CFP: 2027 Ethics at Notre Dame symposium: Ethics Beyond Action

We invite submissions of abstracts for ENDs 2027, which will be held at the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana, on Friday, April 30, and Saturday, May 1, 2027. Abstracts should be between 750 and 1,000 words (inclusive of everything but the bibliography). Abstracts must be prepared for blind review. The title of the proposed paper should be included at the top of the document, above the abstract. Save the abstract as a PDF with the paper’s title as its name (e.g., “Paper’s Title.pdf”) and attach it to an email sent to [email protected] with the subject heading “Abstract for ENDs 2027.” The deadline is noon (EST) on Sunday, December 6, 2026. The proposed paper must be on normative ethics and relate to the theme “Ethics Beyond Action.” We are especially interested in submissions that aim to open up new lines of inquiry relating to this theme.

Possible topics under this theme include but are not limited to: (1) moral education; (2) moral perception; (3) moral virtues and vices; (4) morally relevant feelings, attitudes, and emotions; (5) moral ideals and individual and cultural moral improvement; (6) whether things besides actions (such as beliefs, biases, feelings, perceptions, dispositions, etc.) can be right or wrong; (7) whether it’s important that a moral theory not be exclusively act-oriented; (8) whether the motive or intention with which an act is performed is important to its moral assessment; (9) the epistemological relevance of the emotions to deontic and evaluative assessment; (10) whether it matters, morally speaking, what sorts of reasons or motives we act upon; (11) whether we can be morally responsible for things that are not under our voluntary control; etc.

Submissions will be evaluated by the organizers, and decisions will be finalized in mid-January. The plan is for there to be around eight to ten speakers, all of whom will be chosen on the basis of the abstracts—thus, no keynotes. The authors of accepted abstracts will be expected to provide drafts of their papers for distribution to ENDs attendees at least four weeks in advance of the conference. Authors will have 30-45 minutes to present their papers at the conference, followed by Q&A. These papers must not be published, accepted for publication, or submitted for publication prior to the conclusion of the conference, for speakers should be willing to consider including their papers in any anthology or symposium that the organizers possibly arrange. Speakers will not be required to include their papers, but they should be open to doing so depending on what the organizers are able to arrange. Since abstracts will be reviewed anonymously, those affiliated with the University of Notre Dame are welcome to submit to ENDs.

Lastly, those who are either currently enrolled in a graduate program or within fifteen (15) years of having received their Ph.D should note that we offer a $5,000 prize for the most outstanding paper by an early-career scholar.

The Ethics at Notre Dame symposium ("ENDs" for short) is a biennial, thematic conference in normative ethics held every other spring at the University of Notre Dame beginning in 2027. Free and open to all registrants, ENDs aims both to advance new work on significant themes in ethical theory and to support scholars—especially those early in their careers—through feedback, mentorship, and potential publication opportunities.

See ethics.nd.edu/ends for more information. Email [email protected] with questions.