Erin Cline, the Conference Organizer, has sent us this announcement of an upcoming conference at U. of Oregon where several of our newest JBers will speak:

Upcoming Conference on Virtue Ethics & Chinese Philosophy: Confucian Virtues at Work, March 2-3, 2008, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR
Based on the new volume, Working Virtue: Virtue Ethics and Contemporary Moral Problems (Oxford, 2007), this conference aims to extend the discussion of virtues in practice to the Chinese Confucian tradition. The plenary session will feature the editors of Working Virtue, with the plenary address given by Philip J. Ivanhoe (City University of Hong Kong) and a response and concluding conference remarks by Rebecca L. Walker (UNC-Chapel Hill). In addition, the two-day conference will feature six invited speakers who will apply the themes and issues explored in Working Virtue to Confucian philosophy. The speakers will be: Stephen C. Angle (Wesleyan University), Eric L. Hutton (University of Utah), Pauline C. Lee (Washington University), Aaron Stalnaker (Indiana University), Justin Tiwald (San Francisco State University), and Robin R. Wang, (Loyola Marymount University). Responses to the papers will be given by Oregon faculty from the disciplines of Philosophy, Religious Studies, and Chinese Studies. Those interested in attending are welcome to contact Dr. Erin Cline (conference organizer) for further information at: ecline@uoregon.edu.

“Confucian Virtues at Work” was held March 2-3 at the University of Oregon and the conference was a singular success. Conference papers explored a remarkable range of topics, virtues, and thinkers from throughout the history of the Confucian tradition, in each case offering an analysis of Confucian virtue-ethical approaches to practical contemporary moral problems. The first conference session featured three speakers, first, Professor Justin Tiwald (San Francisco State University) on “Neo-Confucian Life Fulfillment and the Moral Considerability of Animals,” a response to Rebecca L. Walker’s “The Good Life for Non-Human Animals: What Virtue Requires of Humans.” Professor Steven Shankman from the University of Oregon provided a response to the paper and discussion by conference participants and audience members followed. Professor Aaron Stalnaker (Indiana University) offered a response to Peter Koller’s “Law, Morality, and Virtue” in “Law and Virtue Revisited: Inspiration, Coercion, and Paternalism in Early Confucianism.” A response by Professor Matthew Wells from Eastern Oregon University and further discussion followed. The third speaker was Professor Robin Wang (Loyola Marymount University), who discussed understandings of the body in relation to the virtuous life in Chinese philosophy in “The Virtuous Body at Work: The Ethical Life as Qi in Motion,” with a response by Professor John Lysaker from the University of Oregon and additional discussion by conference participants and members of the audience.
The second session began with Professor Pauline Lee (Washington University) on “The Virtue of Desire,” particularly looking to the work of the Confucian thinker Li Zhi. Professor Mark Unno from the University of Oregon offered a response and further discussion followed. Next, Professor Eric Hutton (University of Utah) offered a response to Nel Noddings’ “Caring as Relation and Virtue in Teaching” in his paper, “A Confucian Perspective on Caring Teaching and Teaching Caring.” Professor Steven Durrant from the University of Oregon offered a response which stimulated further discussion among conference participants as well as audience members. Professor Steven Angle (Wesleyan University) brought the second session to a close with “A Productive Dialogue: Contemporary Moral Education and Neo-Confucian Virtue Ethics.” A response by Erin Cline from the University of Oregon and discussion by conference participants and members of the audience followed.
The conference culminated in the plenary session featuring the editors of the volume on which the conference was based, Working Virtue: Virtue Ethics and Contemporary Moral Problems (Oxford University Press, 2007), Professor Philip J. Ivanhoe and Professor Rebecca L. Walker. Professor Ivanhoe (City University of Hong Kong) offered the plenary address in the Admiral David E. Jeremiah and Mrs. Connie Jeremiah Lecture Series. His lecture, “A Confucian Contribution to Justice, Gender, and the Family,” offered a response to the contributions of and the questions raised by Susan Moller Okin’s influential work, arguing that Confucian views about the role the family plays in the cultivation of virtue and the relationship between the family and the larger social world offer helpful and productive ways to approach this set of problems, and that this paradigm has clear advantages over the classic liberal distinction between the private and public realms. Professor Rebecca L. Walker (University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill) offered a stimulating response to the paper and brought the conference to a close with her remarks about the role of justice in relation to applied virtue ethics. The plenary session drew an overflow crowd, with University of Oregon faculty and students, as well as members of the community in Eugene, OR, joining the conference participants in the audience.
Special thanks go to the cosponsors of the conference at the University of Oregon: the Center for Asian and Pacific Studies, College of Arts and Sciences, the Oregon Humanities Center, the Office of the Vice President for Research and Graduate Studies, and the Departments of Philosophy, Religious Studies, and East Asian Languages and Literatures, as well as to Oxford University Press and all of the conference speakers, respondents, and organizers, for helping to make this event such a success.

Erin,
Thanks for that detailed comment on the conference and speakers. It sounds really dynamic both in pushing forward applied virtue ethics, and in the Eastern and East/West comparative philosophers who participated. I'll look forward to readings some the the papers, and look to use your list to seek more philosophers with these interests as participants here.