Universal Basic Income as A Response to Absolute Poverty

A friendly 90-minute deep-dive in ethics and political philosophy

This week we will use Universal Basic Income (UBI), framed specifically as a proposed response to absolute poverty, as our shared case study for doing ethics and political philosophy in a grounded way.

UBI debates can get stuck quickly. People jump to policy slogans, or to sweeping claims about why poverty exists. Our aim is to slow down and make the discussion more illuminating by asking:

What ethical FIRST principles are we relying on?
Rights, welfare, equality, desert, reciprocity, capability, dignity, freedom.

Which political theory is doing the heavy lifting?
Liberal egalitarian, libertarian, Marxist or socialist, utilitarian, social contract approaches.

What do we mean by poverty, and what causes it?
We will use a sober, diagnostic framework that separates different causal mechanisms before we argue about solutions.

What about power?
We will take seriously the thought that institutions reflect power and interests, while also asking how we can still reason about legitimacy, justification, and justice rather than letting power end the conversation.

No prior reading required. Come with your intuitions, your questions, and your best attempt at good-faith charity toward views you do not share.

How the 120 minutes will run:

* Warm-up and shared definitions
UBI, absolute poverty, justice versus charity, power versus justification

* Mapping the landscape
How different ethical and political theories frame the same proposal

* Poverty causes
A diagnostic walkthrough using multiple mechanisms rather than single-cause slogans

* UBI tradeoffs and objections
Work incentives, reciprocity, targeting versus universality, stigma, administration, political feasibility

Takeaways
What you are assuming ethically, what you are assuming empirically, and what you want to read or think about next

Goal for the night
Leave with a clearer sense of your first principles, which claims about poverty you are leaning on, and what UBI is actually for, along with what it cannot plausibly do.

We look forward to a generous and lively exchange of ideas.
Tony & Aouie

We look forward to a generous and lively exchange of ideas.
Tony & Aouie