The Conference "Basic rights, relational ethics and financial constraints" will explore, from a philosophical perspective, the various ways in which basic rights, interpersonal, professional and institutional relations, and financial constraints interact. Given the gap between the generality of basic ethical principles and the norms of practice in various areas of social life, there is usually no direct or obvious way from principles to detailed and effective regulation.

Organised by Patrick Turmel (université Laval, Québec) and Emmanuel Picavet (université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne).

Argument

The Conference "Basic rights, relational ethics and financial constraints" will explore, from a philosophical perspective, the various ways in which basic rights, interpersonal, professional and institutional relations, and financial constraints interact. Given the gap between the generality of basic ethical principles and the norms of practice in various areas of social life, there is usually no direct or obvious way from principles to detailed and effective regulation.

Thus, important questions regarding the implementation and interpretation of rights make it inevitable to engage with practical issues of interpersonal and institutional ethics. In this respect, financial constraints bring in an additional degree of complexity. Indeed, financial constraints are often suspected of being responsible for ethically inadequate relationships in professional and institutional contexts.

For example, medical ethics is often very uncomfortable dealing with financial constraints, which potentially endanger the ethical and professional requirements of care provision. We would like to highlight the nature and ethical relevance of conflicts of this kind. In addition, our ambition is also to explore the levels of decision-making and aspects of organizations that are impacted by financial constraints. These constraints often consist in budgetary maxima, but often assume more complex forms: difficulties in the access to credit are an important case, administrative difficulties and justification requirements are also important potential troublemakers in the relationships between money and ethically respectable practice.

Programme

Thursday, November 26^th. 

Meeting point : Board Room A, «Le France », 190 avenue de France, Paris 13^e. 

• 9:30 Patrick Turmel (Université Laval, Québec) Introductory remarks 
• 9:45 Emmanuel Picavet (Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne) Some Preliminary Working Hypotheses: the Financial Side of Hard Compromise
• 10:00 Vida Panitch (Carleton University, Canada) Commodification and Inequality.
• 11:00 Pierre-Yves Néron (Université Catholique de Lille) Relational Equality and Economic Institutions
• 11:45 Louis-Philippe Hodgson (York University, Canada) Relational Rights and Political Institutions
• 12:30 Lunch
• 14:00 Douglas Mackay (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA) Fulfilling Basic Rights in Conditions of Scarcity: The Ethics of Public Policy Randomized Controlled Trials
• 14:45 Jocelyn Maclure (Université Laval, Québec) Conscience-based Exemptions and Taxation
• 15:45 Michael Kessler (University of Toronto, Canada) Childhood, Impaired Consent, and Criminal Justice
• 16:30 Rosana Triviño (Universidade da Coruña, Spain) Consciences in Crisis: Healthcare providers' objection to cutouts & rights restrictions

Friday, November 27^th     

Meeting point : Ground floor, Maison Internationale de l’université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne,

58, boulevard Arago, Paris 13^e. 

• 14:00 Constanze Binder (Erasmus University Rotterdam, Netherlands) Regulating Free Markets to Promote Freedom
• 14:45 David Robichaud (Université d’Ottawa, Canada) Freedom and Taxation
• 15:45 Chad Horne (Centre for Moral and Political Philosophy, Hebrew University of Jerusalem) Insurance and Equality Revisited
• 16:30 Concluding debate and perspectives