Egalitarian Justice or luck-egalitarianism is arguably the most important and sophisticated tradition to have emerged in the wake of John Rawls' path-breaching contribution to political philosophy and theory (A Theory of Justice, 1971).
It is an attempt to elaborate one of the core intuition in Rawls' work, namely that individuals should not face disadvantages due to arbitrary factors such as sex, class and natural talent. Three themes have been emphasized in the literature: (i) equality of what? That is, if we care about equality, which kind of equality should be in focus (welfare, resources, capabilities or something else)?; (ii) the site or scope of equality, that is, what is the target of egalitarian duties; do they concern coercive institutions only or do they concern individual acts within such institutions (for example, the distribution of benefits and burdens in the family) as well?
And do egalitarian duties extend to the global level?; (iii) the value of equality, that is, is equality after all valuable, or should we focus on something else, for example, giving priority to the worst off or making sure that everyone has enough? The seminar examines the central theoretical contributions to these themes. Course offered by Department of Political Science, AU.
Period
01-08-2011 - 26-08-2011 (4 weeks)
Target group
Applicants must be at Master level
Course aim
The seminar module offers a more extensive and more thorough analysis of a topic from within political science. To this end, the seminar module provides an overview and a critical discussion of the literature and the issues relevant for the topic of the seminar. The objectives for this module are: Introduction to the main theoretical contributions to Egalitarian Justice Introduction to the main themes of egalitarian justice Critical examination of the main theoretical contributions
Credits
10.0 ECTS credits
Course fee
EUR 0. See website for information regarding fees
Course leader
Sren Flinch Midtgaard
Aarhus University International Centre
Address: Hoeg Guldbergs Gade 4, building 1650 Aarhus C
Postal code: 8000
City: Aarhus
Country: Denmark
Website: http://www.au.dk/summeruniversity
E-mail: SummerUniversity@adm.au.dk
Phone: +45 8942 2320
Egalitarian Justice
