The winning essay of the 2016 Robert Papazian Essay competition is ‘Equality, its Basis, and Moral Status: Challenging the Principle of Equal Consideration of Interests’ by Dr Federico Zuolo (Alexander von Humboldt Senior Research Fellow at University of Hamburg). The essay appears as the lead article of the current issue of IJPS. The author also receives a monetary prize of €1500. The theme for the 2016 competition was Equality. Dr Zuolo’s article focuses on the widely accepted principle of equal consideration of interests in animal ethics, originally formulated by Peter Singer. According to Singer, morality requires us to treat equally the relevantly similar or equal interests of individuals, regardless of what species they may belong to. The principle has been endorsed widely by those, working in animal ethics, who have egalitarian commitments. However, according to Zuolo, despite the intuitive appeal of the approach its conceptual foundations remain unclear. The arguments for the principle are not compelling because the requirement of giving equal consideration to interests cannot be an independent principle grounding equal treatment; rather, equal consideration must rely on some idea of equal status. The approach inspired by Singer, the article concludes, does not provide us with any argument for this more fundamental requirement of equality and hence does not give the principle a clear foundation or justification.
The referees praised the article for the clarity and carefulness of the argument.
About the Prize
The prize is established in memory of a young man executed for his ideas and political ideals. The winning entry receives a cash prize of €1500, publication in the journal, and promotion on the journal’s Taylor & Francis website.
Robert Papazian was born in an Armenian family in Tehran, Iran in 1954. He studied Politics and International Relations at École des relations internationales in Paris. Like many other Iranian political activists abroad, Robert returned to Iran in the summer of 1978, during the last months of the uprising against the Shah, to join the revolution. Subsequent to the establishment of the Islamic Republic of Iran, he continued his activities in Kurdistan as a political and theoretical instructor to a left wing opposition group. He was arrested in Tehran in February 1982.
In prison, Robert did not have access to a lawyer and was denied visits by friends and family members. Throughout interrogations in Evin prison, he remained steadfast in his ideals and refused to co-operate with the authorities. It is known through surviving prisoners that he also helped others to be strong and defiant.
Robert Papazian was executed along with a large number of other political prisoners in July 1982. He was buried anonymously in the mass graves of the Khavaran cemetery in the outskirts of Tehran. His parting words to fellow-prisoners were: ‘It’s not the number of years that counts but the effect of one’s life and death on others … Life in a broader sense continues…’
Call for Entries for the 2017 Robert Papazian Essay Prize
The topic for the 2017 Prize is Trust
Scholarly essays from all philosophical approaches – analytic, continental, and historical – dealing with the topic of trust, understood broadly, including in its moral, political, epistemic and social forms and contexts, are now invited. Please submit your paper by email directly to Professor Maria Baghramian at [email protected]
Terms and conditions
Submissions should not be under consideration for publication elsewhere and should not be submitted to any other journal until the outcome of the competition is known.
All submitted papers will be evaluated, in the first instance, by the journal’s editorial board. The top five papers will be nominated for the Prize and will be judged by a jury consisting of three members of the journal’s advisory board and an external referee. The jury will evaluate the papers on the originality of the paper, its engagement with the announced topic and the contribution it makes to scholarship in the field, the quality of the argumentation and conceptual clarity.
The decision of the jury will be final. There is only one prize per year and the jury reserves the right to award no prize at all if submitted material is not of an appropriate standard.
Runner-up papers will be considered for publication in IJPS.
Word limit: 6000–9000 words, including notes and references.
Closing date for submissions: 1 September 2017.
Please indicate clearly in the subject line that you wish to have the paper considered for the Essay Prize. Make sure that the essay is modified for double blind review, and that it has an abstract.
The winner of the 2017 prize will be announced in January 2018 via the IJPS website at www.tandfonline.com/riph as well as at other appropriate venues. The winning entry will be published as the lead article in Volume 26, Issue 2 of the International Journal of Philosophical Studies.
The annual prize of €1500 is sponsored by the Papazian family.
UCD School of Philosophy, University College Dublin, Ireland