The philosophy graduate students at Boston University are soliciting papers from graduate students in any area of philosophy for the 10th Annual Graduate Student Philosophy Conference, on “Virtues and Vices in Social Contexts: Conflict, Conciliation, and Violence.” This year’s conference will feature a keynote addressby Professor Mark Alfano of Macquarie University. Professor Alfano has written extensively on ethics, epistemology, and moral psychology, and has published influential work on virtue and vice epistemology, the influence of social and political networks on epistemic agency, and, more recently, problematic sociopolitical phenomena like fanaticism.

In recent years, many philosophers have increasingly turned their attention to the study of troubling phenomena that threaten the fabric of our sociopolitical landscapes, such as polarization, alienation, extremism, conspiracy thinking, and fanaticism, among others. At the same time, other philosophers have undertaken to examine countervailing forces like solidarity, activism, mutual aid, and resistance, which aim to build, repair, and strengthen social bonds. While these phenomena seem to produceopposing effects, they overlap in meaningful ways: ex., the bonds between members of fanatical groups (such as incels) can seem to take the form of solidarity; activist groups (such as the Animal Liberation Front) have been dubbed terrorists by the U.S. government; and the rise of some right-wing extremist groups has been coupled together with growing support and advocacy for (praiseworthy) social causes, such as the fight for social equality and LGBTQIA+ rights, or the fight against sexism, ableism, and racism, among others.

To study this array of phenomena and how they influence one another, some philosophers have drawn on the literatures of virtue and vice ethics, virtue and vice epistemology, and sociopolitical philosophy. In short, they have examined whether these phenomena are best understood through the virtues and vices of the individuals involved or through structural explanations that focus on the historical, social, political, and cultural conditions in which they are embedded. In doing so, philosophers have both engaged with and contributed to the historical and contemporary debates of the corresponding literatures.

Conversely, in virtue ethics and virtue epistemology, there is growing interest in recognizing virtues and vices as historically and culturally situated concepts. As Alasdair MacIntyre emphasized, virtues, along with their correlative duties and obligations, are intelligible only within the ethical traditions to which they belong. They have their origins in social roles (some of which we may not wish to avow today), and their benefit for an agent depends in part on his general form of life: e.g. we may say the medieval sense of humility is not “missing” from the ancient Greek, nor could it contribute anything to his perfection. Those who find the language of virtues and vices attractive as a framework for ethics or epistemology, then, have reason to consider what aspects of our forms of life a particular virtue or vice depends on, as well as how changes to our social and political circumstances may affect which virtues and vices we recognize as pertinent.

This conference aims to explore the intersections between these literatures to shed light on the role of virtues and vices in social contexts. Thus, this conference will be centered on the intersection of three areas: virtue and vice ethics, virtue and vice epistemology, and social and political philosophy, especially as it relates to social phenomena that disrupt, repair, or strengthen the social order. We will accept submissions in any of these three areas and will be open to different approaches, including, but not restricted to, papers that engage with contemporary literature, papers that take a historical or interpretative approach, and papers that offer some form of meta-analysis.