Peggy Kohn Wins Two Book Awards for The Death and Life of the Urban Commonwealth

Peggy Kohn has won two awards for her recent book, The Death and Life of the Urban Commonwealth (Oxford 2016), the American Political Science Association’s David Easton Award of the Section on Foundations of Political Thought “for a book that broadens the horizons of contemporary political science by engaging issues of philosophical significance in political life through any of a variety of approaches in the social sciences and humanities” and the Dennis Judd Best Book Award of the APSA’s Section on Urban and Local Politics for “the best book on urban politics.”

Here’s the citation for the David Easton Award:

Margaret Kohn’s important new book focuses our gaze on the city as the location of key struggles over the meaning of democracy and social justice in the 21st century.  The theoretical core of her rich and multilayered argument is the idea of the city as a common-wealth – a collectively and historically produced social good whose benefits should be enjoyed on a basis of equality by all who live in it and contribute to its vibrancy.  Drawing on the widely overlooked tradition of solidarism that was developed by French republicans in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Kohn reconstructs a theoretical justification of “the right to the city.”  She presents the idea of “urban commonwealth” as an alternative to both the neoliberal model of privatizing and commodifying civic space, on the one hand, and the model of welfare state capitalism, in which the city is an afterthought, on the other.  In contrast to these familiar frames, solidarism recognizes the “unearned increment” of value that accrues to property holders as a consequence of contemporary public investments and it both considers and values the contributions of past generations in producing the social good of city life.  Kohn’s compelling account of solidarism offers us a new lens through which to see the injustices of dispossession, displacement, and marginalization that proceed through gentrification, the commodification of housing, the privatization of public space, and the emergence of “transit deserts.”

At almost every turn of the page, and certainly in each and every chapter, the reader of Kohn’s book encounters innovative conceptual clarifications that powerfully illuminate the normative dimensions of urban life and, more generally, invite a new way of imagining the complex relations of interdependence and interconnection that are characteristic of our age. Kohn moves seamlessly between re-readings of classic texts in the history of modern Western thought (from Locke to Marx to Hayek); she draws on rich empirical examples (from a diverse array of cities in India, Europe, and North America), and she develops thought-provoking engagements with a wide range of contemporary political theory. Her approach is admirable, as well, for its subtlety and indirectness. Rather than foreground or “sell” her (genuinely important) conceptual innovations to her readers, Kohn proceeds more humbly, putting her concepts to work to analyze concrete, social, cultural and geographic issues and events. She makes visible the political stakes of the city and traces the fault lines of past and future conflicts. The “urban commonwealth” is therefore not merely an example by which Kohn illustrates her normative political theory, but rather the site of her theorizing, and of her and our politics.

 

 

New Book: Mara Marin, Connected by Commitment (OUP 2017)

Connected by Commitment: Oppression and Our Responsibility to Undermine It (Oxford 2017)

Mara Marin
Postdoctoral Affiliate, Centre for Ethics
University of Toronto

Saying that political and social oppression is a deeply unjust and widespread condition of life is not a terribly controversial statement. Likewise, theorists of justice frequently consider our obligation to not turn a blind eye to oppression. But what is our culpability in the endurance of oppression?

In this book, Mara Marin complicates the primary ways in which we make sense of human and political relationships and our obligations within them. Rather than thinking of relationships in terms of our intentions, Marin thinks of them as open-ended and subject to ongoing commitments. Commitments create open-ended expectations and vulnerabilities on the part of others, and therefore also obligations. By this rationale, our actions sustain oppressive or productive structures in virtue of their cumulative effects, not the intentions of the actors.When we violate our obligations we oppress others.

Join us for an Author Meets Critics event on this book at the Centre for Ethics, February 14, 2018.  

C4E Graduate Associates Applications Now Up!

Applications to join the C4E Graduate Associates are now available online. All disciplines welcome! Deadline: August 1, 2017.

Each year, the Centre is home to a group of Graduate Associates: students from a variety of disciplines who come together in an interdisciplinary setting to present their own work and comment on—as well as learn from—the work of colleagues in other disciplines. Graduate Associates also participate in Centre activities, including workshops, work-in-progress lunches, conferences, public lectures and forums, and a film series, where they have unique opportunities to interact with visiting scholars and other members of the C4E community, including its Faculty Associates.

Apply online today!

2017-18 C4E Undergraduate Fellows in Ethics appointed

We’re happy to announce the appointment of the Centre for Ethics Undergraduate Fellows in Ethics for 2017-18. They are Madelin Burt-D’Agnillo (Ethics, Society, and Law and Women and Gender Studies) and Lorina Hoxha (Political Science, Philosophy, and Literature and Critical Theory). C4E Undergraduate Fellowships come with an award of $1,000 and workspace at the Centre for Ethics.

 

Introducing C4E’s 2017-18 Postdoctoral Fellow in Ethics

This August, Aaron Ancell (Duke, Philosophy) will join C4E as our Postdoctoral Fellow in Ethics. At Duke, Aaron was affiliated with the Moral Attitudes and Decision-Making Lab (MAD Lab) and the Rethinking Regulation network, both housed in the Kenan Institute for Ethics. Aaron’s areas of speciality are political philosophy and ethics; his dissertation, “Public Unreason: Essays on Political Disagreement,” advances a framework for thinking about political disagreements that is informed by social epistemology and psychology. In 2017-18, he’ll teach ETH201H1 (Contemporary Moral Problems) and ETH230H1S (Morality in Cross-Cultural Perspective).

Meet C4E’s Doctoral Fellows for 2017-18

The two C4E Doctoral Fellows for 2017-18 are Jeremy Davis (Philosophy) and Simon Lambek (Political Science). Jeremy’s main research interests are in normative ethics and political philosophy, along with bioethics, philosophy of law, and aesthetics. His dissertation, “War & National Partiality,” focuses on the role of national partiality in the ethics of war. Simon’s dissertation, “From Dissonance to Reflection: Toward a Theory of Rhetoric,” explores the relationship between rhetoric and critical reflection and builds toward a critical theory of rhetoric, bringing together scholarship from political theory, philosophy, rhetoric and comparative literature to address ethical, political and moral questions. C4E Doctoral Fellowships come with an award of $2,500 and workspace at the Centre for Ethics.

Centre for Ethics brings together graduate students from U of T and beyond

Centre for Ethics brings together graduate students from U of T and beyond

Policy and power, identity and federalism. These were some of the themes explored at the University of Toronto’s Centre for Ethics on Friday. The interdisciplinary conference, Imagining 150: The Ethics of Canada’s Sesquicentennial brought together graduate students from diverse disciplines – religion, history, law, and political science – to explore ethical issues as Canada approaches its 150th birthday. [U of T News]

Joint Working Group on Refugee Board Credibility Assessment

Under the direction of Hilary Evans Cameron, Postdoctoral Associate at the Centre for Ethics, undergraduate students from Trinity College’s Ethics, Society & Law program, along with students from Osgoode Hall Law School, came together at the Centre for Ethics for the final stage of a year-long research project. The Osgoode-Trinity Credibility Assessment Working Group set out to produce guidelines to help Refugee Board members make better decisions about refugee claimants’ credibility. Policy documents in Canada and abroad warn of the dangers of rejecting a claimant’s evidence based on certain kinds of factors (the claimant’s demeanour, memory for dates, minor inconsistencies, etc.). Rather than repeat these important warnings, the Osgoode-Trinity Credibility Assessment Guidelines propose a new way of looking at credibility assessment and its role in a refugee hearing, drawing on recent cognitive scientific research. These Guidelines, presented to the Immigration and Refugee Board in April 2017, use a novel evidence-based framework that suggests that Board members should approach this task with a new set of aims and processes.

The Ethics of Fake News

In March 2017, UofT’s Ethics, Society, and Law Students’ Association in collaboration with the Centre for Ethics hosted an academic panel discussion on The Ethics of Fake News. We are living in what is repeatedly referred to as the post-truth era, witnessing a loss of trust in traditional media outlets, and social media accelerating the circulation of false, unverified, and exaggerated information. The term “fake news” itself has become deeply controversial as its use has devolved from a critique of the proliferation of false stories and conspiracy theories, to an attack on the legitimacy of political opposition; even the pervasiveness of the problem remains contentious. This discussion will explore the ethical obligations that apply to both producers and consumers of journalism, recognizing that inflammatory distortion of facts is not a partisan issue, but a threat to the function of a free, open, and critical press.

Jeffrey Dvorkin, lecturer and director of the Journalism Program at UTSC, and also a board member of the Canadian Journalism foundation, is a frequent commentator on ethics of media in the digital age and the future of the journalism industry.

Kathy English, the public editor of the Toronto Star, and a member of the Canadian Journalism Association Ethics Panel and the executive committee of the Canadian Journalism foundation brings a unique perspective through her direct experience of upholding and enforcing journalistic ethics and responsibility.