by USBIG | Jun 22, 2016 | Research
Book Cover
This book only mentions Basic Income once, but it’s on the last page of the book, and in a way, the entire book leads up to an argument for Basic Income. The name, Prehistoric Myths in Modern Political Philosophy, refers to the belief that everyone is better off in a society with government and/or private land- and resource-ownership. The book shows that this claim is an essential premise in the social contract justification of the state and most Lockean, liberal or libertarian justifications of private property. It shows how theorists have repeated this claim for hundreds of years, but they seldom if ever provide any evidence of it. The widespread belief in this claim seems to stem from the colonial prejudice that all “civilized men” are better off than all “savages.”
Grant S. McCall
This book then examines anthropological and archaeological evidence to show that this claim is false. Some people in contemporary capitalist states are worse off than they would likely be in a small-scale society with neither government nor private landownership. The promise of the social contract and the so-called “Lockean proviso” is unfulfilled, not because people in small-scale societies are well off—their lives are poor and difficult—but because the lives of the most disadvantaged people in capitalist states are even poorer and more difficult. As long as this is so, the state and the property rights system are unjust in terms of the main theories that have been used to justify them for the last 350 years. The book concludes that the best way to right this wrong and to justify government and property rights is to introduce a basic income.
This book will be released in January 2017 by Edinburgh University press. But a preliminary draft is online now.
Karl Widerquist and Grant S. McCall. Prehistoric Myths in Modern Political Philosophy. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, January 2017
Karl Widerquist
by Toru Yamamori | Sep 21, 2015 | News
Feminist Philosophy Workshop, which will be held on 9th October, at the University of Hamburg, invites Anca Gheaus to speak on ‘Feminism and Basic Income’.
Gheaus works at the university of Sheffield. Her past publication on feminism and basic income can be accessed here.
This is an academic workshop and registration is required. The contact for registration is Amanda Cawston (amanda.causton@cantab.net).
The workshop will take place in the Philosophy Faculty (Room 1072, 10th floor of Von-Melle-Park 6, 20146 Hamburg). The detail can be found here.
by Karl Widerquist | Aug 22, 2014 | Research
John Danaher, NUI Galway
John Danaher, a lecturer at the National University of Ireland, Galway and a regular blogger at Philosophical Disquisitions, has written a series of blogs about basic income. The series contains nine articles so far, post from December 23, 2013 to July 18, 2014. According to the author’s summary, “I’ve written a number of posts about the ethics and justice of the basic income grant. I thought it might be useful to provide an index to all of them in this post. Most of these posts look at whether an unconditional basic income grant can be justified from a particular theoretical perspective, e.g. feminism, libertarianism, liberal egalitarianism, and republicanism. One of them asks whether there should be a right not to work.” Items in the series include:
From Philosophical Disquisitions
John Danaher holds a PhD from University College Cork (Ireland) and is currently a lecturer in law at the National University of Ireland, Galway. His research interests range broadly from philosophy of religion to legal theory, with particular interests in human enhancement and neuroethics.
John Danaher, “Blog series: Philosophy and the Basic Income.” Philosophical Disquisitions, July 18, 2014 [December 23, 2013 – July 17, 2014]
by Guest Contributor | Jan 9, 2024 | Events, News
“This workshop is presented by the History and Philosophy Department of the University of New Orleans in collaboration with the Centre for Ethics, Politics and Society, at the University of Minho, and the Justice Studies Program at the University of New Orleans. It will be held at the University of New Orleans, February 22-23, 2024 at the Dougie Hitt Conference Room, at the Library, room 407, 2000 Lakeshore Dr, New Orleans, LA 70148.
The workshop is organized by Sara Bizarro (University of New Orleans) and Roberto Merrill (UBIECO project at the Centre for Ethics, Politics and Society/University of Minho).”
Read about the speakers and solicited paper topics here.
by Peter Knight | Nov 4, 2023 | News
Image credit: Canva https://www.canva.com/policies/free-media-license-agreement-2022-01-03/
“This workshop is presented by the History and Philosophy Department of the University of New Orleans in collaboration with the Centre for Ethics, Politics and Society, at the University of Minho, and the Justice Studies Program at the University of New Orleans. It will be held at the University of New Orleans, February 22-23, 2024 at the Dougie Hitt Conference Room, at the Library, room 407, 2000 Lakeshore Dr, New Orleans, LA 70148.
The workshop is organized by Sara Bizarro (University of New Orleans) and Roberto Merrill (UBIECO project at the Centre for Ethics, Politics and Society/University of Minho).” Read more:
