Formal Ethics 2026

About

“Formal Ethics” sits at the intersection where logic, decision theory, game theory, social choice theory, and computational philosophy engage with central questions in moral and political theory. The field builds on the foundational contributions of Kenneth Arrow, Amartya Sen, John Harsanyi, Richard Braithwaite, Lennart Åqvist, and others, while its scope continues to expand. Recent work extends across formal analyses of freedom and responsibility, welfare economics and population ethics, deontic logic and natural-language semantics, theories of value, and computational studies of how norms and conventions form, evolve, and stabilize.

The conference series mirrors this growth and diversification. Previous editions have been hosted by the University of Groningen (2010), Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München (2012), Erasmus University Rotterdam (2014), the University of Bayreuth (2015), the University of York (2017), Ghent University (2019), Vanderbilt University (2022), and most recently the University of Greifswald (2024).

Plenary Speakers include Peter Vanderschraaf (University of Arizona), Mark Budolfson (UT Austin) and Janice Dowell (Syracuse). 

Call for Papers

Formal Ethics 2024 will feature a single track for contributed talks of 40-45 minutes. Authors should submit an extended abstract (1000 words max, pdf format) to [email protected].

Notifications of acceptance will be sent by March 15th, 2026.

Submissions in all areas of formal ethics, broadly construed, are welcome. Contributions need not be formal in nature but should show familiarity with applying formal tools and results to ethical investigations.We welcome submissions from members of underrepresented groups, as well as early career researchers and students.

All submissions should be prepared for anonymous review.

Important Dates

Deadline for submission: January 30th, 2026

Notification of acceptance: March 15th, 2026

Conference dates: July 13-15

Local Organizer

Justin Bruner (University at Buffalo). Please contact Justin at [email protected] with any questions about the conference.