European Conference on Business and Economic Ethics
Heidelberg, 6 – 8 September 2007

The „Berlin Forum”, a network of PhD and post-Doc students in the field of business and economic ethics, is organising a conference on the subject „European Business and Economic Ethics: Is there a European business and economic ethics approach?“ The conference will take place from September 6 – 8, 2007 at and in cooperation with the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences and Humanities in Heidelberg (Germany). The focus of the conference will be academic rather than application-oriented. We are happy that renowned scholars like Adela Cortina (Universidad de Valencia, Spain), Luc van Liedekerke (Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium, and President of EBEN), Marcel Hénaff (University of California, San Diego, USA), Stefano Zamagni (Università di Bologna, Italy, and Johns Hopkins University, USA), Bernard Perret (Laboratoire de sociologie du changement des institutions Paris, France), Michael Wohlgemuth (Walter Eucken Institut Freiburg, Germany), Jan Tullberg (Stockholm School of Economics, Sweden) and Hans Joas (Max-Weber-Kolleg of the University of Erfurt, Germany, and Committee on Social Thought, University of Chicago, USA) have accepted our invitation and will appear as speakers at the conference.

We cordially invite you to contribute to the conference by handing in a paper on one of the following specific topics:

Senior and junior scientists from all fields in business and economic ethics are encouraged to contribute their ideas and thus take part in a trans-national dialogue on their specific research interest. In the sessions, different points of view will display the diversity of ethical traditions. Please spell out based on which ethical tradition(s) you look at the topic - for example: do you look at basic income theory from a liberal (a utilitarianist, a contractualist) point of view? Or do you do Kantian environmental ethics? Do you explain Corporate Social Responsibility based on Catholic or on Protestant social thought? Or maybe you choose virtue ethics to explain state-economy relations? These questions only serve as examples and do not claim to build an exhaustive list of possible ethical traditions. Any other ethical tradition is welcome. Knowing the traditional affiliations of the participants will allow us to structure the different sessions so that scholars from different ethical traditions can debate on the specific topics.

The parallel sessions will be organised in two units of 90 minutes each. Each unit will consist of two 25 min presentations, which will be followed by questions and discussion (40 min). The conference team plans on publishing selected papers in a collective volume.

Junior researchers whose papers are selected for a session in the dialogue part of the conference can apply for a grant if they can prove their neediness and if they do not get any financial support from their universities or similar institutions. Applicants from so-called developing countries and Eastern European countries will be given preferential treatment. When submitting your paper, please indicate whether you consider applying for a grant.

Formalia: