Scientific Work Packages
Three main scientific characteristics make the project innovative and ambitious. First, it proposes a comprehensive and coherent reconsideration of the paradigms of contemporary justice. Second, it realistically avoids the risk of parochialism and Euro-centrism. Third, it pursues this reconfiguration starting from topics that represent the most significant contemporary challenges to our liberal-democratic societies, EU and beyond.
Moreover, the project goes well beyond the state of the art. Albeit the debate surrounding justice in these first two decades of the twenty-first century has been marked by original attempts to reframe the traditional Rawlsian paradigm, enrich it with new dimensions and topics, it remains highly fragmented and mainly preoccupied with refining the original model. In particular, it leaves us with important unanswered questions. Exactly what remains valid of the liberal paradigm that dominated for much of the twentieth century? Which reformulations are consolidated, and how many others still require further examination? What are the advantages and limitations of alternative approaches to the liberal paradigm of justice, such as ethics of care, needs-based theories, political realism, radical feminism, decolonization theories, and so on, when it comes to discussing fundamental ideas and values such as freedom, equality, tolerance, pluralism, and democracy?
The project aims to address these questions by testing the current paradigm against four issue that correspond to our four scientific work packages. The innovative aspects of the project cannot be assessed unless one explains how we move beyond the state of the art in relation to each of them. For each of these topics, at least three lines of investigation are identified as the most relevant. Local principal investigators and their institutions were invited for their proven competence on these issues and for their ability to complement each other.
You can check out each of the WPs at the link below:
WP3: Cultural Identities: Gender, Race, and Decolonial Theories
WP2: Democracy and Economic Inequality
WP4: Science and Post-Truth
WP5: Climate Justice