Philosophy Research Seminar: Professor Ingrid Robeyns (Utrecht)

Please note that this seminar will be taking place on Zoom. For the relevant Zoom link, contact Dr Stephen Ingram

Title:

Abstract:

Economic limitarianism is the moral view that there should be an upper limit to how much income and wealth persons can have. It could be formulated as a political view, or as a voluntaristic moral view, or as a combination. So far, a range of arguments has been offered for economic limitarianism. This paper looks into the question whether one could make an ecological argument, and if so, whether such an argument would be distinctively ecological. At first sight, one might think such an argument is possible, since there is a clear positive correlation between the income and wealth levels of persons and their negative impact on ecosystems. However, one might argue that analytically, this does not amount to an ecological argument for economic limitarianism, since one might imagine a superrich person who uses their fortune simply to save more and more, or who uses their fortune to establish a collection of very expensive paintings. Is there then a genuine ecological argument for economic limitarianism? I will show that the answer to this question depends on what we take to be the success criteria for an argument, that is, when we judge that an argument is sound and plausible. I will present three different types of analyses or arguments that one could make, and argue that while on the most analytical of those types there is no distinct ecological argument for economic limitarianism, the other more action guiding analyses do give us ecological reasons for economic limitarianism.

This event will run online - contact Dr Stephen Ingram for the Zoom link

Dr Stephen Ingram