In 2018, Halbert Post-Doctoral Fellowship has been awarded to Dr. Igor Shoikhedbord.
Dr. Igor Shoikhedbrod (PhD, University of Toronto) specializes in political theory and political economy. Dr. Shoikhedbrod’s research interests cut across themes in critical political thought, legal theory, and political economy. His research project is concerned with the problems of economic inequality and domination in liberal democratic societies and their implications for discourses surrounding rights, distributive justice, and emancipation. Igor has parallel research interests in the political thought of Hegel and Marx, as well as the economic thought of Karl Polanyi. Dr. Shoikhedbrod received his M.A in Political Science from York University, and he holds a B.A from the University of Toronto with a concentration in Ethics, Society, and Law, Political Science, and Philosophy. His doctoral research was supported by the Ontario Graduate Scholarship. While a Halbert Post-Doctoral Fellow at Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Dr. Shoikhedbrod will be working on the project Re-Politicizing Equality: The Potential and Limitations of G.A Cohen's Egalitarianism. Below is the description of his project.
The exacerbation of economic inequality in liberal democracies over the last thirty years has generated a heightened concern among political philosophers, sociologists, economists and ordinary citizens. Contemporary Anglo-American political philosophy has seen renewed efforts at defending the ideal of equality from critics across the political spectrum. G.A Cohen was arguably the most influential political philosopher on the Left to take on the philosophic task of rescuing equality in the twenty-first century. Cohen's methodological orientation shifted from a foundation in classical Marxism to a focus on normative political philosophy--an intellectual journey that culminated with the development of 'luck egalitarianism'. Despite its philosophic merits, Cohen's principled attempt at rescuing equality through normative theorizing had the consequence of abstracting from institutional considerations and de-politicizing the struggle against economic inequality in the real world. This research project aims to track the potential and limitations of G.A Cohen's recourse to normative theorizing in general and his endorsement of 'luck egalitarianism' in particular. The broader goal of the research project is to consider the ways that egalitarians can re-politicize the debate about equality in the face of growing economic inequality and social exclusion. There is no more pressing a time for conducting such an inquiry than our own.
Dr. Shoikhedbrod will commence his post-doctoral fellowship at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in January 2019.
