[Air-L] CFP - CEPE 2014 ­ Well-Being, Flourishing, and ICTs

[Charles Ess]

Dear AoIRists,

On behalf of the Joint Organizing Committee, I'm very pleased to pass along
the first CFP for CEPE (Computer Ethics: Professional Enquiry) 2014, on the
theme of: Well-Being, Flourishing, and ICTs.
Please distribute to appropriate lists and potentially interested
colleagues.

Joint Organizing Committee
  Elizabeth Buchanan (University of Wisconsin-Stout, US), Executive
Director, INSEIT (International Society for Ethics in Technology)
  Charles Ess (University of Oslo), Conference Chair; President, INSEIT
  Shalini Kesar (Southern Utah University, US), Program Chair
  Bernd Carsten Stahl (De Montfort University), Chair, ETHICOMP Steering
Committee
  Jean-Gabriel Ganascia (University Pierre et Marie Curie - Sorbonne
Universités)
  Max Dauchet (LIFL - Laboratoire d'Informatique Fondamentale de Lille)

Ethicomp and CEPE are major conferences in the field of computer/information
ethics. Previous CEPE conferences themes include intercultural ethics,
roboethics, social impacts of social computing, socio-technical and ethical
change in ICTs, and social responsibility and ICTs. ETHICOMP, the conference
series initiated in 1995 by Simon Rogerson and Terry Bynum, has likewise
focused on the ethical dimensions of computing technologies. To support the
missions of each entity, while providing a robust opportunity for innovative
collaborative research and scholarship, Ethicomp and CEPE will partner in
2014.

Our joint conferences will be hosted by CERNA (Commission de réflexion sur
l¹Ethique de la Recherche en sciences et technologies du Numérique
d¹Allistene). 

As well, the overlap day between the two conferences (Wednesday, July 25) is
co-sponsored by ACM SIGCAS (Special Interest Group, Computers and Society),
and will focus on gender and technology.

Background
Norbert Wiener¹s _The Human Use of Human Beings: Cybernetics and Society_
(1950) is a primary source for contemporary Information and Computing
Ethics. Wiener framed his reflections on the possible uses and benefits of
then newly emerging computational devices and networks within the key
ethical norms of human well-being and flourishing ­ the defining norms of
virtue ethics. Contemporary computers and computer networks increasingly
pervade and shape our lives, dramatically enhancing our communication
capacities: they thereby foreground and amplify ³the networked self,² i.e.,
our sense of selfhood, identity, and agency (including moral agency) as
increasingly relational and interwoven with one another.  Such relational
senses of identity, selfhood and agency are in fact the beginning point of
virtue ethics in its diverse expressions and traditions globally.  Wiener¹s
foundational framework has thus proven to be profoundly prescient.

But certainly, there are multiple ethical frameworks within which questions
of ³the good life² ­ as focusing on our well-being and flourishing as human
beings ­ may be couched. At the same time, alongside the undeniable boons of
ICTs ­ recent developments such as the NSA surveillance scandals make
critical reflection on the ethical, social, and political dimensions of
contemporary ICTs and their array of uses all the more urgent.

Accordingly, for CEPE¹14 we invite submissions ­ including panels ­ that
address these core concerns with well-being and flourishing in an age of
ICTs. We encourage research and reflection that approach these thematics
from a wide array of viewpoints and with attention to specific foci
including: 

  ICTs and development
  technosecurity and cyber-warfare
  robots and robot ethics for humans and humane lives;
  social computing
  global / cultural perspectives on ICTs and the good life

Important Dates 
30 November 2013: Latest date to submit abstracts to Easychair
25 January 2014:  Authors informed of programme committee decisions by this
date
5 April 2014: Last date for receipt of full papers from authors (electronic
version) 

Panels
Submission due: December 15th, 2013
Selection: February 15th, 2014

Submissions will be accepted via Easychair:
https://www.easychair.org/conferences/submission_new.cgi?a=5138535

Conference website: <http://cepe2014.org>

==
Thanks,
- charles ess

Professor in Media Studies
Department of Media and Communication

Director, Centre for Research on Media Innovations
<http://www.hf.uio.no/imk/english/research/center/media-innovations/>

University of Oslo 
P.O. Box 1093 Blindern
NO-0317 
Oslo Norway
email: charles.ess at media.uio.no