CFP: LMU Munich PPE Workshop: The Future of Work

Among the major social institutions of society is the way it organizes labor and production. Despite the fact that even a cursory glance at modern societies makes plain the importance of workplaces, firms, and (often unpaid) social reproductive labor, contemporary moral and political philosophers have only recently begun to treat work and labor as themes that merit significant philosophical reflection.

At the same time, the way in which labor is organized and governed has undergone radical changes. We work for apps, not bosses; from home, not in traditional workplaces. Similarly, many workers experience casualization and precarity connected to the decline of unionization and the resurgence of corporate power. The stability that industrial labor once promised (in theory, if not often in practice) is now, for many, gone. Artificial intelligence threatens to further transform the productive landscape, pushing us–some fear, and others hope–towards a post-work future. These developments have also been met with new forms of labor activism and resistance–pioneering efforts at unionizing food delivery workers, for example. They are also situated within complex global dynamics, marked by the emergence of new economic structures, such as global supply chain management, which have emerged as central to modern global economies.

At LMU Munich, we aim to explore the moral and political issues that arise as the organization of labor undergoes these seismic changes. We invite submissions on any topic relating to the general theme “the future of work”, including but not limited to the following topics:

●      Work and artificial intelligence

●      Platform work

●      Workplace domination and relational inequality at work

●      Workplace democracy

●      Meaningful work

●      Ownership, exploitation, and labor markets

●      Postwork, free time, and basic income

●      The duty to work and a postwork society

●      Feminism, care work, and the gendered division of labor

●      Work, human capital, and global justice

We are particularly interested in submissions that explore the connections between work and artificial intelligence and submissions which connect foundational debates in moral and political philosophy with applied social phenomena. We especially encourage submissions from individuals who are from groups that have historically been underrepresented in philosophy.

We may be able to offer some limited travel funding for participants without other funding options. If you are interested, please indicate this in your email.

Submissions should be in the form of an abstract between 500 and 750 words.

Confirmed Speakers: Anca Gheaus (CEU), Kate Vredenburgh (LSE), Tom Parr (Warwick), and Michael Cholbi (Edinburgh)

Submission: anonymized extended Abstract (500-750 words) for a talk up to 30 min.

Please send abstracts to [email protected].

Date of workshop: December 7 & 8

Deadline for submissions: June 1

Decision on acceptance: June 30

Organizers: Marius Baumann, Gloria Mähringer, Korbinian Rüger, & Daniel Sharp (with funding from the Center for Ethics and Philosophy in Practice, Chair in Philosophy and Political Theory, and the BIDT)