Duration of stay: August 1st 2023 till April 30th 2024
In cooperation with Prof. Dr. Rainer Forst, funded by Höppsche Stiftung
Cain Shelley received his PhD in political theory from the London School of Economics in 2022. His research explores various questions in the ethics of political activism. For the 2022-2023 academic year, he was a fellow of the Justitia Center for Advanced Studies at Goethe.
Research project: Grassroots Agents of Global Health Justice. A Philosophical Examination
To date, the philosophical debate about global health justice has overwhelmingly focused on two issues: specifying the best principles of global health justice on the one hand and specifying the institutional changes best suited to advancing these principles on the other. Whilst both debates are clearly important, much less attention has been paid to a third set of issues: the question of which political agents are best suited to implementing the changes justice in global health requires. To help fill this gap, this research project, which forms part of the new Global Health Justice Postdoctoral Programme at Frankfurt, aims to provide an extended philosophical examination of several grassroots agents of health justice, such as the Treatment Action Campaign, ACT UP and the People’s Health Movement. One question I am particularly interested in investigating is the following: what virtues of character – hope?, creativity?, prudence? – do those who participate in the activities of group agents like these need to contribute effectively to processes of just social change?
Recent publications
2023. “Monique Deveaux, Poverty, Solidarity, and Poor-Led Social Movements,” Ethics 133(4): 615-620. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1086/724532
2022. “Murray Bookchin and the Value of Democratic Municipalism,” European Journal of Political Theory (Online first). DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/14748851221128248
2021. “Activist-led Education and Egalitarian Social Change,” Journal of Political Philosophy 29(4): 456-479. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/jopp.12247