Conference Agenda

This paper examines how “incumbency bias” in housing policy—reflected in measures like restrictive zoning, certain rent regulations, and property tax incentives—can limit opportunities for newcomers. Drawing on Rawls’s veil of ignorance, the analysis develops four principles for housing justice: universal access to adequate housing, protection against arbitrary displacement, enabling mobility for those seeking better prospects, and ensuring long-term economic and environmental sustainability. I show that when these principles clash—for instance, if efforts to protect current residents restrict others’ housing choices—policy outcomes tend to favor incumbents at the expense of newcomers. To address this tension, the paper proposes a Principle of Fair Housing Opportunity, calling for reforms that balance the legitimate interests of existing residents with the needs of those who wish to relocate. The aim is to show that recognizing the significance of both stability and mobility offers an important corrective to the existing literature on housing justice, which tends to focus on the harms of displacement and gentrification. I discuss policy reforms that would reduce incumbency bias and promote equitable housing access without dismissing the concerns of existing communities.

Short Abstract

The aim of my talk is to go against the negative trend that currently prevails in the philosophical literature concerning the value of sharing personal information on social media. Both Anita Allen (2012) and Carissa Véliz (2023) argue against sharing personal information for prudential and moral reasons. Allen goes so far as to defend the claim that we have a duty not to share or a duty to protect our privacy, because we thereby protect our well-being as well as the well-being of the people around us. While this negative trend is certainly justified and understandable to some extent, it is, I believe, too one-sided and should be completed with the neglected positive aspects of sharing. The question that I want to answer is Why share personal information? Do we have any strong reasons for sharing? My main claim is that we have strong prudential, moral and epistemic reasons to share personal information on platforms such as TikTok and Instagram. The idea is that we can help ourselves as well as others by sharing and we can distribute knowledge or raise awareness for morally significant phenomena.

This paper investigates how human interactions with AI-powered chatbots may offend human dignity. Current chatbots, driven by large language models (LLMs), mimic human linguistic behaviour but lack the moral and rational capacities essential for genuine interpersonal respect. Human beings are prone to anthropomorphise chatbots—indeed, chatbots appear to be deliberately designed to elicit that response. As a result, human beings’ behaviour toward chatbots often resembles behaviours typical of interaction between moral agents. Drawing on a second-personal, relational account of dignity, we argue that interacting with chatbots in this way is incompatible with the dignity of users. We show that, since second-personal respect is premised on reciprocal recognition of second-personal moral authority, behaving towards chatbots in ways that convey second-personal respect is bound to misfire in morally problematic ways, given the lack of reciprocity. Consequently, such chatbot interactions amount to subtle but significant violations of self-respect—the respect we are dutybound to show for our own dignity. We illustrate this by discussing four actual chatbot use cases (information retrieval, customer service, advising, and companionship), and propound that the increasing societal pressure to engage in such interactions with chatbots poses a hitherto underappreciated threat to human dignity.

Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) is an important climate policy tool aimed at removing and storing atmospheric CO₂. While the German government has begun investing in CDR research, it has yet to establish a concrete policy pathway. This paper argues that the state must take a proactive role in shaping CDR policy rather than leaving it to private companies. If private companies dominate CDR implementation, this could undermine public trust, weaken state authority, and threaten democratic decision-making. While state control is no guarantee for an equitable implementation of CDR policies, there are good reasons to think that CDR management should be led by the state. I highlight how CDR can be conceptualized as waste management, how waste management is typically tied to state oversight, and how the state is best equipped to provide it in an equitable way. Building on this, I argue that if private companies gain too much control over future CDR pathways, they may challenge the authority of the state as the primary entity responsible for managing the atmospheric clean-up. This could lead to a decline in state power, a (further) increase in corporate influence, and weaken democratic decision-making on critical societal issues such as climate policy.