project
Stanford University Postdoctoral Scholar
1 January 2013 - 31 August 2013
PI/s in Exeter: Chiara Cordelli
Research partners:
Funding awarded: £ 24,017
Sponsor(s): Stanford University
About the research
As a funded Postdoctoral Scholar at Stanford, I worked on two projects:
1. an independent research project entitled “Justice and Civil Society: From Background Culture to Distributive Structure”
2. a collaborative project (together with Rob Reich and Lucy Bernholz) entitled “Philanthropy, Policy and Technology.”
Justice and Civil Society: From Background Culture to Distributive Structure
The project develops a normative conception of the appropriate role and site of civil society within theories of liberal-egalitarian justice, questioning what kind of principles should govern and assess both the overall institutional structure of civil society and the conduct of the particular associations that operate within it. I argue that there are good reasons to regard the system of both formal (e.g. tax-incentives) and informal (e.g. codes of conduct) rules that govern the structure of civil society -- its composition, inclusiveness, and the distribution of associations across the territory -- as being a primary subject of justice. This is not, or not primarily, because these rules have pervasive impact on individuals’ life prospects or because they are coercive in nature. It is rather because civil society governs the production and distribution across society of distinctive type of goods, which I call “relational resources” -- goods that include interpersonal trust and social influence. Since these goods ought to be understood as productive resources and access to them should be understood as a social primary good, I argue that the structure of civil society should be organized so as to distribute access to relational resources according to egalitarian principles. Far from being a “background culture,” civil society is, and should be regarded as, a “relational distributive structure.”
Outputs:
Chiara Cordelli, “Justice as Fairness and Relational Resources,” Journal of Political Philosophy (forthcoming).
Chiara Cordelli, “Distributive Justice and the Problem of Friendship,” Political Studies (forthcoming).
Philanthropy, Policy and Technology
Stanford Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society
The aim of the project (main investigators: Rob Reich and Lucy Bernholz) is to map innovations in philanthropy and civil society with an eye toward updating the 20th Century public policy framework that structures the nonprofit or voluntary sector. The project also studies the relationship between philanthropy and democratic values. As part of the project, I co-authored several papers (below) and I am co-editing a book with Rob Reich and Lucy Bernholz on the history, norms and institutions of charitable and philanthropic giving.
Outputs:
“Democracy and Philanthropy” (with Rob Reich and Lucy Bernholz). Stanford Social Innovation Review, 2013.
“How Should We Think About Impact Investment, Philanthropy, and the Social Economy?” (with Rob Reich and Lucy Bernholz). Stanford Social Innovation Review, 2012.
“Good Fences: The Importance of Institutional Boundaries in the New Social Economy” (with Rob Reich and Lucy Bernholz). Report published by the Stanford Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society. http://www.stanford.edu/group/pacs/cgi-bin/wordpress/?page_id=187
“The Shifting Ground Beneath Us: Framing Nonprofit Policy for the Next Century” (with Rob Reich and Lucy Bernholz). Report published by the Stanford Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society. http://www.stanford.edu/group/pacs/cgi-bin/wordpress/?page_id=187
“Democracy and Philanthropy” - Public talk, Stanford Business School available at www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJjRZTegclM