UPCOMING EVENTS IN CANBERRA
SEMINARS
The Centre presents a series of weekly seminars at the ANU in Canberra. In 2008, seminars will usually be held on Wednesdays at 4:00pm, in the Arts Meeting Room (directly below CAPPE), Ground Floor, Haydon Allen Building (Building 022), The Australian National University.
Monday 19th of May at 2pm will be Associate Professor Ian Hunt (Flinders University).
Title: Why Social Justice Matters
Abstract
This paper assesses Brian Barry ‘s attempt in Why Social Justice Matters to argue the importance of social justice, and to show what public policies for a modern capitalist society, such as the US or UK, flow from its requirements. Barry deplores the ideological assumptions that have obscured the importance of social justice but he does not address their intellectual roots. I claim that, if philosophers are to argue the importance of social justice for public policy, we must first address the philosophical ideas that have persuaded leaders of public opinion and policy makers in OECD countries to put their emphasis on efficiency, and to dismiss issues of equality or equity on the basis of its supposed efficiency cost. Leaving aside claims about the presumed benefits of perfectly competitive markets, I address Hayek’s nihilistic theory and Nozick’s defence of ‘natural liberty’, and show that both fail to dismiss any question of the fairness of free market capitalist societies other than arising from past wrongdoing.
Though Rawls’s Theory of Justice is forbiddingly complex, it provides a simple criterion of the fairness of the rules by which our societies operate to produce the inequalities Barry deplores. I claim that once we apply this criterion to our institutions, it becomes apparent that the task of achieving justice in accord with Rawls’s criterion requires such substantial change as to be beyond the capacity of changes to public policy. Other contemporary theories of social justice that question the justice of present societies do not clearly identify closer ideally just societies than Rawls’s ideal. I conclude that we have better prospects of achieving an ‘overlapping consensus’ for public policy purposes around a ‘non-ideal’ theory and principles for making unjust societies fairer.
Wednesday 28th of May at 4pm will be Dr Clive Hamilton (Visiting Fellow, Regulatory Institutions Network, ANU).
Title: Do We Prefer What We Choose?
Abstract
In this paper I will argue, following David George, that we possess first and second-order preferences, with the latter representing a deeper order of preference. Modern economics recognises only first-order preferences, and advertising tends to persuade us to act on them alone, which is often contrary to our interests.
On this basis I will argue that, in addition to political liberty and individual liberty, there is a third form of liberty, “inner freedom”, defined by Hayek as the freedom to act according to one’s own considered will, by one’s reason or lasting conviction. I will suggest that self-deception and akrasia (weakness of will) erode inner freedom, and that in consumer society we are becoming less free.
Wednesday 4th of June at 4pm will be Assistant Professor Iwao Hirose (McGill University and CAPPE, University of Melbourne).
Title: Disability Discrimination in Health Care Allocation
Abstract
I will examine the logical structure of the argument
against unequal treatment on the basis of disability in health care allocation.
I will first examine, and reject, the "two-level common-sense" objection, which
best captures our intuition against disability discrimination in health care.
Then, I will propose an argument against disability discrimination in health
care. Finally, I will address some problems with my proposal.
Wednesday 11th of June at 4pm will be a JOINT CAPPE/Faculty/RSSS Seminar: Dr Laura Schroeter and Dr Francois Schroeter (University of Melbourne).
Title: A Third Way in Metaethics
Abstract
What conditions must one meet in order to count as
competent with the meaning of a thin evaluative predicate like ‘is the right
thing to do’? According to minimalists like Allan Gibbard and Ralph Wedgwood,
all that's required for competence is that one use the predicate to express
one’s own motivational states. According to analytic descriptivists like Frank
Jackson, Philip Pettit and Christopher Peacocke, competence requires speakers to
grasp some determinate reference-fixing criterion for an action’s being right.
Both approaches face serious difficulties. We suggest that these difficulties
derive from a shared background assumption that competence conditions must be
explained in terms of a determinate conceptual role. We propose a new way of
characterizing competence conditions for evaluative terms: what’s required for
competence is participation in a shared epistemic tradition with a term. Our
approach, we argue, better explains the nature of evaluative inquiry and the
extent of disagreement about evaluative questions.
Enquiries to Dr Daniel Star: daniel.star@anu.edu.au or (02) 61259628