Devotion, Existential Commitment, and Ethics

Conference topic: the ethical significance of devotion and robust commitment

Our lives are pervaded by commitments: you might be committed to meeting a friend for dinner, exercising four times per week, learning a language, being considerate, sustaining a friendship, promoting a political cause.  Some commitments are relatively trivial and readily set aside.  Others are deeper and more resistant to change. They persist through doubt and difficulty, giving shape to a person's life.

When people display extreme degrees of commitment, we sometimes describe them as devoted.  Devotion seems to involve a particularly robust form of commitment, which might differ from standard forms of commitment in its intensity, stability, resistance to compromise, epistemic status, or deliberative weight

This interdisciplinary conference investigates the ethical significance of devotion and other robust forms of commitment. Topics might include:

• the nature and structure of deep commitment

• existential, ethical, or political forms of commitment

• devotion as a source of meaning, purpose, or identity

• connections between devotion and love, responsibility, or integrity

• the impact of devotion and robust commitment on individual or collective flourishing

• the way in which devotion might interact with epistemic virtues and vices

• pathological or problematic forms of devotion/commitment, such as fanaticism

• devotion, commitment, and responsibility 

Keynotes:

Sharon Street (NYU, Philosophy), "Devotion without Faith"

David Shoemaker (Cornell, Philosophy), "Hilarious Devotion"

Fiery Cushman (Harvard, Psychology), "Dangerous Thoughts"

Kimberly Rios (Univ. Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Psychology), title tbd

Jennifer Herdt (Yale, Religious Studies), "Idolatry and Devotion"



Speakers:

Giles Howdle (Utrecht University), “On Devoting Oneself”

Jason Kay (Rice), “Two Kinds of Commitment”

Jordan MacKenzie (University of Virginia) and Michael Cholbi (University of Edinburgh), “Free to Be You and Me: Devotion and Practical Fidelity in Personal Relationships”

Lilian O’Brien (Tampere University/University of Helsinki), “Committing, Intending, and the Distinction Challenge”

Catherine Rioux (Université Laval), “Striving for Balance: Difficult Long-Term Goals and the Well-Rounded Life”




Commentators:

Andrew Chignell (Princeton)

Vikas Beniwal (University of Mississippi)

Jacob Koval (Florida State)

Eric Aldieri (Bridgewater State)

Rylie Johnson (Boston College)

Brendan Kost (Florida State)

William Kanwischer (UNC)

Meredith McFadden (Northeastern)

(others tbd)



Organizers:

Paul Katsafanas (BU)

Jesse Preston (Warwick)