Type: International Conference
Institution: Fatih University
Location: Istanbul (Turkey)
Date: 6.–8.6.2013
Deadline: 1.3.2013
of consensus about justice. Rawls conceives of this as a consensus
about an initial choice situation for principles of justice, as a
rational consensus about which principles to choose, or as an
"overlapping consensus", which a pluralist society should reach with
regard to the political conception of justice he proposes.
The idea of a consensus on justice was questionable from the
beginning. For some theorists this was made evident through Robert
Nozick's strong disagreement with Rawls's fundamental moral intuition
that the inequalities of natural endowments are undeserved and call
for social redress or compensation. Likewise, Rawls's idea that
individuals are equal as moral persons does not allow for a
consensus. Going back to Aristotle, John Kekes argued that people who
habitually harm others have a lower moral worth than people who
habitually do good. In this case, isn't Rawls's rationalist creed
that all persons should be convinced by the same arguments, and must
therefore reach a rational consensus on principles of justice, highly
questionable? In her systematic study of justice Dagmar Herwig
showed, as early as 1984, that throughout the history of political
philosophy there are irreconcilable conceptions of social and
political justice. While egalitarians hold it is just to establish
arithmetic, numeric or simple equality, non-egalitarians like Plato,
Aristotle or Nietzsche conceive of a just distribution of goods as a
distribution in proportion to existing inequalities. For
non-egalitarians, it is just to allot equal shares only to equals,
not to everyone.
The conference takes as its point of departure the well-researched
conviction that there are fundamental disagreements about social and
political justice. On the one hand, the conference strives for a more
detailed comprehension of the various aspects of the irreconcilable
pluralism of conceptions of justice. On the other hand, it
investigates the reasons for the fundamental opposition of existing
moral intuitions and conceptions of justice. Are these reasons
social, cultural, psychological, historical, or even biological? One
main focus of the conference will be the relation between conceptions
of justice and images of humanity. Do the opposing conceptions of
justice derive mainly from opposing anthropological convictions about
the equality, or inequality, of men? Do the different understandings
of human worth, or value, provide a key to comprehending the
fundamental disagreements about social and political justice? In
addressing these questions, the conference aims at a more adequate
understanding of the concept of justice and the human sense of
justice, which can be achieved beyond the idea of the consensus.
Abstracts of no more than one page for talks and suggestions for
panels should be sent to both convenors by March 1, 2013. Decisions
will be made within two or three weeks. The length of the talks will
depend on how many proposals are accepted, but will be at least 25
minutes.
The registration fee of 100 USD covers three lunches and the final
conference dinner on a boat on the Bosporus. For students who want to
participate in the conference the registration fee is reduced to $ 50.
Confirmed Invited Speakers:
Professor Renato Cristi (Wilfrid Laurier University, Canada),
Professor Giovanni Giorgini (Bologna University, Italy), Louis I.
Jaffe Professor Lawrence Hatab (Old Dominion University, Norfolk,
USA), Professor Michael Haus (Heidelberg University, Germany),
Professor Christoph Horn (Bonn University, Germany), Professor Peter
Koller (Graz University, Austria), Professor Angelika Krebs (Basel
University, Switzerland), Professor Lukas Meyer (Graz University,
Austria), Professor John Skorupski (University of St Andrews,
Scotland), Assist. Prof. Barry Stocker (Istanbul Technical
University), Professor Harun Tepe (Hacettepe University, Ankara),
Professor John Tomasi (Brown University, Providence, USA), Doc. Dr.
Gülriz Uygur (Ankara University), Professor Jonathan Wolff
(University College London)
Convenors:
Prof. Dr. Manuel Andreas Knoll
Nurdane Şimşek, M.A.
Contact:
Prof. Dr. Manuel Knoll
Department of Philosophy
Fatih University
Büyükcekmece
34500 Istanbul
Turkey
Tel: +90 (212) 866 3300 ext. 2240
Email: mknoll@fatih.edu.tr
