Lecture
CPP Colloquium "Caregivers and the Self-Interest Bias in Theories of Justice"
- Date
- Tuesday 28 October 2025
- Time
- Location
-
P.J. Veth
Nonnensteeg 1-3
2311 VJ Leiden - Room
- 0.06
The Centre of Political Philosophy is pleased to announce a lecture by Serena Olsaretti, ICREA Research Professor at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra.
Abstract
Elizabeth Anderson has called luck egalitarianism “egalitarianism for egoists alone”, as it deems the choice to care for dependents to be an expensive taste and holds that “[p]eople who want to avoid the vulnerabilities that attend dependent caretaking must therefore decide to care only for themselves” (Anderson 1999: 300). In this paper I subject to close scrutiny the idea that theories of egalitarian justice display a bias in favour of those with (narrowly) self-interested preferences - that is, those who have preferences about oneself – to the detriment of those with (beneficial) other-regarding preferences – that is, preferences which have, as part of their non-instrumental goal, that of benefiting certain others. I argue, first, that many theories of egalitarian justice, as they are currently formulated or interpreted do display a bias in favour of narrowly self-interested ambitions and against other-regarding ones, and I identify the commitments in virtue of which they display this bias. Second, I argue that the bias is unmotivated, because the commitments that lead to it are not integral to the theories. Finally, I draw some lessons from this critical discussion for how to formulate the demands of egalitarian justice so as to avoid the bias in favour of self-interest and capture the disadvantage of those who choose to care for others.
About the Center for Political Philosophy (CPP) Colloquia Series
The CPP is a collaboration between the Institute for Philosophy and the Institute for Political Science at Leiden University. Attendance of the Colloquia is free and there is no need to register. See CPP for more information. For further questions please contact dr. Thomas Fossen t.fossen@phil.leidenuniv.nl.
All are welcome!