Ideal and Non-ideal Theories of Justice workshop

Workshop on Ideal and Non-ideal Theories of Justice

February 23rd-24th, 2018 University of Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal

Organised as part of the annual conference of the Horizon2020 research project ETHOS (Towards a European THeory Of juStice and fairness), funded by the European Union.

Confirmed participants:
Jo Wolff (Blavatnik Chair in Public Policy, Blavatnik School of Government, University of Oxford)

Sem de Maagt (Assistant Professor, Ethics Institute, Utrecht University)

Eva Kittay (Distinguished Professor of Philosophy, SUNY Stony Brook)

The three-year, inter-disciplinary ETHOS project seeks to formulate the building blocks for a European theory of justice that is normatively sound, reflective of European values, and responsive to empirical data about citizens' views on justice and experiences of injustice. The inter-disciplinary and partially empirical nature of the ETHOS project, as well as the focus on a "European" theory of justice, raises philosophical questions about the proper role of empirical data in reasoning about justice, and about how a theory of justice might be tailored for a European context. This leads us into the domain of non-ideal theory.   

At this workshop on Ideal and Non-ideal Theories of Justice (first session starting around 3:30pm Friday afternoon, then continuing through the day on Saturday), we will discuss work in progress on the role of ideal theory, different ways in which theories of justice can be non-ideal, and methods in political theory other than ideal theorizing. The organizers seek to reach an assessment of the state-of-the-art in non-ideal theorizing about justice, and formulate recommendations for our ETHOS collaborators, policymakers and others. We also hope that the workshop papers will provide the basis for a special issue in a philosophy journal on ideal and non-ideal theory.  

Eva Kittay will give a plenary talk to the ETHOS annual conference to which workshop participants are warmly invited, following the first workshop session on Friday afternoon.

Organizers

Miklos Zala (Post-Doctoral Researcher, Central European University)

Bert van den Brink (Dean, University College Roosevelt, and Professor of Political and Social Philosophy, Utrecht University)

Simon Rippon (Associate Professor, Philosophy and School of Public Policy, Central European University)

If you wish to participate as a speaker, please submit an abstract of 200-400 words to Miklos Zala:

[email protected]

Registration required. Please email Miklos Zala to register.

Deadline for abstracts and for registration: January 15.