Filosofia

Pluralism and Conflict: Distributive Justice Beyond Rawls and Consensus

Type: International Conference

Institution: Fatih University

Location: Istanbul (Turkey)

Date: 6.–8.6.2013

Deadline: 1.3.2013

Following Rawls, the prevailing political thought aims at some form

of consensus about justice. Rawls conceives of this as a consensus

about an initial choice situation for principles of justice, as a

rational consensus about which principles to choose, or as an

"overlapping consensus", which a pluralist society should reach with

regard to the political conception of justice he proposes.

The idea of a consensus on justice was questionable from the

beginning. For some theorists this was made evident through Robert

Nozick's strong disagreement with Rawls's fundamental moral intuition

that the inequalities of natural endowments are undeserved and call

for social redress or compensation. Likewise, Rawls's idea that

individuals are equal as moral persons does not allow for a

consensus. Going back to Aristotle, John Kekes argued that people who

habitually harm others have a lower moral worth than people who

habitually do good. In this case, isn't Rawls's rationalist creed

that all persons should be convinced by the same arguments, and must

therefore reach a rational consensus on principles of justice, highly

questionable? In her systematic study of justice Dagmar Herwig

showed, as early as 1984, that throughout the history of political

philosophy there are irreconcilable conceptions of social and

political justice. While egalitarians hold it is just to establish

arithmetic, numeric or simple equality, non-egalitarians like Plato,

Aristotle or Nietzsche conceive of a just distribution of goods as a

distribution in proportion to existing inequalities. For

non-egalitarians, it is just to allot equal shares only to equals,

not to everyone.

The conference takes as its point of departure the well-researched

conviction that there are fundamental disagreements about social and

political justice. On the one hand, the conference strives for a more

detailed comprehension of the various aspects of the irreconcilable

pluralism of conceptions of justice. On the other hand, it

investigates the reasons for the fundamental opposition of existing

moral intuitions and conceptions of justice. Are these reasons

social, cultural, psychological, historical, or even biological? One

main focus of the conference will be the relation between conceptions

of justice and images of humanity. Do the opposing conceptions of

justice derive mainly from opposing anthropological convictions about

the equality, or inequality, of men? Do the different understandings

of human worth, or value, provide a key to comprehending the

fundamental disagreements about social and political justice? In

addressing these questions, the conference aims at a more adequate

understanding of the concept of justice and the human sense of

justice, which can be achieved beyond the idea of the consensus.

Abstracts of no more than one page for talks and suggestions for

panels should be sent to both convenors by March 1, 2013. Decisions

will be made within two or three weeks. The length of the talks will

depend on how many proposals are accepted, but will be at least 25

minutes.

The registration fee of 100 USD covers three lunches and the final

conference dinner on a boat on the Bosporus. For students who want to

participate in the conference the registration fee is reduced to $ 50.

Confirmed Invited Speakers:

Professor Renato Cristi (Wilfrid Laurier University, Canada),

Professor Giovanni Giorgini (Bologna University, Italy), Louis I.

Jaffe Professor Lawrence Hatab (Old Dominion University, Norfolk,

USA), Professor Michael Haus (Heidelberg University, Germany),

Professor Christoph Horn (Bonn University, Germany), Professor Peter

Koller (Graz University, Austria), Professor Angelika Krebs (Basel

University, Switzerland), Professor Lukas Meyer (Graz University,

Austria), Professor John Skorupski (University of St Andrews,

Scotland), Assist. Prof. Barry Stocker (Istanbul Technical

University), Professor Harun Tepe (Hacettepe University, Ankara),

Professor John Tomasi (Brown University, Providence, USA), Doc. Dr.

Gülriz Uygur (Ankara University), Professor Jonathan Wolff

(University College London)

Convenors:

Prof. Dr. Manuel Andreas Knoll

(www.manuelknoll.eu; [email protected])

Nurdane Şimşek, M.A.

([email protected])

Contact:

Prof. Dr. Manuel Knoll

Department of Philosophy

Fatih University

Büyükcekmece

34500 Istanbul

Turkey

Tel: +90 (212) 866 3300 ext. 2240

Email: [email protected]

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