PANEL 3 / FREEDOM, EQUALITY AND WHAT ELSE?
CONVENORS MANUEL SÁ VALENTE, DEVON CASS, AND CALLUM MACRAE
All inquiries about the panel should be sent to [email protected], [email protected], or [email protected].
When we envision a just society, we often think of it as necessarily involving a commitment to some form of freedom and equality. For many years, much attention has been paid to disagreements about how these two concepts are best understood. Recently, however, attention has been increasingly directed to the question of whether freedom and equality are sufficient for a comprehensive political morality, or whether something "else" is needed. From the morality of competition (Hussain 2020), to specific intuitions about economic equality and incentives (Cohen 2008, 2009), to the grounds of major political ideologies, such as socialism, feminism and conservatism (Maguire 2025, Tronto 2013, 2023, Gheaus 2025)—theorists have begun to identify parts of our political morality that do not appear to be grounded in commitments to either freedom or equality. Proposals for further candidates vary, including concepts such as "fraternity" (e.g., the French Revolution), "community" (Cohen), "solidarity" (Hussain, Maguire, Sangiovanni, Van Parijs, Viehoff), "efficiency" (Heath, Rawls), and "care" (Held, Kittay, Tronto), among others.
While many theorists feel the limitations of a framework grounded only in freedom and equality, difficult questions remain regarding how best to understand the candidate further values, such as questions regarding their substantive content and their relationship to traditional understandings of freedom, equality, and justice. What are the substantive demands of alternative values, like solidarity and care? Are alternative values genuinely autonomous, or are they ultimately reducible to (some conception) of freedom and equality? Are alternative values best seen as further demands of justice, or as somehow beyond or outside of justice’s remit?
This panel welcomes submissions on these issues, and any others that pertain to the topic of alternative values in political philosophy. Contributions related to the following questions (although not limited to them) are hence welcome:
All inquiries about the panel should be sent to [email protected], [email protected], or [email protected].
When we envision a just society, we often think of it as necessarily involving a commitment to some form of freedom and equality. For many years, much attention has been paid to disagreements about how these two concepts are best understood. Recently, however, attention has been increasingly directed to the question of whether freedom and equality are sufficient for a comprehensive political morality, or whether something "else" is needed. From the morality of competition (Hussain 2020), to specific intuitions about economic equality and incentives (Cohen 2008, 2009), to the grounds of major political ideologies, such as socialism, feminism and conservatism (Maguire 2025, Tronto 2013, 2023, Gheaus 2025)—theorists have begun to identify parts of our political morality that do not appear to be grounded in commitments to either freedom or equality. Proposals for further candidates vary, including concepts such as "fraternity" (e.g., the French Revolution), "community" (Cohen), "solidarity" (Hussain, Maguire, Sangiovanni, Van Parijs, Viehoff), "efficiency" (Heath, Rawls), and "care" (Held, Kittay, Tronto), among others.
While many theorists feel the limitations of a framework grounded only in freedom and equality, difficult questions remain regarding how best to understand the candidate further values, such as questions regarding their substantive content and their relationship to traditional understandings of freedom, equality, and justice. What are the substantive demands of alternative values, like solidarity and care? Are alternative values genuinely autonomous, or are they ultimately reducible to (some conception) of freedom and equality? Are alternative values best seen as further demands of justice, or as somehow beyond or outside of justice’s remit?
This panel welcomes submissions on these issues, and any others that pertain to the topic of alternative values in political philosophy. Contributions related to the following questions (although not limited to them) are hence welcome:
- the limits of freedom and equality;
- the content of community, solidarity, and care as political values;
- the nature of efficiency, and its suitability to serve as a political value;
- the relationship between alternative values and freedom, equality, and justice;
- how different views about the fundamental values that are relevant to political morality are related to disputes between different political traditions (liberalism, libertarianism, feminism, socialism, conservatism, etc.)
