The Fair Limits project aimed to investigate whether upper limits to the distribution of economic and ecological resources can be justified. We all understand, almost intuitively, that it is bad and wrong if people are living below the poverty line and do not have access to minimal amounts of ecological resources, such as water or land - but is there any sound reason to think that the same could be said about the opposite, namely that we could become too rich, or be taking too many ecological resources? This question is being analysed starting from a distributive justice perspective, which allows us to zoom in on the most fundamental moral questions that need to be asked first, before we move to asking what this implies for policy recommendations and institutional design, as well as individual duties that may fall onto us. These are different questions, although in public debates they unfortunately often end up being conflated.
It hardly needs explanation of why investigating these questions is important for society, since we are living in a serious ecological crisis, and since there are increasingly citizens raising their voices against the growing inequalities of wealth and income. What the project aims to offer to society, is scholarly analysis on intuitions that citizens may have: what, if any, sound reasons are there for believing that there should be limits to the possession of economic resources (income, wealth), and to the use of ecological resources? For the latter, the Fair Limits project zooms in on the most urgent societal issue, namely climate change.
The overall objectives are to investigate, firstly, what limitarianism would mean, exactly; secondly, what could be reasons to endorse this view, and whether these reasons can withstand strict philosophical analysis; third, what could be objections to this view and how strong are those objections; and fourth, what would this imply for the design of public policies and institutions.
