Mark D. White

Happy new year, everyone! Turns out I have a lot to say about the last several weeks, which were taken up largely by two national conferences–and a lot of time in airports and airplanes!

The last weekend of December was the Eastern Division meetings of the American Philosophical Association in Atlanta, my first APA in about ten years and also my first time presenting. Thanks to my good friend and collaborator Jennifer A. Baker and the American Association for the Philosophic Study of Society, I was able to present my work on Kant and economics, chiefly from my book Kantian Ethics and Economics and the planned follow-up on moral judgment. The audience of philosophers responded well and included Jan Narveson and one of my most important influences on Kant, Thomas E. Hill, both of whom I had the chance to talk with at length during and after the session. I had to leave the conference early, but I was able to attend the other AAPSS session as well as a panel focusing on Jerry Gaus' latest book, The Order of Public Reason: A Theory of Freedom and Morality in a Diverse and Bounded World.

The first weekend in January, as always, was the Allied Social Science Association (ASSA) meetings, this year in San Diego. These are always very busy meetings, especially the last couple years; as I did last year, let me share some of the highlights. (Many people are much busier at the ASSA meetings, I know, especially the graduate students and recent Ph.D.s interviewing around the clock!)

• I arrived in San Diego Thursday afternoon (January 6), settled in my hotel room for a bit before heading to the opening plenary of the Association for Social Economics (ASE), at which my Economics and Ethics co-blogger Jonathan B. Wight introduced Paul Zak, who spoke on "The Neuroeconomics of Trust," detailing some of his work on oxytocin and behavior. A reception followed, which gave me a chance to reconnect with my friends in the ASE before ducking out early (having been up since 1:30 AM California time!).
• After breakfast Saturday morning I chaired an 8:00 AM session for the ASE on "Dignity, Status, and Social Exchange," including my talk previewing my book-in-progress on law and social economics as well as my plans for next year's ASE/ASSA program (which I am putting together as president-elect for 2013).
• Following that session I went to the book exhibit and touched base with editors at various presses, including Oxford (where I met, for the first time, the UK economics editor with whom I've been discussing a volume on economics and virtue ethics to be co-edited with Jennifer Baker), Routledge (with whom I had a nice chat about future work), and Palgrave and Stanford (on whom more later). The rest of Friday afternoon was light, ending with the ASE membership meeting at which I presented my call for papers for the 2014 meetings (which I'll be posting online soon).
• Saturday started with the ASE's presidential breakfast, at which various officers of the organization announce awards and the previous year's president gives a presentation: this year it was Martha Starr, who gave a masterful overview of recent work on corporate social responsibility.
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  At 11:00 AM I returned to the Palgrave booth at the book exhibit for a meet-and-greet focused on my next book, The Manipulation of Choice: Ethics and Libertarian Paternalism, which will be out near the end of the month. I can't say the crowds were overwhelming but a number of old friends did stop by to chat, which is always nice, and the Palgrave folks were extremely supportive.
• After a 12:30 PM meeting of the editorial board of the Forum for Social Economics, I spoke at a session co-sponsored by the Union of Radical Political Economists and the International Association for Feminist Economists titled "Prospects for the Profession: Forecasting the Future of Economics." My presentation tried to link the incorporation of formal philosophical ethics into economics modeling with ethical behavior of economists themselves, urging reflection among economists about whether the means and ends of their professional activities as economists lived up to their own standards and ideals. It was not my best work, and it raised many tough but fair questions that will give me much to think about if I continue work on this theme. Happily, I had a chance myself to reflect as I unwound over a beer and a burger with an old friend (and editor) afterwards!
• Before I left for the airport Sunday morning, I had a wonderful breakfast with my Stanford University Press editor, during which we discussed books, movies, and eventually our work together, including ongoing efforts to promote Kantian Ethics and Economics and plans for the follow-up on moral judgment that I hope to start writing near the end of this year.

All in all, these were two wonderful conference experiences, which is ironic given my recent plans to cut back on conferences. (I did write something on this topic that I planned to post, but it ended up far too depressing.) But thinking back, those plans reflected the anxiety of not being prepared to speak rather than the rest of the conference experience. In short, I've found it very difficult to write something for a conference since most of my writing is oriented towards books these days–and even when I plan to discuss a book-in-progress, it's a matter of luck (or extremely good planning, which, y'know, ha!) whether I'll have part of a book ready for presentation when the conference rolls around. This ties into my talk at the URPE/IAFE session (as I noted at the time): this behavior doesn't just create anxiety and dread for me, but it lets down the people who graciously accepted my proposals or invited me to speak, and reflects a lack of professionalism on my part. Despite the positive experience at these conferences, I am rethinking how I participate in conferences; for instance, I had already decided not to submit a paper to the 2013 Eastern Economic Association meetings for which I organize a number of sessions.

To wrap up the book news after the ASSA conference:

• The Manipulation of Choice comes out later this month.
• I submitted the final proofs for Superman and Philosophy; pre-orders are encouraging if the Amazon sales rank is any indication, which is wonderful.
• I'm working on the law and social economics book as well as the secret project, both of which I hope I can finish by summer; I've begun carefully scheduling the first half of this year, trying to find a system that works. (I read a book on personal productivity recently, David Allen's Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity, and have started implementing his system, which makes a lot of sense to me–I highly recommend it.)
• While in San Diego I received reviewer comments on my follow-up to The Manipulation of Choice which were very positive and helpful, and to which I replied yesterday. (Not sure of the title yet, but people seem to like The Illusion of Well-Being.) Ideally I would start this book late this summer after the other two are finished, with the hope of having it done by the end of the year.
• My outline for the book on moral judgment (the follow-up to Kantian Ethics and Economics) is still a bit sparse, so I suggested to my Stanford editor that I might need to write a bit of it before submitting a proposal, to which she agreed. If everything else goes according to plan, I would start of this near the end of this year–just before the next ASSA meetings.
• The edited volume on economics and virtue ethics continues its progress at Oxford; the UK editor informed me he is very close to presenting our proposal, the reviewers' comments, and Jennifer's and my response, to his board.

Finally, I have no new blog posts to report since my last post, but I do hope to post regularly across my several blogs this year. (If I made resolutions, that would be my main one for this year.) I also want to make more time for reading books and articles other than what I need to write my books, which I'm sure will prompt ideas for blog posts. So I hope to have more blog activity to report here in the near future (including some reflections on writing and academic life at this very blog).