LEGAL THEORY WORKSHOP SERIES
presents
Aaron James
University of California, Irvine
Department of Philosophy
Global Economic Fairness: Internal Principles
Friday, October 21, 2008
12:30 – 2:00
Solarium (room FA2), Falconer Hall
84 Queen’s Park
When political philosophers discuss the global economy, they tend to focus on “external” moral principles, that is to say, principles which do not essentially depend on the complex legal and social relations that now organize the global scene. As a result, we do not yet have a developed understanding of politically important “internal” principles of the global economy, which do essentially depend on such relations. Among internal ideas such as “fair play,” “non-discrimination,” “competitive fairness,” and “level playing fields,” I will suggest that the most fundamental internal idea is that of “structural equity.” I take the global economy as we know it to be created and structured by a particular kind of social practice—an international practice of mutual market reliance. This practice counts as “structurally equitable” depending on how it distributes the advantages and disadvantages it creates between different countries, and between their respective classes. My aim will be to explain how various fairness concerns can be explicated in terms of this more basic notion of structural equity, and to clarify the sense in which structural equity principles are “internal” principles. This will lead us to consider the social underpinnings of international economic law, as well as relatively unregulated capital markets.
Aaron James is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Irvine. Working in meta-ethics, moral theory, and political philosophy, he has published in journals such as Philosophy and Public Affairs and Philosophy and Phenomenological Research. He received his Ph.D. in 2001 at Harvard University, and recently received the American Council of Learned Society’s Burkhardt fellowship. This will support research in 2009-10 at the Center for Advanced Behavioral Sciences, Palo Alto, on a book about fairness in the global economy, from the point of view of social contract theory.
A light lunch will be served.
For more workshop information, please contact Nadia Gulezko at n.gulezko@utoronto.ca
