What is this blog about?


What is this blog about?

I am a political philosopher. My 'political philosophy' is a form of 'liberal egalitarianism.' So in this blog I reflect on various issues in political philosophy and politics (especially Canadian and American politics) from a liberal egalitarian perspective.

If you are curious about what I mean by 'liberal egalitarianism,' my views are strongly influenced by the conception of justice advanced by John Rawls. (So I sometimes refer to myself as a 'Rawlsian,' even though I disagree with Rawls on some matters.)

Astonishingly, I am paid to write and teach moral and political philosophy. I somehow manage to do this despite my akratic nature. Here is my faculty profile.

Tuesday, May 3, 2022

A Theory of Justice 50 Years Later: Listen to the Talks

Last December there was a conference in honour of the 50th anniversary of the publication of John Rawls’s A Theory of Justice. It was held at the University of Virginia School of Law. Micah Schwartzman did a magnificent job in putting the conference together. Lori Watson and I helped out as well. We currently are working on putting together a book that will include many of the papers from the conference (as well as a couple of others from people who couldn’t attend).

 

Below is a list of the speakers and their papers. Recordings of all the talks are available here.

 

Panel 1: Justice and Democracy

  • Simone Chambers (University of California, Irvine): "John Rawls and Contemporary Democratic Theory."
  • Derrick Darby (Rutgers University): "The Fair Value of Voting Rights."
  • David Reidy (University of Tennessee): "Keeping the Faith: Progressive Democracy from Croly to Rawls."

Panel 2: Race, Religion, and Ideal Theory

  • Larry Krasnoff (College of Charleston): "Rawls, Race, and Reparative Justice."
  • Cécile Laborde (University of Oxford): "Rawls, Race, and Religion."
  • Anthony Laden (University of Illinois - Chicago): "Ideal Theory for a Non-Ideal World: How to Make Justice as Fairness Anti-Racist."

Panel 3: Education, Labour, and Justice

  • Gina Schouten (Harvard University): "Sectoral Justice and the Case of Education."
  • Sabine Tsuruda (Queen's University): "Labour, Association, and the Priority of Liberty." 

 

Keynote: Charles Larmore (Brown University): "The Permanent Achievement of A Theory of Justice"


Panel 4: Justice and Legitimacy

  • Andrew Lister (Queen's University): "Conditional vs. Unconditional Duties in Justice as Fairness."
  • Simon May (Florida State University): "The Lexical Priority of Political Legitimacy."
  • Cynthia Stark (University of Utah): "The Basic Structure, Structural Injustice, and the Limits of Fair Equality of Opportunity."