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There has recently been a renewal of interest in solidarity, not least because it has played an increasingly important role in contemporary politics (consider social movements such as MeToo, Black Lives Matter, and Occupy; current debates on the future of the welfare state; and controversy over refugees, monetary union, and enlargement in the European Union). There has, however, been relatively little written within moral, legal, and political philosophy on the idea of solidarity, especially when compared with related concepts such as equality, loyalty, community, reciprocity, empathy, altruism, and so on. This workshop will bring together a range of different perspectives on solidarity, and address the following questions:

1.What is solidarity? Is it, for example, a sentiment, an attitude or set of attitudes, a social relation, a property of certain kinds of collective action, or something else again? In what sense, if any, is solidarity distinct from related notions such as justice, equality, loyalty, community, reciprocity, empathy, and altruism? In what sense, if at all, are any of these necessary, perhaps constitutive, conditions of solidarity? Is there a difference between solidarity with and solidarity among? Is there one concept of solidarity, with different applications depending on the context, or many different concepts? Can I act in solidarity with someone else unilaterally? Or does solidarity require reciprocation or symmetry?

2. What is the history of the concept? What role has it played in, for example, the evolution of socialism, liberal nationalism, Christianity, and modern social movements (feminism, civil rights, LGBTQ)? How (if at all) should these historical usages aid in our philosophical understanding of the concept today?

3. Are there ever obligations or duties to act in solidarity with others? Or is acting in solidarity always supererogatory, and so beyond the call of duty? Are obligations of solidarity grounded in considerations of fairness, loyalty, identity, shared experience, or something else again? Are obligations of solidarity more demanding than obligations of justice? Do they have wider/narrower scope? Are they enforceable?

4. What is the value of solidarity? Is acting in solidarity with others good? Under what conditions and why? What about solidarity among gangsters or members of privileged races or classes?

At this event

Andrea Sangiovanni

Professor of Philosophy

eleonora milazzo

Research Associate

Event details

Seminar Room 3
Badia Fiesolana