Mardis intimes (Michs), since 1998

Mardi intime de la Chaire Hoover par Juan Olano

Opportunities for fruitful cooperation are unequally distributed across society. How should we allocate these opportunities? While Rawls’ theory of justice, which defines justice as fair terms of cooperation, seems well-suited to address this question, it does not directly do so. This paper aims to fill that gap by using the example of how we might distribute tasks when preparing dinner together. First, it proposes a redefinition of cooperation to avoid the circularity between identifying who the cooperators are and what the fair terms of cooperation entail, which makes it difficult to assess someone’s exclusion from cooperative tasks as unjust under Rawls’ framework. The new, inclusive definition breaks this circularity, allowing for a clearer discussion of how cooperative tasks should be distributed and how principles of justice apply to the cooperative process itself. Second, I argue that Rawls’ principles of Equal Basic Liberty and Fair Equality of Opportunity (FEO) are inadequate. The Principle of Equal Basic Liberty is too rigid, as it disallows trade-offs that could benefit the least advantaged. FEO, while addressing equality of opportunity, wrongly ties task allocation to talent—a morally arbitrary criterion. The Difference Principle, however, provides the right framework: it permits inequalities in task distribution only if they benefit the least advantaged, aligning with our intuitions in the dinner model. Philosophically, this suggests that job distribution should aim to promote equality. Institutionally, this calls for hiring practices that prioritise the less advantaged, starting with equally qualified candidates and paving the way for more complex cases, where the less advantaged might be favoured even when less talented.

Mardi intime de la Chaire Hoover par Amael Maskens

When trying to vote “well” at elections, one must gather quite a lot of information on political parties, candidates and our social reality. One must then process all these information in an unbiased way to form a choice meeting one’s aim, whether it’d be promoting the common good, advancing one’s self-interests, giving voice to an ideology,… This process can quickly become very demanding for many individuals – especially those lacking time and attention due to their unprivileged socioeconomic position.

The demandingness of voting “well” raises moral issues. It creates political inequalities between those who can accurately shape their collective destiny through sound voting choices, and those who can’t. It also increases the risks of seeing voting procedures producing “bad” outcomes, as an important part of the population won’t vote on the basis of solid political reasoning.

What should we do about that situation? I argue that we have a collective duty to make voting robustly easier for each and everyone. By increasing the uses of popular votes on singular policy issues, by using democratic innovations like Citizens’ Initiative Reviews, deliberatively crafted voting guides or Deliberation Days, we have several tools to make voting easier for all. Their implementation should be a priority.

Mardi intime de la Chaire Hoover par Josette Daemen

As actors at the right of the political spectrum seem to attract appeal by promising security, we may wonder what left-of-centre parties could offer in terms of security while staying true to their commitment to equality. In other words, what securities are there to be found in an egalitarian society? The present paper addresses this question by drawing on the relational egalitarian tradition of political thought. Given the demands of equality in the moral, economic, and political domain, the paper argues, an egalitarian society must indeed provide its members with a particular set of securities, which can be united under the heading ‘egalitarian security’. At the same time, the argument continues, working towards the ideal of equality inevitably puts some other securities out of reach – securities that conservatives, libertarians, and authoritarians do sometimes seem to offer. The paper ultimately suggests that egalitarian security is nonetheless the best we can get in terms of security, if that is something to be enjoyed by all.

Mardi intime de la Chaire Hoover par Aida Martinez Suarez.

The concept of the Anthropocene has gained popularity across various disciplines outside the field of geology. It presents the opportunity to reflect within a single framework about societies-Earth relationships, technological development, and natural systems vulnerabilities. It also highlights urgent issues such as resource depletion and biodiversity loss, and the possibility of considering humanity's actions as forms of collective self-destruction.

During the seminar the ethical justification of collective self-destruction will be discused by first examining if individual self-destruction can be ethically justified. We will then assess whether these justifications apply to collective actions threatening our shared environment and ultimately our species’ present and future. While collective forms self-destruction has led to astonishing technological and cultural development for some, we must question whether the benefits are now outweighed by present and future costs.

Mardi intime de la Chaire Hoover par Camille Roelens (Lyon 2)

Ruwen Ogien, le barbier de Mill ?
Démocratiser la morale

Cette conférence sera centralement dédiée à la philosophie morale et politique de Ruwen Ogien (1947-2017). Nous y montrerons en particulier ce que l’éthique minimale et la conception négative de la liberté politique d’Ogien reprennent ou modifient de la philosophie morale et politique de John Stuart Mill (1806-1873). Nous aborderons aussi ce en quoi la défiance d’Ogien, bien plus grande que celle d’autres auteurs libéraux, envers toutes les formes de maximalismes, paternalismes et moralismes peuvent être lues comme un format d’adaptation de nos raisonnements moraux aux manières de penser et de juger propre aux temps démocratiques (en entendant ce syntagme au sens d’Alexis de Tocqueville).

Ruwen Ogien, Mill's barber?
Democratising morality

This conference will focus on the moral and political philosophy of Ruwen Ogien (1947-2017). In particular, we will show what Ogien's minimal ethics and negative conception of political freedom take from or modify the moral and political philosophy of John Stuart Mill (1806-1873). We will also discuss how Ogien's distrust of all forms of maximalisms, paternalisms and moralisms, which is much greater than that of other liberal authors, can be read as a way of adapting our moral reasoning to the ways of thinking and judging specific to democratic times (understanding this syntagm in the sense of Alexis de Tocqueville).

Mardi intime de la Chaire Hoover par Christophe Point

À travers le monde, de nombreuses formations professionnelles ont opéré le tournant de l’éthique (ethical turn) à partir de la seconde moitié du XXème siècle (Davis, 1999, Boothroyd, 2013) et la profession des enseignants ne fait pas exception à cette évolution (Maxwell & Schwimmer, 2016). Pourtant, au sein des formations universitaires, les cours portant sur l’éthique restent peu nombreux et leur enseignement est souvent mal compris par les étudiants. De fait, de nombreuses questions se posent légitimement pour ces derniers. S’agit-il de former de « bonnes » personnes ou de « bons » enseignants ? Recevoir des cours d’éthique signifie-t ’il que les enseignants manquent de morale ? Quelle éthique peut à la fois être transmise à des étudiants et être pertinente pour leur futur métier d’enseignant ? Pour explorer ces questions, nous essayerons d’abord de répondre à un problème qui les précèdent, celui du sujet de l’éthique. A qui ou à quoi accolons-nous l’adjectif « éthique » lorsque nous parlons d’éthique professionnelle enseignante ? S’agit-il des personnes, de leur intégrité et de leur intériorité qui sont ici jugées ? Ou bien faut-il déplacer la focale de l’analyse éthique sur les systèmes, les institutions et les organisations collectives de travail qui les encadrent ? Ou bien encore, est-ce les discours, les propos et les sujets sensibles de discussion qui sont « éthiques » ? Nous explorerons tout d’abord ces trois pistes (personnes, structures et discours) avant d’en proposer une quatrième, plus à même, selon nous, d’accompagner les futurs enseignants dans leurs réflexions sur les situations éthiques problématiques inhérents à leur quotidien.

Mardi intime de la Chaire Hoover par Anna Wienhues (KULeuven)

Climate change arguably poses a dual challenge to non-anthropocentric environmental ethics. For one, environmental ethics needs to provide action guidance for climate change related environmental problems, such as on how to theorise conservation ethics under these new conditions. One of the new areas of development in the literature is the body of work surrounding non-anthropocentric climate adaptation ethics. Secondly, climatic changes put the limelight on the need to theorise non-anthropocentric ethics in the context of an ever-changing world in which the past cannot be replicated and the future is uncertain. Against the background of these two challenges, I aim to make the case in favour of a particular methodological view on how environmental ethics ought to be orientated towards the notion of change itself by arguing in favour of grounding appropriate environmental theorising on a nuanced and self-critical view on material and value change. The upshot is that such a view on change can aid the adaptation of environmental ethics as a field to climate change.

Mardi intime de la Chaire Hoover par Gregory Ponthiere et Manuel Valente (Chaire Hoover)