the Department of Philosophy at the University of Houston, is proud to sponsor the first annual Minds Online Conference, which will be held at the Brains blog from August 31 - September 25, 2015. The conference is co-organized by Cameron Buckner (UH), Nick Byrd (FSU), and John Schwenkler (FSU). For details and to participate in the conference, see the conference website: http://mindsonline.philosophyofbrains.com/.

Since the middle of the twentieth century, virtue ethics has enriched the range of philosophical approaches to normative ethics, often drawing on the work of the ancient Greeks, who offered accounts of the virtues that have become part of contemporary philosophical ethics. But these virtue ethical theories were situated within a more general picture of human practical rationality, one which maintained that to understand virtue we must appeal to what would make our lives go well. This feature of ethical theorizing has not become part of philosophical ethics, although the virtue theories dependent upon it have.

A conference on Evolutionary Ethics will be held at Florida State University, March 27 and 28, 2015. The conference is organized by Michael Ruse (Florida State University) and Robert J. Richards (University Of Chicago). The full program is here.

Over the last decade, "New Atheists" such as Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, and Christopher Hitchens have pushed the issue of atheism to the forefront of public discussion. Yet very few of the ensuing debates and discussions have managed to provide a full and objective treatment of the subject.

Congratulations to FSU graduate student Mirja Perez de Calleja for winning the 2014 Philosophical Explorations Essay Prize for her paper "Cross-world luck at the time of decision is a problem for compatibilists as well". Further details are available here.