This is the latest interview in our Beyond the Ivory Tower series (you can read previous interviews here). For this edition, Diana Popescu spoke to Philippe Van Parijs, Hoover Chair of economic and social ethics at the University of Louvain. Van Parijs is the author of several books, including Real Freedom for All and Linguistic Justice for Europe and for the World. He is a founder of the Basic Income Earth Network, and chair of its advisory board. In May 2012, an article he published, ‘Picnic the Streets’, triggered a movement of civil disobedience which led to the decision to make Brussels’ central lanes car-free
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This is the latest interview in our Beyond the Ivory Tower series (you can read previous interviews here). Back in February, Aveek Bhattacharya sat down with Ciaran Thapar, a youth worker, educational consultant and author of the recent book Cut Short, which draws on his experience working with young people in London to analyse violence, inequality and criminal justice among other issues. Through the youth organisation, Roadworks, he delivers PATTERN, a storytelling workshop programme based on the themes of Cut Short. Thapar began mentoring young people as a Master’s student in Political Theory at the London School of Economics, and our interview explored the relevance of academic philosophy and the realities of disadvantaged young people’s lives.
This is the latest interview in our Beyond the Ivory Tower series, a conversation between Lisa Herzog and Albert Dzur
Albert Dzur is Distinguished Research Professor at Bowling Green State University, where his work focuses on citizen participation and power-sharing in criminal justice, healthcare, public administration and education.
Before becoming the president of the Belgian Francophone Socialist Party, Paul Magnette was a renowned scholar in the fields of EU studies and political theory. In addition to analysing the political regime of the European Union, the growing power of the European Parliament, and the issue of citizen participation in EU politics, he wrote a book on the thought of Judith Shklar and another on the history of the idea of citizenship. We met in September 2021 at the headquarters of the Socialist Party to discuss the influence of his academic training on his political activity, the challenges of shifting from theory to political practice, and the practical relevance of political theory. A new interview in our Beyond the Ivory Tower series.
This post originally appeared on LSE School of Public Policy’s COVID-19 blog on 3rd September. You can access this version here. Political Philosophy in a Pandemic: Routes to a More Just Future, the collection of essays discussed in this post, is out this coming Thursday (23rd September)!
Aveek Bhattacharya (Social Market Foundation) and Fay Niker (University of Stirling), co-editors of a new book on the ethics and politics of the COVID-19 pandemic and our response to it, introduce some of its ideas.
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Back in April 2020, in the period we now look back on as “the first lockdown”, we gathered together some early reflections from philosophers and political theorists on the ethical dimensions of the developing COVID-19 pandemic. We published these on Justice Everywhere, the blog we help to run. Experts from almost every academic field – epidemiology, statistical modelling, social psychology, economics – were turning the tools of their trades to the growing crisis. What, if anything, did we and our peers have to offer?
Several Justice Everywhere authors have been involved in a book project about the ethics and politics of COVID-19. The volume, Political Philosophy in a Pandemic: Routes to a More Just Future (Bloomsbury 2021), is a collection of 20 essays covering five main themes: (1) social welfare and vulnerability; (2) economic justice; (3) democratic relations; (4) speech and (mis)information; and (5) the relationship between crisis and justice.
The second of three chapter previews that we’re releasing in the run up to the book’s publication next week comes from Adam Swift, who contributed a chapter to the final theme on the relationship between crisis and justice. His chapter, Pandemic as Political Theory, takes a step back to consider what the COVID-19 crisis reveals about the nature of politics and political theory in general.
While Justice Everywhere takes a short break over the summer, we recall some of the highlights from our 2020-21 season.
Here are three good reads on issues relating to public philosophy that you may have missed or be interested to re-read:
- In From Armchair to Engaged Philosophy, Nicolás Brando reflects on the the benefits of philosophers directly engaging with their subjects of research throughout the whole research process – applying this to children as the subject of an important strand of recent and current philosophising. Nicolás’s post references Diana Popescu’s interview with Jo Wolff, which discusses the idea of “engaged philosophy”, published as part of our Beyond the Ivory Tower series.
- Anh Le’s post, which addresses the question: Should Academics also be Activists?
- Lisa Herzog’s interview with Rowan Cruft, the latest in our Beyond the Ivory Tower series, in which they discuss his public philosophy, and in particular his contribution to the Leveson Inquiry into the practices and ethics of the British media.
This is the first interview of this year from our Beyond the Ivory Tower series (you can read previous interviews here). Last October, Lisa Herzog spoke to Rowan Cruft about his public philosophy, and in particular his contribution to the Leveson Inquiry into the practices and ethics of the British media.
Rowan Cruft is a Professor in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Stirling. His research focuses on the nature and justification of rights. In 2012, he offered evidence to the Leveson Inquiry on the nature of ethical journalism and the public interest.
With the 2020-21 year upon us, Justice Everywhere returns this week for a new season!
This last year has been the most successful on the blog to date. As our “From the Vault” posts over recent weeks have highlighted, we launched some excellent new ventures last year – our Beyond the Ivory Tower Series, our special focus on Philosophy during Coronavirus, and our ongoing collaboration with Journal of Applied Philosophy. We also have a superb team of house authors, and have been lucky to receive lots of great guest posts – altogether contributing analysis of a vast array of issues in moral and political philosophy, as well social policy and political economy.
We welcome back all of these features – and more! – for the 2020-21 season. Justice Everywhere will continue in its aim to provide a public forum for the exchange of ideas regarding what morality asks of us, and to emphasise that injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.
So please follow us, read and share the posts on social media, and feel free to comment on posts (using the comment box at the bottom of each post). If you have a suggestion for a topic or would like to contribute a guest post on a topical subject in political philosophy (broadly construed), please feel free to get in touch with us at justice.everywhere.blog@gmail.com.
We very much look forward to this new season and to discussions about the array ethical issues that face the world in 2020, and we hope you do too!
While Justice Everywhere takes a break over the summer, we recall some of the most memorable posts from our 2019-2020 season. This post focuses on the successful launch of our Beyond the Ivory Tower interview series.
The Beyond the Ivory Tower series seeks to explore the relationship between academic political theory and ‘real politics’, by talking with figures who have – in the course of their careers – managed to bridge that divide. As stated in our introductory post, “their stories are interesting in their own right [but additionally they] help us to understand the position of political theory today, and how other political theorists might achieve wider impact.”
The series is comprised of four interviews so far:
- Baroness Onora O’Neill: Emeritus Honorary Professor at the University of Cambridge and cross-bench member of the British House of Lords.
- Professor Marc Stears: Director of the Sydney Policy Lab and previously Chief Speechwriter for the then-leader of the UK Labour Party, Ed Miliband.
- Professor Jonathan Wolff: Alfred Landecker Professor of Values and Public Policy at the Blavatnik School of Government at the University of Oxford.
- Rebecca Lowe: Founding director of FREER, a think tank dedicated to promoting social and economic liberalism, and doctoral student at King’s College London where she’s researching Lockean justifications of private property.
Stay tuned for more interviews in this ongoing series in our 2020/21 season!
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Justice Everywhere will return in full swing on 7th September with fresh weekly posts by our cooperative of regular authors. If you have a suggestion for a topic or would like to contribute a guest post on a topical subject in political philosophy (broadly construed), please feel free to get in touch with us at justice.everywhere.blog@gmail.com.