The Social Contract in the Age of Technology

Abstract

The contractarian tradition in political theory includes a number of models of social contract that play a justificatory role in the construction of fair institutional frameworks. In the current context of rapid technological development, digital transformation, and polycrisis (including climate change), strategies of justification need to take into consideration a number of new factors that traditional political theory did not have to face, such as the structuring of market agency and choice through algorithmic systems and platform gatekeepers, the existential threat posed by environmental disasters to humans and non-human animals, global interconnection and the energy transition. The aim of this panel is to rethink strategies of justification, more or less connected with the contractarian tradition, in order to address current issues of concern in the context of our digital era. Papers will include discussions of legitimate decarbonisation, fairness in digital platforms and AI markets, justified property acquisition more generally, and the right to the surface of the earth in the context of climate change.

Title	Details
Fairness Beyond Efficiency: A Neo-Kantian Framework for Antitrust in Digital Platform and AI Markets	View Paper Details
A Wolf’s Right to the Surface of the Earth. A Kantian Approach	View Paper Details
Raw Material Justice in Supply Chains as a Condition of Legitimate Decarbonization: A Kantian Account	View Paper Details
General Will and Property Acquisition in Kant's 'Doctrine of Right'	View Paper Details