International Workshop: The Metaphysics of Evil

What is evil? Is there a clear and universal definition for it? Are all sorts of evils (natural evil, moral evil, horrendous evils, etc.) reducible to some common feature or features? Or is ‘evil’ a purely equivocal term? Is evil a privation or absence of some good property or properties of a thing, or does it have some positive ontological ground? These questions appear to have often been neglected in the contemporary debate on the problem of evil. Still, they are vital for tackling the issue properly. This workshop aims to confront these and other related questions, exploring the nature of evil and its metaphysical grounding.

Call for papers:

We invite interested scholars working on the topic of the workshop to submit an abstract of approximately 1000 words to Agustín Echavarría ([email protected]) before September 1 2020. The workshop sessions will consist of 45-minute presentations, each followed by a 20-minute response by an appointed respondent, and 25 minutes for Q&A. Authors of submission not accepted to be read at the workshop may be asked to give a response to another paper.

Deadline for submissions: September 1 2020.

Notifications: September 15 2020.

Full Drafts: November 1 2020.

We expect to be able to cover accommodation expenses for the speakers whose papers are accepted. 

In case of a Covid-19 new outbreak, the workshop (or at least some sessions) will be held via Zoom or another similar platform.

The workshop is organised by the Research Group on Philosophical Theology at the University of Navarra, and funded by the research project “The Problem of Evil: From Leibniz to Analytic Philosophy of Religion” (FFI2017-84559-P) of the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation.