Deep Disagreements on Social and Political Justice: Their Meta-Ethical Relevance and the Need for a New Research Perspective

Deep Disagreements on Social and Political Justice: Their Meta-Ethical Relevance and
the Need for a New Research Perspective

Public Lecture by Professor Manuel Knoll (Istanbul Şehir University)
Dec. 10th, 2018: 18:00 – 19:30
Venue: Tongji University, School of Humanities (Yuntong Bldg.) Room 508

This talk starts off with a historical section showing that deep disagreements among notions of social
and political justice are a characteristic feature of the history of political thought. Since no agreement
or consensus on distributive justice is possible, I argue that political philosophers should–instead of
continuously proposing new normative theories of justice–focus on analyzing the reasons, significance,
and consequences of such kinds of disagreements. The next two sections are analytical. The
first sketches some possible reasons for deep disagreements among notions of social and political
justice. The second discusses the meta-ethical relevance of the lack of consensus on justice and rejects
ethical realism and cognitivism based on the argument from deep disagreements.

Manuel Andreas Knoll：

Manuel Andreas Knoll is professor of Philosophy at Istanbul Şehir University. His work
focuses on ancient, modern and contemporary Political Philosophy and Ethics, especially on theories
of justice. He also contributed to debates on Nietzsche and Politics. Knoll studied Philosophy, Political
Science and History at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität Munich, where he also received his doctorate
in 2000 for a work on Theodor W. Adorno. In 2008 he acquired his venia legendi for Political
Theory and Philosophy. His Habilitationsschrift examined Aristotle's views on social and political justice
and includes an extensive critique of Martha Nussbaum's social democratic interpretation of Aristotle.
Since 2013 he is a member of the Research Institute "Lucio Anneo Séneca", Universidad Carlos
III de Madrid. In 2016 he received the Colletti Award (Premio Lucio Colletti) for outstanding work
in the field of philosophy on Capitoline Hill in Rome, Italy.