Report from Madison

Hello everyone. My apologies for the belated report from Madison, where the First Annual Metaethics Workshop was held last weekend. For starters, tremendous props go out to Russ Shafer-Landau for organizing the event and to David Copp, Nick Sturgeon, and one other person whose name I unfortunately did not catch for selecting a great group of workshop papers from among over one hundred submissions. Russ says he intends the workshop to be an annual event, and if it is, I for one will be there every year. It was a great pleasure for me to be able to meet for the first time Alan Gibbard, Michael Smith, Dan Jacobson, Justin D’Arms, Mike Ridge, Russ, Ralph Wedgwood, Mark Timmons, Terry Horgan, and fellow PEA Soupers Ben, Jason, Kyle, and David, among many others. It was also great to hear Michael Smith mention PEA Soup during his Keynote Address on Friday evening. (Well, actually, he called it “Doug Portmore’s blog,” but none of Doug’s fellow PEA Soupers take offense–we’re just grateful for plug, Michael!) I heard a rumor that the workshop next year will be moved earlier to a weekend in September. I hope it is not–the crisp, cool, windy, 50-degree weather and the red and orange leaves brought back great Fall memories from this transplanted New Englander’s youth! I hope to comment over the next few weeks on some of the points that were raised in papers at the workshop. Since the papers presented were technically workshop papers (and, hence, in theory at least, papers in which presenters were still working out their ideas), I set for myself a rule that I won’t blog about anyone’s substantive points unless I first get permission from the author to do so. Having said that, there are still a great many points that are worthy of discussion, so you are all welcome to comment.