The Political Philosophy of Work (PHILWORK)

The research project, “The Political Philosophy of Work” is funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science, the Spanish Research Agency, and the European Regional Development Fund (PID2022-140131NB-I00) and led by Iñigo González-Ricoy (UB) and Jahel Queralt (UPF) within the remit of the UPF Law and Philosophy research group. 

The project, which runs 2024-2028, seeks to contribute to extant philosophical analyses of work and labor relations by normatively inspecting three recent changes in its nature, significance, and organization. First, work is no longer equated with paid work and increasingly extends—both socially and in the way scholars, policymakers, and statistical agencies define it—to housekeeping, care labor, voluntary social work and, on some views, should also extend to data creation or to emotional labor. Second, the social and legal centrality of work is increasingly under pressure, with many arguing that the working week be shortened, that as many jobs as feasible be automated, and that welfare schemes unconditional on labor market participation be enacted so as to shelter those who find no job, pull out the labor market, or engage in unpaid work. And, third, paid work is increasingly carried out under technological conditions that, through automation, remote work, or algorithmic management, are disrupting how people work and whose costs and benefits are unevenly allocated across the workforce.  This project will seek to submit each of the above changes to sustained philosophical analysis, with one subproject devoted to each change.