At the Margins of Equality: A Theory of Vulnerability to Social Exclusion

Project Information

MESE

Grant agreement ID: 101060448

DOI

10.3030/101060448

Project terminated on 30 April 2024

EC signature date 3 August 2022

Start date 1 October 2022

End date 30 September 2024

Funded under

• Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA)

Total cost

No data

EU contribution

€ 173 847,36

Coordinated by

UNIVERSITY OF HAMBURG
Germany

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - MESE (At the Margins of Equality: A Theory of Vulnerability to Social Exclusion)

Reporting period: 2022-10-01 to 2024-09-30

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed our shared vulnerability to isolation, serving as a reminder that marginalization and exclusion constitute significant obstacles to achieving a society in which everyone can fully participate and stand in relations of equality with one another. Moreover, empirical research has shown that marginalized individuals are more likely to experience mental health issues, such as depression, anxiety, harmful alcohol and drug use, and self-harm or suicidal behaviour.
The current socio-political state of affairs, then, vividly illustrates how vulnerability to social exclusion is one of the most pressing social justice challenges that liberal democracies must face. This issue is at the heart of the Horizon Europe strategic plan towards “creating a more resilient, inclusive, and democratic European society,” and the political priority of the European Commission to “reduce poverty and inequality.”
The aim of the Action “At the Margins of Equality: A Theory of Vulnerability to Social Exclusion” (MESE) was to contribute to our philosophical understanding of social exclusion by analysing what a just society owes to marginalised and vulnerable individuals if they are to be considered and treated as equals. Specific objectives of this Marie Skłodowska Curie Action (MSCA) were to:
(1) Provide an account of what social exclusion exactly is.
(2) Develop a normative theory of the wrongness of social exclusion.
(3) Analyse the kind of public policies that should be adopted to ameliorate the social condition of those individuals who live on the very hard margins of our societies.
(4) A parallel goal of the MSCA Individual Fellowship was to enhance the career perspective and employability of the individual researcher.

No website has been developed for the project. However, more information about the project and its results can be found at: https://giacomofloris.wixsite.com/gfloris

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

Work was conducted via 6 work packages (WPs).
The project was managed under WP1.
WP2 focused on analysing the issue of social exclusion to define when and why an individual (or group) can be considered socially excluded. Under WP2, the Researcher conducted a literature review that informed his research on the wrongness of social exclusion (WP3). This research resulted in a paper titled "The Invisible Social Class: Relational Equality and Extreme Social Exclusion," which is subject to a "revise and resubmit" invitation by Political Studies.
WP3 aimed to develop a relational egalitarian theory of what is owed to socially excluded individuals, with a particular focus on persons whose agential capacities are impaired due to mental health issues, such as people with substance use disorder. This resulted in three papers: (i) “Egalitarian Relations, Unequal Distributions, and Functioning Self-Respect” published in Biblioteca della libertà; (ii) ‘What We Owe to Impaired Agents”, “conditionally accepted” for publication by the Journal of Social Philosophy; (iii) “Relational Equality and Vulnerability to Social Disrespect”, “accepted for publication” in an edited volume on Vulnerability and Relational Equality to be published by Cambridge University Press. Furthermore, part of this research was included in a monograph, entitled "Una società di eguali. Saggio sulle basi dell'eguaglianza morale e politica" [A Society of Equals. An Essay on the Basis of Moral and Political Equality.] published by Il Mulino.
WP4 focused on examining the public policies and strategies the state should adopt to improve the social conditions of marginalized individuals. This work resulted in a paper entitled “What Is the Point of Harm Reduction? A Relational Egalitarian Perspective,” which proposes a novel relational egalitarian theory of harm reduction. The paper first provides a conceptual analysis of harm reduction. It then argues that the provision of harm reduction services is not (only) a matter of reducing the harmful effects of high-risky and stigmatised behaviours. Rather, most fundamentally, it is (also) the appropriate response to persons’ status as equals. This paper will soon be submitted to the British Journal of Political Science.
In WP5, “Training and Teaching Activities”, the Researcher attended a workshop on job interviews and participated in a seminar on leadership skills. Moreover, he co-supervised two MA theses and a PhD thesis on topics related to the research project.
In WP6 “Communication & Dissemination”, the Researcher (co-)organised three research events and engaged in several communication activities, including nine academic conferences and two outreach activities.
Finally, the research conducted during this MSCA will inform and enhance several publications in the coming years, in addition to the ones produced and published during the fellowship itself.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

MESE has shed novel light on the issue of vulnerability to social exclusion and how it should be addressed by a relational egalitarian society. Specifically, it has widened the scope of the equality debate by outlining the conditions under which an individual (or group) is socially excluded and explaining why social exclusion is wrong independently of its role in enabling other forms of objectionable social inequalities, such as domination and exploitation. Second, it has deepened our understanding of what relational equality means by illustrating its specific demands when applied to hitherto neglected members of society, such as individuals experiencing homelessness, persons whose agential capacities are impaired through drug and alcohol addiction, and sex workers, among others. Understanding what shape equality takes when applied to socially marginalized groups fills an important theoretical and normative gap when thinking about just societies.
This MSCA, therefore, has the potential to generate several kinds of significant societal impacts, such as:
(1) Understanding and awareness: to raise public awareness of the relationship between social exclusion and a broader range of social and health problems, such as drug and alcohol abuse disorders.
(2) Attitudinal: to help change society’s attitudes towards homelessness, mental health and drug addiction.
(3) Health and wellbeing: to improve the health and wellbeing of socially excluded individuals.
Furthermore, the research conducted during the Fellowship will be the foundation for a book manuscript, tentatively entitled “At the Margins of Equality: The Invisible Social Class”. This book offers a novel, relational egalitarian theory of what society owes to socially excluded individuals. Firstly, it provides a comprehensive account of the wrongness of social exclusion: it argues that socially excluded individuals are not only deprived of some valuable goods necessary to live a minimally good life, such as the opportunity to establish meaningful social relationships, but they are also located and kept at the very bottom of the social status hierarchy by being treated as both socially and physically invisible. The upshot is that part of what is wrong with social exclusion is that it creates the invisible social class. Secondly, the book explores the implications of this theory for the public policies aimed at fostering the active inclusion of those individuals who live on the margins of society. It develops an ambitious institutional strategy that seeks not only to mitigate harm but also to provide vulnerable individuals with the social conditions required to participate as equals in society.

Sharing the outcomes of MESE during a conference presentation.