Aarhus-Hoover videoworkshop

14:10 - 14:15 Welcome

14:15 - 14:45 Refia Kaya (Hoover Chair)
Should Discrimination Law Have Any Limits?

14:45 - 15:15 Viki Pedersen (Aarhus)
The Imprudence Trilemma: Sufficiency, Non- paternalism, and Cost-sensitivity

15:15 - 15:25 Coffee Break

15:25 - 16:55 Manuel Valente (Hoover Chair)
Does the Lifetime of Excessive Wealth Matter?

16:55 - 16:25 Jens Jørund Tyssedal (Aarhus)
Meaningful work and why it matters

16:25 - 16:35 Coffee Break

16:35 - 17:05 Louis Larue (Hoover Chair)
The Limits of Pluralism

Should Discrimination Law Have Any Limits?
Refia Kaya - Hoover Chair of Economic and Social Ethics, Law

This paper is motivated by the European case law on discrimination, which widens the scope of the legislation through flexible judicial interpretations. Judges develop such an attitude when the discrimination is self-evident in the present case, but the scope of the law in the application is limited. This paper develops that there could be at least two stances on the nature of limitations in discrimination law: internal limitations and external limitations. Internal limitations are the limitations that come from discrimination law’s own methodology. These limits are put by the legislator or developed by the Courts while applying the law. External limitations are theoretical limitations. It uses the resources of extra-legal disciplines to assess when discriminating is wrong: unjust, oppressive or demeaning. The use of the law is only limited when discrimination is not wrongful. Currently, internal limitations predominate in the context of discrimination law. External limitations are applied in more exceptional situations. I defend the composite of the two. Yet, a less internal more external limit composition. Moreover, I defend that internal limits should be re-stated in an interpretation-friendly way.

Does the Lifetime of Excessive Wealth Matter?
Manuel Valente – Hoover Chair of Economic and Social Ethics, Philosophy

In her article “Having too much”, Ingrid Robeyns (2016) introduces a new principle of distributive justice called limitarianism. The principle holds that it is morally objectionable to rise above a certain (maximum) threshold of wealth. This paper attempts to place limitarianism in the debate of justice over time and asks what temporal scope we should assign to the threshold. While theories of justice tend to commit to the scope of a lifetime, threshold views are typically understood synchronically (or continuously). The most straightforward interpretation of the principle of limits is synchronic, whereby it is impermissible to rise above the threshold at any given point in time. this paper, I consider two reasons in favour of a lifetime scope, which is to complement the synchronic interpretation of the principle. A popular argument is that lifetime is necessary to take responsibility and past choice into account. Although certain thresholds (like sufficiency) are most plausible when insensitive to responsibility, luck limitarianism seems to be a plausible approach to a maximum threshold on wealth. A less popular reason for a lifetime view concerns the significance of the lifetime of wealth, its past and expected future. If significant, this may push strict limitarianism to adopt a lifetime scope as well. In this regard, I argue that the lifetime of wealth matters to whether one has too much; the longer had the wealthy been rich, the more impermissible should their wealth be.

The Limits of Pluralism
Louis Larue – Hoover Chair of Economic and Social Ethics, Economics

Theoretical and methodological pluralists aim at justifying the co-existence of a plurality of acceptable theories and of acceptable methods by appealing to reasons. Why should we hold pluralist views? And what limits should we give to pluralism? This paper proposes a new argument in favour of pluralism in economics and then discusses the limits of pluralism.

The argument is the following. On the one hand, if we have no assurance that a particular scientific theory/method is the “good” one, it is better to allow for a variety of them, so as to maximise the chance of finding the “good” one and to minimize the probability to stick to a “bad” one. On the other hand, if we happen to know which theory/method is the good one, this is nevertheless not a sufficient reason to ban concurrent theories/methods, for the latter may help us refine the established scientific practice and bring it closer to truth. I argue that this argument has several important virtues, especially its humility, its tolerance, its pragmatism and its potential appeal to both mainstream and non-mainstream economists. However, one could wonder what the limits of such pluralism are. How can one avoid both dogmatism and relativism?

First, I argue that a practice cannot count as scientific in virtue of the fact that it happens to be the dominant practice, i.e. that it is the most widespread within universities and research centres. Second, I defend the more demanding claim that a scientific practice can be included within the pluralist scientific realm if there exists a community of practitioners that share this practice and if this community is able to justify its practice to other communities with reasons they can accept.

On the one hand, the existence of a community guarantees internal peer-criticism, which is an important condition of scientific rigour and is a first check on pluralism. On the other hand, justifications must appeal to reasons that scientists of a particular community have for choosing to practice science in a certain way. Acceptable reasons include the formal rigour of the approach, the fruitfulness of the approach, the ability to explain phenomena considered crucial to reality, etc.

My claims rely on two assumptions. First, scientists must be reasonable, i.e. they must be ready to listen to others’ reasons for doing science and possibly to accept them if this is justified. Second, scientists should have a minimal shared understanding of science, that is, some common values (epistemic values), such as rigour, consistency, commitment to truth, etc. Appeal to such values is what makes a practice potentially justifiable to other scientific communities.

These claims have several corollaries. First, this is an invitation to dialogue. Each community must justify its practice to others while trying to understand and evaluate others’ reasons. Second, defending pluralism does not mean that everyone should be a pluralist. Individual scientists can remain attached to a specific community, while accepting that other ways of doing science are also acceptable. Third, there is still a large space for disagreement. Scientists just need to agree on the core reasons that drive scientific inquiry, i.e. that motivate the choice of a peculiar practice, not on the particular content or methods of each other’s scientific inquiry.

The Imprudence Trilemma: Sufficiency, Non-paternalism, and Cost-sensitivity
Viki Pedersen

When an agent acts imprudently with respect to his or her own good, we face different options. We may, for example, i) leave the agent unassisted if an accident occurs; ii) provide unconditional assistance by taxing everyone; or iii) regulate the activity prior to the accident (e.g. by compelling the agent to take out insurance, requiring security measures or banning certain activities). No matter what we choose, we seem to either compromise sufficiency, cost-sensitivity or non- paternalism. It has been argued that these three desiderata represent a trilemma, the so-called ‘imprudence trilemma’. The paper addresses the question how we should respond to the relevant trilemma. Unlike what has been suggested in the literature, I argue that if one pursues ii) unconditional assistance or iii) regulations, then one should also accept elements of paternalism. Additionally, I argue that it can be plausible to accept paternalism, as there are relevant ways in which an agent acting paternalistically expresses respect for the agent interfered with.

Meaningful work and why it matters
Jens Jørund Tyssedal

Is work special? The tendency to speak of meaningful work might suggest that there is indeed something particular about the kind of work people want, relative to just any other good thing. In this essay, I propose a theory of what meaningful work is, and why it matters.

I first argue that if meaningful work is to be a useful concept, it must denote a specific way in which work can be good, namely by being “meaningful”, akin to how being “meaningful” is one specific (but important) way in which lives can be good. Second, I argue for an account of meaningful work as work done for the right reasons. Third, I suggest an account of why working for the right reasons matters. Finally, I suggest some reasons why capitalism so often fails to provide meaningful work as defined here.