domingo, 24 de março de 2013

Chamada: "Real Legitimacy" e "Health Promotion"

O centro de teoria política da Universidade de Manchester (MANCEPT) abriu dois processos de submissão de trabalhos para seus famosos "workshops" em teoria política. O primeiro deles, "Real Realist Legitimacy" procura discutir as relações (pouco teorizadas) entre filosofia política e estruturas reais de poder . O segundo, "Incentives in Health promotion: the Ethics and Politics of Healthy Choices", procura discutir quais os limites para a intervenção (por meio de incentivos por exemplo) nas decisões pessoais sobre saúde e bem-estar. Ambos os eventos possuem o mesmo prazo: 24 de maio.


Call for papers: Real Realist Legitimacy

A MANCEPT Workshop in Political Theory, convened by Robert Jubb and Enzo Rossi
4th – 6th September 2013, University of Manchester, UK
The current realist movement in political theory promises to change the way in which we approach first-order normative questions. It suggests that mainstream political philosophy is overly reliant on pre-political moral beliefs and so fails to adequately engage with the reality of politics. Politics is about the coercive provision of structuring orders rather than conforming to moral ideals, which its tools and problems may make impossible anyway. However, what difference does this make to the prescriptions that normative political philosophy aims at making? Some realists urge that political philosophers should turn their attention from the contemporary concern with the allegedly moral issue of justice to questions of the properly political virtue of legitimacy; questions of legitimacy should override the traditional contemporary concern with justice; others, noting that moral ideals are not discovered or created in political or historical vacuums, press charges of false consciousness, obfuscation and ideology on liberal-democratic thought. These arguments are clearly connected. But do those insights actually produce radically different accounts of political authority? The aim of this workshop is to move the realist current beyond methodological debates and into normative theorising, with particular attention to the issue of legitimacy and its connection to the problem of ideology. What would taking the historical specificity of political problems and the resources available to solve them mean, and how  would this differ from more directly moralised accounts?
We would particularly welcome papers on the relationship between legitimacy and
ideology, and their connections to justice, democracy, modernity, collective responsibility, and related topics.
Please send a 300-word abstract to R.Jubb@ucl.ac.uk and enzo.rossi@newport.ac.uk by 24 May 2013.
General information on the MANCEPT Annual Workshops: http://manceptworkshops2013.wordpress.com/

Call for papers: “Incentives in Health Promotion: The Ethics and Politics of Healthy Choices”

A MANCEPT Workshop in Political Theory, convened by Richard Ashcroft (Queen Mary, University of London) and Jurgen De Wispelaere (McGill University)
4-6 September 2013, University of Manchester
Behaviour shaping through incentives plays a major role in health and health promotion, and governments are increasingly interested in incentive technologies to counter what they perceive as poor health outcomes. On the one hand, poor health often results directly from people making “unhealthy choices” (smoking, no exercise, poor diet), and incentives to promote healthy choices are typically regarded as justified by their effect on health outcomes. On the other hand, we also know that many external interventions impact on individual or population health, and here too aligning the incentives of the relevant individual (e.g., organ donors) or corporate (e.g., tobacco firms or food and drinks industry) actors with the goal of health promotion appears justified.
Nevertheless, considerable disagreement persists over both the appropriate range of incentives and the particular mechanisms or tools best suited for the task. Regarding the former, we must question whether there are areas or aspects that should remain off-limits to incentivizing interventions; a concern related to the oft-debated public/private distinction in ethics and politics. Regarding the latter, recent controversies include the use of monetary incentives in an increasing range of health interventions, the debate between strict regulation and self-regulation (including the use of extreme penalties and even outrights bans), and most recently the importance of nudging technologies affecting the “choice architecture” of both individuals and health professionals. These issues raise many normative questions of relevance to heath ethicists, political theorists, social scientists and policy analysts, including the role of legitimate paternalism, stigma, manipulation, coercion, exploitation, distributive fairness and equality of regard, and more generally trade-offs between freedom and objective good in a liberal society.
In this workshop we invite papers that address general issues related to incentives in health promotion or a more targeted discussion of a particular incentive mechanism or a specific area of application within the health field. We welcome papers that take a philosophical stance but equally those that consider issues of policy application and governance.
Please send a 250-word proposal to r.ashcroft@qmul.ac.uk and jurgen.dewispelaere@mcgill.ca by 24 May 2013.
General information on the MANCEPT Annual Workshops: http://manceptworkshops2013.wordpress.com/