A collage of images, featuring most prominently a person holding a sign reading "no justice no peace"

Yearly Archive: 2019

Economics / Work

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Talents and Wages (Just Wages Series)

Andrew Lister’s post is the first in our four-part series on “Just Wages,” which will be running this month. 

Gregory Mankiw argues that those who are more productive should get a higher income not only as an incentive, but because this income is rightfully theirs (295). In a competitive market, factors of production are paid the value of their marginal product (32), which is the change in output associated with adding an extra unit of that input. Firms hire workers of a given type up to point at which the revenue the firm gains from hiring an additional worker is equal to the cost of that worker. Thus, in competitive equilibrium “each person’s income reflects the value of what he contributed to society’s production of goods and services.”  In this way, the theory of “just deserts” gives “a new normative interpretation” to the economic theory of competitive equilibrium (295).

Joe Heath responds that wages in a competitive market aren’t intrinsically fair. Wage-setting is not a unidirectional process from unequal skill and effort to unequal contribution to unequal wages. Where workers of a given skill-level are more abundant, they will be cheaper, and so hired for lower-value tasks, and so less productive even if equally skilled and diligent. The rationale for pricing labour according to supply and demand is that it directs people’s talents to where they can best be used, generating prosperity that can benefit everyone. As Heath says, “[t]he market has one job to do, and it does that job very well [allocating resources efficiently]. Producing ‘just’ wages, however, is not that job” (31). (more…)

Economics / Work

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On the Very Idea of a Just Wage (Just Wage Series Introduction)

In this post, Huub Brouwer and Thomas Mulligan introduce a four-part Justice Everywhere series on the question: What is a just wage? Over coming weeks, this will feature posts by Andrew Lister, Peter J. Boettke et al., Peter Dietsch, and Joseph Heath. 

In the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, smoldering questions about what just wages are, and whether markets are providing them, have erupted again. Some charge that unprecedented inequalities in income and wealth threaten national comity and are injustices in themselves. For others, regulation and egalitarian transfer policies are the real culprits, hampering efficiency and treading on property rights. Still others would like a world where people get what they deserve, and income and wealth come not through inheritance or social connections but effort and skill.

These are debates in the public sphere, but, of course, philosophers have discussed the nature and the possibility of a just wage for millennia. Plato, Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas, and Adam Smith—among many others—all grappled with the issue. But despite this timelessness, it seems to have new relevance now. (more…)

Academia / Democracy / General / Governance / International / MediaPhilosophy

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What would it take to turn Facebook into a democracy?

by Severin Engelmann and Lisa Herzog*

When the relation between “Facebook” and “democracy” is discussed, the question usually is: what impact does Facebook – as it exists today – have on democratic processes? While this is an urgent and important question, one can also raise a different one: what would it mean to turn Facebook into a democracy, i.e. to govern it democratically? What challenges of institutional design would have to be met for developing meaningful democratic governance structures for Facebook? (more…)

Academia

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Justice and “Contingent Faculty”

In this post, Matthew Adams addresses the question: What are the responsibilities of university faculty who have permanent positions to those who have contingent (or non-permanent) positions, if any? 

In the United States almost three quarters of American college-level teachers/researchers are “contingent faculty.” Contingent faculty is an umbrella term for part- and full-time non-tenure-track positions. These include adjuncts, non-tenure track instructors, graduate teaching assistants, part-time lecturers*, etc. Not all faculty who are classified as contingent faculty are equally disadvantaged. For instance, some non-tenure track instructors—in contrast to almost all adjuncts—have health insurance. However, one thing is clear: few (if any) academics would choose to be part of the contingent rather than permanent faculty, at least after they have completed their graduate studies and postdocs. (more…)

Academia

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Recent Vacancies in Political Theory/Philosophy/Ethics

Lecturer in Political Theory (Permanent), University of Essex (closing imminently)

Visiting Assistant Professor of Philosophy (Value Theory), Bowdoin College, Brunswick (closing imminently)

Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Information Ethics/Applied Ethics, The Ethics Institute and Department of Philosophy, Northeastern University, Boston (closing imminently)

Postgraduate Scholarships in Philosophy (MA and MPhil), University of Warwick (closing imminently)

(more…)

Liberty / MediaPhilosophy

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“Hackable” Humans and the Need for Philosophy

We are now facing not just a technological crisis but a philosophical crisis. (Harari)

I recently watched Nicholas Thompson’s interview with Yuval Noah Harari and Tristan Harris for WIRED. It’s wide-ranging and informative, particularly as regards the current ways in which our thought-leaders are discussing the so-called “technological challenge”: the revolutions in biotech and infotech, and their attendant personal, social, political, and even existential risks.

There’s much I’d like to comment on; but in this post I’ll pick up on one framing issue and follow a line of thought that speaks to the claim that we’re facing a philosophical crisis as much as a technological one. I’m all for the philosophical call-to-arms, so to speak; but I think that linking the “technological crisis” to the idea that this follows from a deeper, “philosophical crisis” is somewhat misplaced.

(more…)

Economics / Gender / International

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Technological Justice

Relaxed senior adult wearing eyeglasses works on a laptop computer at home.

At least in the developed world, technology pervades all aspects of human life, and its influence is growing constantly. Major technological challenges include automation, digitalisation, 3 D printing, and Artificial Intelligence. Does this pose a need for a concept of “technological justice”? If we think about what “technological justice” could mean, we see that the concept is closely connected to other concepts of justice. Whether we are talking about social justice, environmental justice, global justice, intergenerational justice, or gender justice – at some point we will always refer to technology. It looks as if a concept of technological justice could be useful to draw special attention to technology’s massive impact on human lives, although the respective problems of justice can also be captured by more familiar concepts. (more…)

Academia

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Call for Papers: Stanford Junior Scholars Workshop

Here is a call for funded (!) workshop for junior scholars at Stanford’s Center for Ethics in Society:

https://ethicsinsociety.stanford.edu/research-outreach/junior-scholars-workshop

An excerpt from the Call: “We are especially interested in scholarship in what might be called “interdisciplinary ethics.” Normative scholarship focused on issues like immigration, climate change, global poverty, and the governance of new technologies can benefit from engagement with the social sciences, law, engineering, and life sciences. We especially encourage submissions that bring relevant empirically-oriented scholarship to bear on normative questions and analysis.”

Very much in the spirit of this blog!