Many Apologies for Cross Posting
**************************

You may be interested in the following conference

Conference Announcement and Call for Papers

The Ethics Of Building
A Multidisciplinary Conference
Saturday 10th - Monday 12th April 1999

The University of Central Lancashire, Newton Rigg Campus
Penrith, The Lake District

Organised by :	The Centre for Professional Ethics
University of Central Lancashire

Keynote Speakers include:
Christopher Day, ecological architect, author of Places of the Soul;
Warwick Fox, Senior Lecturer in Philosophy, Centre for Professional
Ethics, University of Central Lancashire, author of Toward a
Transpersonal Ecology; Herbert Girardet, cultural ecologist, writer and
film maker, author of The Gaia Atlas of Cities; Paul Oliver, Director of
the Centre for Vernacular Architecture Studies, Oxford Brookes
University, editor of the Encyclopedia of Vernacular Architecture of the
World; John Whitelegg, Professor of Environmental Studies, Liverpool
John Moores University, co-author of Greening the Built Environment; Tom
Woolley, Professor of Architecture, Queens University, Belfast,
co-author of the Green Building Handbook and editor of Green Building
Digest.

Conference Aims
Environmental problems have given rise just in the last two decades or
so to the now flourishing field of environmental ethics.  But even
though the world around us - -the environment- - consists of both
spontaneously occurring and humanly constructed environments - or
-natural- and -built- environments - environmental ethics has thus far
been overwhelmingly focused upon issues relating to the spontaneously
occurring -natural- environment.   This conference aims to address this
-built environment blind spot- by creating an informed interdisciplinary
forum in which to:
(i) initiate the debate on the ethical dimensions of building in all its
forms
(ii) contribute significantly towards establishing an agenda for the
future development of these issues, and
(iii) hopefully, propose some tentative solutions to the kinds of
questions that arise when we contemplate the ethics of building.

Who Should Attend
This conference will be of interest to architects, builders, ecologists,
environmentalists, environmental managers, human geographers,
phenomenologists, philosophers (especially ethicists), town planners,
politicians, and other people with an interest - initial, developing, or
passionate - in ethics and/or building.


Papers
We are now calling for papers on the ethics of building to develop this
new field of inquiry.  Papers should address questions of the following
kind:

(i) What kinds of building should we be engaged in?  What kinds of
buildings, towns, cities, and so on should we create - and why?   In
particular, are there certain kinds of morally relevant virtues,
principles, or outcomes that we think our building/s should express,
instil, adhere to, or promote?  What are they?

(ii) Can we talk about the ethics of building as a matter of concern in
its own right (as opposed, say, to the aesthetics of building)?  That
is, do moral obligations/considerations attend the process of building
and the establishment of buildings (right down to questions of design
per se) that transcend matters of aesthetic judgement or personal taste?
What is going on when a building seems so out of place that we think
there -ought to be a law against it-?   Is this just a figure of speech,
a gesture of disapproval, or does it tap into a concern that is
ultimately based on ethical foundations?

(iii) Can the questions raised by a consideration of the ethics of
building serve to illuminate questions concerning how we should regard
the -natural- environment (and thereby shed light upon central problems
in environmental ethics as it has been developed to date)?   And vice
versa?

(iv) Is there any possibility of developing an environmental ethic that
can be applied -across the board,- i.e., to any aspect of a moral
agent's environment, including other people, nonhuman animals, life
forms in general, ecosystems, and the built environment?

Criteria For Acceptance of Papers
Abstracts(maximum 300 words) should be forwarded as soon as possible and
no later than Friday 19 February 1999. Paper sessions at the conference
will last for one hour.  Presenters should aim to deliver their paper in
forty minutes at the most, leaving twenty minutes for discussion.

It is the intention to publish selected papers in an edited collection
entitled The Ethics Of Building (to be edited by Warwick Fox, Senior
Lecturer in Philosophy, Centre for Professional Ethics, University of
Central Lancashire).
Final conference papers/papers for publication should be no more than
4500 words including references.



Paper Submissions and General Enquiries

Liz Kelly, Centralan Consultants Ltd
University of Central Lancashire
Preston, PR1 2HE
Tel: 01772 892256, fax: 01772 892938 		
Email: [log in to unmask]

Conference Web site http://www.uclan.ac.uk/commerc/building.htm


%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%