Workshop on Proportionality in Law and Ethics

Date and venue : Saturday 25 April 2009, Douglas Knoop Centre, University of Sheffield

Organiser:
Dr Christopher Bennett,
Senior Lecturer,
Department of Philosophy,
University of Sheffield,
Arts Tower,
Western Bank
Sheffield S10 2TN
(c.bennett@sheffield.ac.uk)

This workshop has been funded by the Society for Applied Philosophy and the University of Sheffield Centre for Criminological Research.

Programme

10.30-11.00 Arrival and coffee

11.00-12.30
Suzanne Uniacke (Philosophy, Hull), "Proportionality and Self-Defence"
Commentator: Alon Harel (Law, Jerusalem)
Chair: TBC

12.30-1.30 Lunch

1.30-3.00
Christopher Bennett (Philosophy, Sheffield), "Self-Defence and Proportionate Emotion"
Commentator: Demian Whiting (Health Care Ethics, Liverpool)
Chair: TBC

3.00-3.15 Coffee

3.15-4.45
John Gardner (Law, Oxford), "The Proportionality of Desert and the Proportionality of Emotion"
Commentator: Antony Hatzistavrou (Philosophy, Hull)
Chair: TBC

4.45-5.00 Concluding discussion

Rationale

This workshop will focus on the issue of proportionality in moral decision-making. Its aim will be to assemble a small invited group of researchers (about 25) who are interested in or have written about this area, as a way of beginning a larger research project or network on this issue.
The idea of proportionate response comes up in various seemingly quite separate areas, for instance: 1) the morality of self-defence, both in looking at moral considerations that underpin various connected defences in criminal law and in the related area of just war theory; 2) retributive justice and the ethics of sentencing in the criminal law; and 3) the philosophy of the emotions. Proportionality seems to be a critical principle in judging the adequacy of decisions and actions, yet it is poorly understood. By bringing together experts in these various areas we will review the way proportionality is understood in each, and also initiate a debate about whether there could be a unified account of what proportionality in ethics is and how it works.

Questions to be addressed might include:
• In what areas of law and ethics is the notion of proportionality relevant?
• Is something similar appealed to in each of these areas? If not, can we say why the notion seems appropriate in these different contexts?
• Do similar considerations arise in different areas in deciding whether or not some response would be proportionate?
• What are we saying about a response when we call it "proportionate"? Is it just a vague label of approbation or is there something more systematic going on?
• How can proportionality be accounted for by e.g. utilitarian, deontological or virtue-ethical traditions in moral philosophy?
• If proportionality is a viable moral notion, does this fact favour some moral philosophical traditions over others?
• How can a moral philosophical understanding of proportionality inform the law?
The workshop will provide the opportunity to review the ways in which proportionality is understood by bringing together thinkers working on proportionality in self-defence, sentencing, and the emotions. It will also address the question of whether a unitary theory of proportionality in ethical decision-making is possible. And it will seek to lay the foundations for future shared research into this issue in the future.

Format

The workshop will involve three main speakers and three commentators. The main speakers´ papers will be circulated to workshop participants in advance and participants will be expected to have read them.