The Research Seminar Series in Philosophy invites you to a seminar with Sebastian Östlund, "Combining Philosophical and Democratic Capability Lists".
Abstract:
Philosophical principles and public perception often diverge on matters of distributive justice. This paper contributes to a novel research agenda that aims to reconcile recommendations that follow from philosophical and democratic deliberations. The setting for this research agenda is capabilitarian. It affirms the idea that what we should distribute are substantive freedoms to be and do things that people have reason to value. The contribution is a selection-method that combines philosophical expertise with democratic opinions by using a two-step process. The process affords equal weight to philosophical and democratic considerations in both steps. First, the union of philosophical and democratic selections of substantive freedoms is identified. Second, a regulated voting procedure handles conflicting selections. The provided selection-method can generate convincing outcomes even when philosophers and democrats disagree. Consequently, it enables us to mitigate and resolve conflicts between philosophical and democratic considerations that undermine policy work designed to promote people’s well-being.
All interested are welcome to participate in this seminar.
This seminar is held online in Zoom. Link for participation will be distributed by email to the seminar distribution list. If you wish to participate but are not on this list you can get the link by contacting Pär Sundström, see below.
