Vom 20. – 22. September 2010 findet an der Universität Graz (RESOWI, HS 15.01) die Konferenz “Responsibility in International Political Philosophy” statt.
The conference brings together speakers from four areas of international political philosophy to discuss the central notion of responsibility from the point of view of these different yet related debates: climate change, global justice, historical injustice, and migration.
Speakers:
Daniel Butt
Simon Caney
David Heyd
Lukas Meyer
David Miller
Cara Nine
Jonathan Seglow
Zofia Stemplowska
Andrew Williams
Contents:
International political philosophy is concerned with questions of justice on the global level. There currently are four fields of inquiry which are particularly pressing: climate change, global distributive justice, immigration, and historical injustice.
These four fields are interrelated. Climate justice interlinks with concerns for distributive justice, since some of the countries predicted to be worse affected are already countries where severe poverty is widespread. However, attempts to slow down climate change might also have adverse consequences for the economies of developing countries. The combined impact of climactic change and poverty is likely to result in more migration, which raises questions of whether there is a duty to allow immigrants in and, if so, what we owe to those who come to settle with us. Finally, all these questions have a temporal dimension: who is historically to blame for climate change, the vast differences in economic well-being, the conditions motivating migration and the system of borders which aim to contain it.
This conference will bring together leading experts working on these four fields of international political philosophy to discuss the central philosophical concept present in all these debates: responsibility. The term responsibility admits of two different meanings. We might ask who is responsible for creating a problem, that is, whose actions caused or contributed to the problem. Alternatively, we might ask who is responsible for solving the problem, that is who (now) bears duties to act. It is often assumed that whoever is responsible for bringing about a particular situation is also responsible for solving any problems associated with it. However, due to the complexity of the problems now discussed in international political philosophy, this link is not so straightforward. Other grounds for assigning responsibility to address these questions of global justice might therefore be required.
Format:
All papers will be pre-circulated and introduced by a commentator.
Convenors:
Clare Heyward, Lukas Meyer, Alexa Zellentin
Contact:
Dr. Alexa Zellentin
Universität Graz
Institut für Philosophie
Heinrichstraße 26 DG
8010 Graz
Austria
Tel.: +43 (0) 316 380 2293
Fax.: +43 (0) 316 380 9705
Mail: alexa.zellentin [at] uni-graz.at
Die Konferenz im Web: uni-graz.at/praktphil
