Crash PhD course on egalitarianism

June 25:

14h-15h30: Equality, Priority and Sufficiency
Egalitarians have often assumed that the most persuasive arguments for equality are instrumental, as arguments about equality’s intrinsic ‘stand alone’ value are unlikely to succeed. What I call ‘constitutive egalitarianism’ better articulates the value of equality and constitutes a more plausible defense.

16h-17h30: Equality of what?
This seminar will consider Dworkin’s claim that every plausible political theory exists on an ‘egalitarian plateau’, and whether the three standard egalitarian answers to the ‘Equality of what?’ question are substantial enough to count as egalitarian. It will also examine the claim that all of the metrics rely on preferences to some degree.

June 26:

14h-15h30: Luck egalitarianism
The seminar will consider the luck egalitarian discussion of the role of responsibility and contrast it with ‘social egalitarianism’, as developed by, amoung others, Anderson and Scheffler. We will consider whether the distinction between distributive and relational equality is an interesting one.

16h-17h30: Global egalitarianism
Most of the debate about egalitarianism has been concerned with domestic principles of justice. The seminar will consider whether global egalitarianism is feasible utilizing the example of climate change.

Registration:

This course is free of charge and open to PhD students from all disciplines provided that they commit to reading one piece of specific material for each of the four classes. The number of places will in principle be limited to 15. Prior registration is compulsory and should be done no later than May 10 through sending a mail to [email protected] with as subject "Registration Crash Course Moss". Students can get a certificate of attendance and write a marked essay if needed.