CONF – Responsibility, Psychopathology & Stigma (ERC NeuroEpigenEthics; online)

From Jo Bervoets:

Registrations are open for this conference which will be held online September 9th-10th. For a provisional program, see below.

Registration is free. If you want to attend, please mailto: jo.bervoets@uantwerpen.be. Zoom details will be sent to all registered participants a couple of days before the conference.

The conference is organized by the University of Antwerp’s Department of Philosophy, the KU Leuven’s Institute of Philosophy and the ERC Starting Grant Project NeuroEpigenEthics.

The main aim of the conference is to cross-fertilize research in what are up to now separate fields. On the one hand there is the blooming field where philosophy of responsibility meets theories of psychopathology, specifically addressing the question to what extent and in what way people diagnosed with a mental illness are to be excused for certain behaviours. On the other hand, there is an interesting line of psychological research on the link between stigma and neurological explanations of psychopathology.

We have selected 7 abstracts from 3 continents, considering the cases of delusions, autism & ADHD, as well as addressing topics as diverse as neurodiversity, Strawsonian approaches to responsibility and 4E approaches to mental illness. In addition to the keynote speakers, this allows us to present the following program that will be finalized by the end of July, and will be published on our conference web page by the end of July.

– Thursday September 9th:

09:00-10:00 AM: Prof N. Haslam, University of Melbourne (45’+15′)
10:20-13:00 AM: 3 selected abstracts

15:00-16:00 PM: Prof. H. Pickard, Johns Hopkins University (45’+15′)
16:20-18:00 PM: 2 selected abstracts

– Friday September 10th:

09:00-10:00 CEST: Prof. M. Sie, University of Tilburg (45’+15′)
10:20-13:00 CEST: 2 selected abstracts + closing talk by one of the organizers

15:00-16:00 CEST: open discussion/further work/follow-on conference

Unfortunately, Prof. V. McGeer of Princeton University had to cancel her keynote because of a personal issue. We have added a closing talk by one of the organizers as a replacement.

We’ll maximally record the presentations and put the recordings on our NeuroEpigenEthics YouTube channel, conditional on the presenters consenting to this for their talk.

Although the conference will be conducted online, the option is provided for participants to attend the conference physically at the University of Antwerp. These participants will follow all the presentations via Zoom in rooms provided by us and will, in between talks, be able to physically interact during breaks and lunch. If you are able and willing to attend physically in this way, please mention this explicitly in your registration mail.

The Organizing Committee: Prof. K. Schaubroeck (UA), Prof. P. Adriaens (KUL), Prof. K. Hens (NeuroEpigenEthics), Jo Bervoets (NeuroEpigenEthics)