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

Category: General

General / Work

 by 

Replying to the reverse discrimination objection: a context-depended argument rather than an abstract one

Last month, Magazine Luiza, a Brazilian department store that specialises in selling electronics and home items, published a trainee call intended only for young and black candidates. According to Luiza Trajano, president of the administration council, this initiative could prove a better anti-discriminatory policy than other programmes adopted by the company in the past (they currently have 53% of blacks in its staff. But only 16% of them hold leadership positions). Luiza Trajano’s company seeks to ensure more diversity in top positions whilst, at the same time taking action against structural racism in Brazil. The company’s new trainee programme, however, has been the subject of judicial action and criticism from a part of the general population, who claim that it embodies an unfair policy that discriminates against white candidates. (more…)

Democracy / General / Governance / Moral values / Technology

 by 

The harm in fake news

During the last months, an enthralling debate on fake news has been unfolding on the pages of the academic journal Inquiry. Behind opposed barricades, we find the advocates of two arguments, which for the sake of conciseness and simplicity we can sketch as follows:

  1. We should abandon the term ‘fake news’;
  2. We should keep using the term ‘fake news’.

(more…)

Democracy / General

 by 

Propagandists, Degrees of Reliability, and Epistemic Nihilism

Reliability is a quality that comes in degrees. For example, a bus that always arrives exactly on time is highly reliable. A bus that often but not always arrives on time is somewhat reliable. A bus that rarely arrives on time is unreliable. People living in areas with public transit commonly discuss which among the less-than-perfectly-reliable modes of transport available are more or less reliable. In doing so, these people show they understand that reliability comes in degrees. They readily acknowledge that some imperfect modes of transport are more reliable than others.

Propagandists prefer their audiences ignore this level of nuance when assessing sources of information. A propagandist prefers that you perceive the propagandist as totally reliable while perceiving all other sources of information as totally unreliable. If this cannot be achieved, the propagandist would prefer that you view all sources as completely unreliable. At least then your decisions about whose claims to trust will rest on grounds other than the reliability of the source.  (more…)

Academia / General / Public Philosophy

 by 

Should Academics Also Be Activists?

The debate on the role of academics in a democracy has intensified in recent years with the rise of worrying trends in global politics. The election of Donald Trump in the US, for instance, has escalated racial tensions, worsened treatment of refugees, etc. The President himself has repeatedly expressed support for Neo-Nazi and white supremacy groups. The ruling parties in Poland, Hungary and Turkey have consolidated their power and continued imposing rules and espousing rhetoric that are inherently inimical to an inclusive democracy. The question is this: what should academics do when witnessing these events? Should we take an ‘activist’ role, effectively becoming academic-activists? Or should we remain neutral out of respect for objectivity? This post makes a case for the former proposition, advancing the case for academic-activists. But first, let me engage with the latter proposition – the neutral option – and show why the criticism from the ‘neutralists’ misses its target. (more…)

Academia / Distribution / Economics / Gender / General / Rights

 by 

“Level playing fields”: a misguided complaint about discrimination against well-off women

This is the third, and last, of a series of three posts about gender justice and conflicts of interest between women who belong to different classes. In the first post I argued that priority should be given to the worse off women: When a particular policy (which is otherwise justified) would benefit poor, or working class, women, there is a strong presumption in favour of that policy even if it would, at the same time, set back the interests of better off women. Many care-supporting policies are like this: The very mechanism that makes them work in favour of those women from low socio-economicbackgrounds who are saddled with care duties leads to the reinforcement of statistical discrimination and other biases against professional women. (more…)

Beyond the Ivory Tower / General / Public Philosophy

 by 

Welcome back: Launching our 2020-21 season!

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!

General / Governance / Health / International / Public Philosophy

 by 

From the Vault: Coronavirus

While Justice Everywhere takes a break over the summer, we recall some of the highlights from our 2019-2020 season. This post focuses on contributions relating to the COVID-19 crisis and its social and political fallout.

 

The coronavirus crisis has raised countless ethical and political questions, and in many cases further exposed injustices in society. The cooperative of authors at Justice Everywhere have been engaged in assessing many of these questions in recent months.

  • Our “Philosophers’ Rundown on the Coronavirus Crisis” collects succinct responses on 9 pressing questions concerning: the feasibility of social justice, UBI, imagining a just society, economic precarity, education, climate change, internet access, deciding under uncertainty, and what counts as (un)acceptable risk.

Other independent posts addressed a wide range of issues, including:

***

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.

Academia / Beyond the Ivory Tower / General / Governance / Public Philosophy

 by 

From the Vault: Beyond the Ivory Tower Series

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:

Stay tuned for more interviews in this ongoing series in our 2020/21 season!

***

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.

Distribution / General / Governance / Health / Liberty

 by 

The ‘new normal’: a Rawlsian approach

In this guest post, Helen Taylor discusses the advantages of applying a Rawlsian lens to assessing and responding to the impact of COVID-19 on society. 

COVID-19 and inequality

COVID-19 has had a remarkable impact on society, communities, and individuals’ lives. Few elements of everyday life have been unaffected by the pandemic. Two key elements of political theory – freedom and equality – have been a fundamental part of the lockdown experience.

The relationship between equality and the pandemic is complex. Two accounts have emerged. The first is an ‘equalising’ account: the pandemic has created a more even sense of equality in terms of what individuals are able to do. All individuals have experienced restrictions on their movement, who they can see, and what activities they can undertake.

The second is an ‘exacerbating’ account: the pandemic has categorically highlighted and exacerbated the existing inequalities in society. For example, regarding access to food, individuals and families who were reliant on foodbanks or free school meals to meet their basic needs faced substantially more precarity when access to these services was suspended. (more…)

Democracy / General

 by 

Democracy’s Unpluckable Feathers and Presidential Term Limits

In this guest post, Mark Satta discusses the importance of presidential term limits for democracy, and that popular resistance is crucial in enforcing them.

In her book Fascism: A Warning, former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright recounts that “Mussolini observed that in seeking to accumulate power it is wise to do so in the manner of one plucking a chicken—feather by feather—so each squawk is heard apart from every other and the whole process is kept as muted as possible.” We often think of dictatorships as arising from wars or coups, but Mussolini’s analogy vividly expresses how nations can slip from liberal democracies to illiberal autocracies through a series of small, incremental changes. (more…)