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
The contest for leadership of the Scottish Labour party has re-opened an old debate: is it acceptable for egalitarians to send their children to private school? One candidate, Anas Sarwar, has come under criticism for sending his son to the £8,000 a year Hutchesons’ Grammar school in Glasgow. The row echoes similar controversies around left-wing figures, perhaps most prominently the Labour MP Diane Abbott, who claimed “it is inconsistent for someone who believes in a fairer and more egalitarian society to send their child to a fee-paying school”, and nonetheless opted to educate her son privately.
Much of the philosophical discussion on this point on this point centres around the limits of legitimate parental partiality – that is, to what extent are parents morally permitted to advantage their children over others? However, I want to approach the question from a different angle, and explore the morality of private school from a consequentialist perspective. For a given individual, would rejecting private school in favour of the state sector have a positive impact on the world? (more…)
In his kick-off contribution to the latest EUDO-Forum debate, Maurizio Ferrera engages with a challenging question raised by Rainer Bauböck in his State of the Union Address (5 May 2017, Florence): can the integrative functions of EU citizenship be enhanced and how? Ferrera identifies flaws of the EU citizenship construct, focusing on its social dimension, and concludes with “some modest proposals for ‘adding stuff’ to the EU citizenship container”. His proposals include a compensation of non-mobile EU citizens for the negative economic and social externalities of intra-EU mobility, i.e., of the mobility of workers in the EU. While I agree with much of what Ferrera says, I am unconvinced of this particular proposal. The argument presented here is a short version of the one published on the EUDO website. (more…)
The question of who can speak about what, about whom, with whom and for whom is at the heart of many recent controversies: Who has the right to speak on behalf of disadvantaged groups, e.g. sexual or racial minorities? Who should be invited to speak, e.g. on college campuses, who should be refused a stage? Have speakers with more extreme political positions, e.g. climate change deniers, a right to be listened to?
These issues are so difficult that I can hardly do justice to even just one aspect in this blogpost.[1] And yet, we cannot ignore them – arguably, they go to the heart of what political philosophy is all about. What I want to do is to reflect on two concepts, or metaphors, which have floated around in the debates: “identity politics” and “standpoint epistemology.” They point to deeper assumptions about who can speak for/with/about whom. Making these explicit might help us to move the discussion forward.
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‘
In recent years, there have been a number of notable news stories reporting the extent of Hollywood’s (and now the BBC’s) gender pay gap, whereby female actors tend to earn considerably less than their male counterparts. These stories generate conflicting intuitions. On the one hand, the unequal remuneration involved looks like a troubling case of gender injustice. On the other hand, there is something odd about the conclusion that these multi-millionaires are victims of distributive injustice: many people believe that the super-rich already have more than that to which they are entitled. This workshop considers the different themes that are at play in this apparent conflict of intuitions, such as discrimination, exploitation, sufficiency, feminism, the morality of markets, and expressivism. We invite any scholars working on these questions (or other ones that bear on the workshop topic) to attend.
Confirmed speakers include: Richard Arneson (UCSD), Clare Burgum (UNE), Susanne Burri (LSE), and Anca Gheaus (UPF).
If you would like to present a paper at this workshop, please send an abstract of 500-1000 words to David Axelsen (D.Axelsen@lse.ac.uk) by September 1st 2017. Presenters will be asked to pre-circulate a version of their paper one week in advance of the workshop.
This event is sponsored by the British Academy.
… and why Schulz could be the one
Saying that the right thing to do is for Germany to show more solidarity towards the European South is hardly news. But how can this be achieved in times of populism? In spite of the odds, Martin Schulz (the Chancellor candidate of the SPD) could play a surprisingly refreshing role in this respect.
From June 14th to June 16th, the Amsterdam Centre for Contemporary European Studies (ACCESS EUROPE) organised an international conference on “Solidarity and European integration”. In his contribution to the panel “European solidarity and justice: normative issues”, Andrea Sangiovanni presented his dispositional analysis of the concept “solidarity”. He defines solidarity as a (complex) disposition to sacrifice one’s own self-interest (narrowly understood) for the good of others. In order to distinguish solidarity from utilitarian altruism, love, enlightened self-interest, and fairness, he further specifies it as being a disposition to sacrifice that is impersonal, narrow, and person-directed. It is a disposition to sacrifice one’s own self-interest for the sake of overcoming an adversity faced by other member states or EU citizens. Such a dispositional analysis is, I believe, much more promising than, for instance, an analysis of solidarity as a mental state. It enables us to reach a better understanding of the conditions that are most conducive to the development of solidarity and the factors that hinder it. In this post, I develop some thoughts on how to address this issue in the European context. (more…)
