Society

FSI researchers work to understand continuity and change in societies as they confront their problems and opportunities. This includes the implications of migration and human trafficking. What happens to a society when young girls exit the sex trade? How do groups moving between locations impact societies, economies, self-identity and citizenship? What are the ethnic challenges faced by an increasingly diverse European Union? From a policy perspective, scholars also work to investigate the consequences of security-related measures for society and its values.

The Europe Center reflects much of FSI’s agenda of investigating societies, serving as a forum for experts to research the cultures, religions and people of Europe. The Center sponsors several seminars and lectures, as well as visiting scholars.

Societal research also addresses issues of demography and aging, such as the social and economic challenges of providing health care for an aging population. How do older adults make decisions, and what societal tools need to be in place to ensure the resulting decisions are well-informed? FSI regularly brings in international scholars to look at these issues. They discuss how adults care for their older parents in rural China as well as the economic aspects of aging populations in China and India.

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Profile
Leif Wenar is Chair of Ethics at King's College London.

After earning his Bachelor’s degree in Philosophy from Stanford, he went to Harvard to study with John Rawls, and wrote his dissertation on property rights with Robert Nozick and T.M. Scanlon.

Leif Wenar works in moral, political and legal theory. His most abstract theoretical work concerns the nature and justification of rights. Most of his scholarly writings have focused on the work of John Rawls. Much of his current research focuses on international issues such as war, human rights, severe poverty, development aid, and inequalities among nations.  He has recently written on the global trade in natural resources such as oil and diamonds, and how to stop the damaging effects of the "resource curse." Most of his published work is available online at  wenar.info.

He has been a Visiting Professor and a Fellow at the Princeton University Center for Human Values, a Fellow of the Center for Ethics and Public Affairs at The Murphy Institute of Political Economy, and a Fellow of the Program on Justice and the World Economy at The Carnegie Council on Ethics and International Affairs.

Research
Leif Wenar works in moral, political and legal theory. Much of his current research focuses on international issues such as war, human rights, severe poverty, development aid, and inequalities among nations. His most abstract theoretical work concerns the nature and justification of rights. Most of his scholarly writings have focused on the work of John Rawls, and he co-edited the autobiographical volume Hayek on Hayek.

He has recently written on the global trade in natural resources such as oil and diamonds, and how to stop the damaging effects this trade has on low-income countries. His work on this topic can be found at www.cleantrade.org.

Attached is the paper for the seminar. Of course there's no expectation that you'll want to read the whole thing, so here's a short guide to what might be most interesting for our time together:
  • The main policy proposals in the project can be gotten from sections 1-14, skipping the 'Question' sections. (These sections cover the material in "Property Rights and the Resource Curse"; if you've read that article you'll not miss too much by skipping these sections.)
  • The final section, A14, tries to build on Seema's excellent work on loan sanctions;
  • Sections 7, 8, 9, and A13 touch on the issues of the standards for
    disqualifying regimes from selling resources/accessing credit, and the
    agencies that could rule on whether these standards have been met.

The rest of the material is just there in case it interests you.

Encina Ground Floor Conference Room

Leif Wenar Professor of Ethics Speaker Kings College London
Workshops
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