Canadian Journal of Practical Philosophy Vol. 3, 2019: Practical Ethics: Issues and Perspectives

Editors: Volume 3, 2019

• Philip MacEwen, Member-at-Large of the CSSPE/SCEEA (pmacewen@yorku.ca)
• Sandra Tomsons, Past-President of the CSSPE/SCEEA (sandratomsoms@gmail.com)

Each year, the CSSPE/SCEEA hosts a conference in conjunction with the Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences. The Congress is a unique academic event. Since 1930, it has brought together associations and societies from a wide variety of academic disciplines under one umbrella. The Congress meets annually on a Canadian university campus and the CSSPE/SCEEA has been of member of the Congress since 1987.

In keeping with the generous mandate of the Congress, the CSSPE/SCEEA is interested in practical ethics broadly construed. The name change for Volume 3 is simply another stage in the evolution of this interest. After conversations with the CSSPE/SCEEA Executive, the editors are proud to announce that Canada now has a journal of practical philosophy, the Canadian Journal of Practical Philosophy (CJPP).

Just as the CSSPE/SCEEA conferences cover a wide range of normative questions, so the CJPP invites submissions from scholars from all disciplines who are engaged in critical social, political, and economic questions. The authors of Volume 3 challenge conventional wisdom and decision-making, raising questions about the adequacy of established approaches and methods of thinking. The CJPP, like the CSSPE/SCEEA, is a platform where scholars who are rethinking old questions and/or asking new ones can share their ideas. The editors believe that the mandate of the CSSPE/SCEEA--“to promote the exchange of ideas among scholars, educators, and practitioners concerned with ethics, to encourage interdisciplinary discussion and research, foster education and practice, and contribute solutions to present and future problems in practical ethics” (CSSPE/SCEEA website, www.csspe.ca)--is a good starting point for the CJPP.

The papers in Volume 3 discuss questions of justice, care, and historical change within the framework of a variety of critical theories and show how this approach can lead, not simply to successful deliberation, but to appropriate action as well. The contributions of Elisabeth Fortier and David Malloy and Laila Khoshkar address important metaphysical questions about our notions of moral agency and the self. Bruce Morito and Sandra Tomsons consider vexing epistemological concerns in examining the bad consequences of certain well-intended policies and actions. Angie Wong explores the Canadian government’s recent penchant for issuing apologies as a means of atoning for past wrongs by settler colonials against Indigenous hosts and Chinese arrivants and how it has produced “a sorry state of affairs” for all parties concerned.

The papers in Volume 3 are a few of the excellent presentations given at the 2018 conference of the CSSPE/SCEEA, held in conjunction with Congress 2018, “Gathering Diversities,” at the University of Regina. One paper that has not been included, but which we want to mention, is David Collin’s “Generosity or Academic Dishonesty? Why Grade Inflation is Ethically Wrong.” David’s paper won the Don MacNiven Student Essay Prize for the best student paper presented at the 2018 Conference. When the editors contacted David to ask him to submit his paper for consideration, we were pleased, though not surprised, to learn that it is being considered for publication in the Harvard Educational Review. This is an indication of the quality of the student papers presented at our conferences.

The CJPP takes a mentoring approach to reviewing submissions from students. As a result, we hope that students will submit their papers so that we can publish the important work they are doing. In our experience, students often think that their papers need more work to warrant publication. Our most frequent comment on student submissions is: “This submission is ready for publication. We look forward to publishing your paper on an important topic which addresses some of the critical questions we think need to be raised.”

The papers in Volume 3 are ordered alphabetically according to the surname of the author but the reader is free to peruse them in any order deemed appropriate.

Readers are encouraged to develop their own responses to these contributions and, if possible, fashion them into papers and presentations for future CSSPE/SCEEA conferences. Indeed, formal endeavours in any area of practical ethics, pursued in the above spirit, will be considered. A selection of them will be published in future volumes of the CJPP.

Resources permitting, volumes on particular themes under the direction of guest editors are also planned for future publication.

If you would like to know more about the CSSPE/SCEEA or become a member, please visit our website at www.csspe.ca.