reTHINK Liberalism: Luck, Responsibility and Markets

Jeff Spinner-Halev, a political theory professor at UNC-Chapel Hill, will discuss whether policy, including educational policy, should aim to neutralize the role of "bad luck" or aim to reach equality.

Jeff Spinner-Halev, a political theory professor at UNC-Chapel Hill, will discuss whether policy, including educational policy, should aim to neutralize the role of "bad luck" or aim to reach equality.

What
  • Lecture
When Apr 11, 2013
from
Where Bingham Humanities Room 205, Belknap Campus
Contact Name
Contact Phone 502-852-8811
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Join Jeff Spinner-Halev, an eminent philosopher and political theory professor at UNC-Chapel Hill, as he evaluates the relationship between luck and equality. Many scholars have argued that state policy should aim to neutralize the role of bad luck so that people are responsible for their own choices–not for the bad luck that befalls them. In his McConnell Center talk, Spinner-Halev will discuss whether state policy, including educational policy, should aim to neutralize bad luck, aim to reach equality, or aim for different goals.

This marks the final event in the McConnell Center's 2012-2013 "reTHINK" free and public lecture series.

About Spinner-Halev's 2012 Book, "Enduring Injustice"

In his recent book, Enduring Injustice (Cambridge University Press, 2012), Spinner-Halev discusses how society should deal with injustices faced in the past by oppressed peoples. Governments today often apologize for past injustices, and many scholars call for reparations. Others, including Spinner-Halev, suggest that what matters is the victims of injustice today–not the past. Spinner-Halev argues that groups experience "enduring injustices," which will likely persist without action to address them. Suggesting that enduring injustices fall outside the framework of liberal theory, Spinner-Halev discusses the implications of his arguments and offers revised conceptions of liberal justice, progress, reparations, apologies, state legitimacy and post-nationalism.

About the Speaker

Jeff Spinner-Halev is the Kenan Eminent Professor of Political Ethics at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, where he teaches political theory. His research focuses on the tensions that arise within contemporary liberal and democratic theory and between theory and practice. His published works include Surviving Diversity: Religion and Democratic Citizenship, The Boundaries of Citizenship: Race, Ethnicity and Nationality in the Liberal State, and Minorities within Minorities: Equality, Right and Diversity (co-edited).