Workshop: Extreme wealth as a moral problem

Date: 13-14 November 2019

Location: Emil-Figge-Str. 50, 44127 Dortmund (Germany), room 0.442

Organisers: Christian Neuhäuser and Dick Timmer

Attendance is free. Limited number of places available. Please register via k.d.timmer@uu.nl or Christian.Neuhaeuser@udo.edu

Questions about the accumulation of wealth have acquired a new urgency in recent years. Economic inequality is fierce and still rising, both within countries and on a global level. It contributes to, among other things, social and political inequality and distributive unfairness. In light of this, there is a pressing need for work in normative political theory that engages closely with the question of what the justice has to say about the rich and their wealth. Are there distinctive features about the rich compared to the ‘merely’ affluent that we should worry about in particular? Should there be limits to how much wealth and income people can appropriate? And what kinds of institutions and policies are most defensible in curtailing the harmful effects of extreme wealth?

In this workshop, we want to consider the place extreme wealth should have in thinking about justice. We do this by critically examining ‘limitarianism’, which is the view in distributive justice which advocates that it is not morally permissible to have more resources than are needed to fully flourish in life. Ingrid Robeyns (2018) has coined and defended this view, arguing for limits on wealth in order to protect political equality and meet unmet urgent needs.

Provisional schedule

13th November

16.00-17.00: Ingrid Robeyns (Utrecht), “Economic limitarianism: merely moral or also political?”

17.15-18.15: Alan Thomas (York), “Limitarianism and the Political Problem of the Rich”

19.00: Dinner

14th November

9.00-10.00: Stefan Gosepath (Berlin), “Problems with too much (inherited) wealth”

10.15-11.15: Tammy Harel Ben Shahar (Haifa), “Limitarianism and Relative Thresholds”

11.30-12.30: Alexandru Volacu (Bucharest) “Some Reasons to Qualify Orthodox Limitarianism”

12.30-14.00: Lunch

14.00-15.00: Annelien De Dijn (Utrecht), “Republicanism and egalitarism”

15.15-16.15: Lasse Nielsen (Odense), “Limitarianism and social flourishing”

16.30-17.30: Dick Timmer (Utrecht) & Huub Brouwer (Utrecht) “Earning Too Much: The Case For Maximum Income Policies”

19.00 Dinner