Affective Inequalities & Theories of Justice: The Limits of Liberalism
Tues 8 February 2022, 14.00-15.30
Confirmed speaker: Prof. Kathleen Lynch, UCD
Discussant: Dr Sara Clavero
Abstract:
The relationship between care and neoliberalism (new liberalism) cannot be determined without examining how care is defined within classical liberalism. Because liberals tend to see care and love as private matters, they do not regard care as an issue of public judicial concern. Care is defined as a problem of ethics rather than a matter of justice. Though this position has been strongly critiqued for failing to take account of how care and love are social goods without which people (or indeed the world and all other species) can neither survive nor flourish, it remains a part of the mainstream liberal position.
While liberalism as a political philosophy has enabled minorities and women in Western and European countries to make some gains politically and legally over the past hundred years, many of these gains were about giving minorities and women chances to compete with men in what remained White-male-controlled worlds of politics, employment and social and cultural life. Achieving equality of respect for care work and for carers was not part of the liberal ideal, as care was not seen as work; rather it was a private ethical matter. Neoliberal politics builds on this prior disregard for care in the liberal tradition.
This talk is based on one of the major themes in Kathleen Lynch's new book, Care and Capitalism (2022) Cambridge: Polity Press. It is available in paperback from a number of Irish bookshops including https://www.universitybooks.ie/ and and Waterstones, Hodges Figgis https://www.waterstones.com/book/care-and-capitalism/kathleen-lynch/9781509543847