[PHILOS-L] Call for Abstracts: Caring for Non-Humans (Prague, 12–14 Oct 2026)
Caring Conference Prague
CAUTION: This email originated outside of the University. Do not click links unless you can verify the source of this email and know the content is safe. Check sender address, hover over URLs, and don't open suspicious email attachments. |
Dear colleagues,
Call for Abstracts: Caring for Non-Humans: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Care among Animals, the Environment, and AI
in Prague (Czech Republic), 12–14 October 2026, hosted by the Center for Environmental and Technology Ethics–Prague (CETE-P), Institute of Philosophy, Czech Academy of Sciences. Website for conference here.
Care is a central concept across moral and political philosophy, animal ethics, environmental thought, and STS, but work on care for animals, ecosystems, and AI is still largely siloed. Meanwhile, ecological pressures, shifting human–animal relations, and rapid technological change are creating new practical and normative questions about how care should be understood, organized, and distributed under conditions of competing needs and limited resources. The conference brings together interdisciplinary work on care in more-than-human worlds, focusing on how care is conceptualized and practiced across animals, ecosystems, and artificial intelligence, especially under conditions of competing needs and limited care resources.
Central questions include: What grounds obligations of care? Which moral, scientific, political, or practical considerations matter when needs compete? How ought care be distributed when the interests of humans, animals, ecosystems, and artificial agents come into tension? We also encourage reflection on care as a relational practice shaped by interdependence in more-than-human contexts: how do animals, ecological systems, and AI challenge prevailing assumptions about agency and moral standing? Who cares for whom, how, and under what conditions?
Each day centers on one core theme:
Caring for Animals — Keynote: Maneesha Deckha (University of Victoria, Canada)
Caring for the Environment — Keynote: Christine Hentschel (University of Hamburg, Germany)
Caring for AI — Keynote: Patrick Butlin (Eleos AI, UK)
We welcome contributions from a wide range of disciplines and approaches (including philosophy, animal ethics, technology ethics, STS, sustainable AI, environmental humanities, cognitive and social sciences, political theory, and art). The event will be held in English, and we particularly encourage submissions from underrepresented groups and regions less visible in academic discourse.
Submission deadline: 30 April 2026
Please email the following to: caringconfe...@gmail.com
Anonymized abstract (250–500 words) for blind review (file name:
Anonymous_Title of your contribution_Caring Conf)Short bio + affiliation + contact details (max 100 words) (file name:
Your Name_Title of your contribution_Caring Conf)
Notifications: early June 2026. Selected papers (if not previously published) will be considered for a special journal issue or edited volume with a reputable academic press.
Best wishes,
Friderike Spang & John Dorsch
Center for Environmental and Technology Ethics–Prague
Institute of Philosophy, Czech Academy of Sciences.
Philos-L "The Liverpool List" is run by the Department of Philosophy, University of Liverpool https://www.liverpool.ac.uk/philosophy/philos-l/ Messages to the list are archived at http://listserv.liv.ac.uk/archives/philos-l.html. Recent posts can also be read in a Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/PhilosL/ Follow the list on Twitter @PhilosL. Follow the Department of Philosophy @LiverpoolPhilos To sign off the list send a blank message to philos-l-unsub...@liverpool.ac.uk.