Why Does Inequality Matter?

A two-day workshop on T.M. Scanlon’s recently published book Why Does Inequality Matter? (OUP, 2018).

In this highly anticipated monograph, Scanlon turns his attention to political philosophy and more specifically to the question whether and in what way material inequalities between persons are morally problematic. He distinguishes a number of dimensions along which inequality matters morally and examines each of them with great care. On the theory that emerges, economic inequality is a morally complex phenomenon tying together a variety of distinct and potentially conflicting moral concerns. Scanlon’s book exemplifies what political philosophy might be able to contribute to public discourse: to take stock of conceptual intricacies that might otherwise get overlooked in the debate and so to clarify the terms on which it proceeds.

T.M. Scanlon is the Alford Professor of Natural Religion, Moral Philosophy, and Civil Polity, Emeritus, at Harvard University. He is one of the world’s foremost living philosophers. Over the past four decades he has been at the forefront of debates in numerous areas of practical philosophy, including meta-ethics, normative ethics, and moral psychology.