Beyond Primary Goods
How should we distribute atypical goods of justice?
The Third Munich Workshop in the Philosophy of Institutions
February 14th – 16th, 2018
International Graduate Student Workshop at the Technical University of Munich/ Bavarian School of Public Policy, Munich, Germany
While Justice Everywhere takes a break over the summer, we recall from our archives some of our memorable posts from 2016-2017.
Here are four good reads in democracy and politicians that you may have missed or be interested to re-read:
Aveek Bhattacharya’s ‘What should voters look for in their politicians?‘
Jesper Pedersen’s ‘Should MPs be subject to mandatory deselection?‘
Miriam Ronzoni’s ‘Germany and European Solidarity‘
Luke Ulas’ ‘Why are you more angry about Trump’s state visit to the UK than about visits from leaders of China and Saudi Arabia?‘
While Justice Everywhere takes a break over the summer, we recall from our archives some of our memorable posts from 2016-2017.
Here are four good reads in economic ethics that you may have missed or be interested to re-read:
Anca Gheaus’ ‘There is too much division of labour‘
Lisa Herzog’s ‘If everything is measured, can we still see one another as equals?‘
James Hickson’s ‘Freedom for Uber Drivers‘
Mirjam Muller’s ‘Are Sweatshops Drivers for Gender Equality?‘
While Justice Everywhere takes a break over the summer, we recall from our archives some of our memorable posts from 2016-2017.
Here are four good reads on matters of academic practice that you may have missed or be interested to re-read:
Mollie Gerver’s ‘Blind Reviewing for Workshops‘
Bruno Leipold’s ‘6 Tips for Graduate Political Theory Students‘
Maeve McKeown’s ‘Support for Early Career Researchers, Increase Diversity‘
Andrew Walton’s ‘Writing a Good Referee Report for a Journal Article‘
22nd and 23rd June 2017
The Durham Centre for Political Thought in collaboration with the Global Politics Masters Programme and Global Policy Institute are set to host a 2 day workshop next week to discuss questions of global justice, democracy, power and legitimacy.
The event ‘Global Justice Meets Global Democracy’ is organised by Elizabeth Kahn and Luke Ulas and will take place on the 22nd and 23rd of June at Elvett Riverside 1 (ER148). The workshop will consist in the presentation of ‘work in progress’ papers given by a number of invited speakers, followed by a pre-prepared responses and broader discussion.
Guest editors Julian Culp (Frankfurt) and Danielle Zwarthoed (Louvain)
Submission of abstracts: asap
Submission of papers: October 15, 2017
Direct enquiries and submissions to: Culp@em.uni-frankfurt.de ; Danielle.Zwarthoed@uclouvain.be
Following upon the special issue Refugee Crisis: The Borders of Human Mobility (December, 2016), The Journal of Global Ethics introduces a special issue concerning the responsibilities for education that pertain to international migration. The Journal of Global Ethics invites scholars and practitioners from the disciplines of education, economics, law, philosophy, political science sociology and other fields to submit articles for review.
Labour Market Injustice
Labour markets are rife with questions of justice. This series of blog posts; explore cases of injustice, highlight theoretical puzzles and point towards possible solutions. They emerged from debates at the ‘Labour Market Injustice’ Workshop co-hosted by Newcastle and Durham Universities and generously sponsored by the Society for Applied Philosophy. In this fourth post Sarah Goff discusses bearing the costs of maternity leave.
In a 2004 interview, Donald Trump described pregnancy as an “inconvenience” for business. Whether or not this remark reveals anything about President Trump’s intentions for his promised reforms to maternity leave in the U.S., it seems plausible as a statement of fact. For a business, it often will be an inconvenience for employees to have a legal right to take a leave of absence and return to their positions without penalty. Of course, the cost of providing paid leave is additional to any costs incurred from the inconvenience of the leave-taking itself.
Observing that there are costs to maternity leave does not imply new mothers lack a moral right to take it. The observation simply raises the question of who is responsible for bearing these costs. The case for employers to provide paid maternity leave is less strong than the case for employers to accommodate new mothers in taking a period of leave with a right to return to their jobs. While only employers can bear the cost of the inconvenience to business, there are many feasible arrangements for other actors to bear the costs of providing financial support during maternity leave. In fact, there is substantial variation across societies in: public provision for paid maternity leave, legal mandates on employers to provide paid leave, employers’ provision of paid leave in excess of legal requirements (particularly in high paying industries where there is a business interest in retaining skilled employees), and social and cultural practices of support for new parents from extended families and kinship networks.
Labour Market Injustice
Labour markets are rife with questions of justice. This series of blog posts explore cases of injustice, highlight theoretical puzzles and point towards possible solutions. They emerged from debates at the ‘Labour Market Injustice’ Workshop co-hosted by Newcastle and Durham Universities and generously sponsored by the Society for Applied Philosophy. In this second blog post Ben Sachs offers reasons to be wary of the campaign for a living wage.
Those who support the Living Wage Movement (LWM) no doubt have their heart in the right place. They support the LWM because they care about the poor or specifically the working poor. However, the LWM is going to divide poor people against each other and thereby undermine their ability to effectively advocate for their own cause. And as to the working poor specifically, the LWM will harm them by misleading people into thinking that they don’t exist.
As we all know, the current reality is that many full-time workers don’t earn enough money to live a decent life—at least not without the state’s help. Fortunately, the working poor are eligible for various state-sponsored programmes, such as the Universal Credit and the Child Benefit (in the U.K.). The crucial thing to notice, though, is that the non-working poor are eligible for those programmes too.
(more…)Labour Market Injustice
Labour markets are rife with questions of justice. This series of blog posts explore cases of injustice, highlight theoretical puzzles and point towards possible solutions. They emerged from debates at the ‘Labour Market Injustice’ Workshop co-hosted by Newcastle and Durham Universities and generously sponsored by the Society for Applied Philosophy.
In this first blog post James Hickson explores how the growth of the platform economy affects the values of freedom and independence. Does the rapidly changing nature of work signal a need to debate how we should understand workplace freedom in the first place?
In April 2016, Travis Kalanick, the CEO and co-founder of Uber, published a blog post defending the company’s classification of their drivers as “independent contractors” rather than standard employees. Kalanick argued that drivers choose Uber “because they want to be their own boss. Drivers value their independence—the freedom to push a button rather than punch a clock, to use Uber and Lyft simultaneously, to drive most of the week or for just a few hours”. Kalanick even quoted one driver who claimed “I would quit if they tried to make me an employee, because I value my freedom as an independent contractor too much”.
Thomas Swann is a Research Associate at Loughborough University working on an ESRC-funded project examining rule-making and constitutionalising in anarchist politics. He has a PhD in management and a background in social and political philosophy. His research explores the connections between anarchism and organisational cybernetics, aiming to develop ‘anarchist cybernetics’ as a framework for understanding radical left social movement organisation. His is the final post in the series:
Ethics in Academic Events
As theorists of justice and professional ethicists we are used to scrutinizing the practices of others. Is it not about time that we turned our analytical skills and discerning moral sensitivities on ourselves? Inspired by discussions at the closing of the workshop ‘Global Justice and Global Health Ethics Exploring the Influence of Iris Marion Young’, this series of posts seeks to examine our own actions and practices and explore the moral dilemmas of the academy.
In September of this year, the Anarchist Studies Network (ASN) conference agreed upon a draft safer spaces policy for future events. Among other things, the safer spaces policy, called for participants to avoiding making assumptions about people’s gender, be aware of being part of a privileged group, make sure discussions of traumatic subjects are entered into with care and reject racist or sexist language.
Documents like this that are designed to govern behaviour in academic spaces have become controversial over the last year or so. Claims are often made that safer spaces policies (‘safer’ rather than ‘safe’ because insecurity can never be eliminated entirely) are akin to censorship and that they wrap people in protective cotton wool.
