University of Bayreuth Department of Philosophy Faculty V – Cultural Studies PhD Thesis Sufficientarianism in Theory and Practice Author: Philipp Kanschik Supervisors: Prof. Dr. Rudolf Schüßler, University of Bayreuth Address: Treptower Straße 90, 12059 Berlin Prof. Dr. Kirsten Meyer, Germany Humboldt University of Berlin Phone: 0049 175 318 2446 Handed in: April, 20th, 2016 E-mail: [email protected] Accepted: July, 13th, 2016 Oral Examination: July, 19th, 2016 Eidesstattliche Versicherung (Declaration under oath) „Ich versichere hiermit an Eides Statt, dass ich die vorliegende Arbeit ohne unzulässige Hilfe Dritter und ohne Benutzung anderer als der angegebenen Hilfsmittel angefertigt habe; die aus fremden Quellen direkt oder indirekt übernommenen Gedanken sind als solche kenntlich gemacht. Darüber hinaus versichere ich, dass ich weder bisher Hilfe von gewerblichen Promotionsberatern bzw. -vermittlern in Anspruch genommen habe noch künftig in Anspruch nehmen werde. Die Arbeit wurde bisher weder im Inland noch im Ausland in gleicher oder ähnlicher Form einer anderen Prüfungsbehörde vorge- legt und ist auch noch nicht veröffentlicht. Darüber hinaus erkläre ich, dass die eingereichten Exemplare mit der Version überein- stimmen, für die die Druckgenehmigung durch den Dekan der Kulturwissenschaftlichen Fakultät erteilt wurde. “ "I hereby declare this work to be my own, that I have acknowledged all the sources I have consulted in the paper itself and not only in the bibliography, that all wording un- accompanied by a reference is my own. I ensure that I have neither used the services of commercial PhD advisors nor will do this in the future. I acknowledge that this work has not been handed in at another university in Germany or abroad in order to obtain an academic degree, and as a whole has not been published before. Further, I declare that all handed-in exemplars are identical to version that was approved for publication by the Dean of Faculty of V – Cultural Studies." 2 Preface This PhD thesis discusses sufficientarianism as a doctrine of distributive justice in theory and application. Work on this dissertation was carried out between January 2014 and April 2016. It was handed in on April 20th, 2016 and evaluated by Prof. Rudolf Schüßler (Philosophy, Bay- reuth), Prof. Kirsten Meyer (Philosophy, HU Berlin) and Annette Dufner (Philosophy, Bay- reuth). Based on the evaluators reports, the examination board of Faculty V – Cultural Studies (German: "Prüfungskommission der Kulturwissenschaftlichen Fakultät") accepted the disserta- tion on July, 13th, 2016. The oral examination took place on July 19th, 2016 in Bayreuth. The ex- aminers were Prof. Schüßler, Prof. Meyer and Prof. Bernhard Herz (Economics, Bayreuth). Prof. Dufner took the minutes. On the same day, the Dean of Faculty V, Prof. Dr. Kurt Beck, issued the PhD certificate. The final grade of the thesis was 0,43 (summa cum laude). I would like to thank my supervisor Rudolf Schüßler for countless productive and insightful dis- cussions, and for giving me guidance on the overall project whenever necessary. I could have not imagined a better supervisor. Further, I also like to thank my co-supervisor Kirsten Meyer for tremendously helpful discussions and letting me be part of her great weekly research semi- nar in Berlin. Various people have substantially contributed to my thinking about the topics of this thesis throughout the last two years in numerous different ways, including (in alphabetical order): Maike Albertzart, David Axelsen, Oliver Bätz, Matthew Braham, Sean Dyde, Peter Heindl, Ro- land Hesse, Johannes Himmelreich, Benjamin Huppert, Robert Huseby, Arne Manzeschke, Lu- kas Meyer, Darrel Moellendorf, Lasse Nielsen, Daniel Petz, Johanna Privitera, Merten Reglitz, Olivier Roy, Liam Shields, Lukas Tank, Christian Uhle, Makoto Usami, Ulla Wessels, Gabriel Wollner, Nathan Wood, and Joachim Wündisch. Financial support during the time of research from McKinsey & Company and the German Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), grant 01UN1204E, is gratefully acknowledged. The thesis is organized as follows. An introductory chapter provides the necessary context and background, summarizes the Articles' main claims and explains their interrelationship. The five Articles are identified with the Roman numerals I to V and follow in this order. Thorough inves- tigation is devoted to some of the most pressing challenges against sufficientarianism in the the- oretical sphere (I and II) and concerning its application to environmental topics (III, IV and V). This thesis is a cumulative dissertation in accordance with current university examination guide- lines. Three Articles (I, III and IV) have been published or been accepted for publication by in- ternational English-language peer-reviewed journals: 3 I. Kanschik, Philipp (2015), "Why sufficientarianism is not indifferent to progressive taxa- tion", in: Kriterion – Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 29 (2), 81-102. III. Kanschik, Philipp (forthcoming), "Eco-sufficiency and Distributive Sufficientarianism – Friends or Foes?", in: Environmental Values. Accepted February 12, 2016. Preview available online at: http://www.whp-journals.co.uk/EV/papers/Kanschik.pdf IV. Heindl, Peter und Philipp Kanschik (2016), Ecological Sufficiency, Individual Liberties, and Distributive Justice: Implications for Policy Making, in: Ecological Economics, Vol. 126, 42-50. Article I and III are single-authored, while Article IV was written together with the economist Peter Heindl (Centre for European Economic Research).1 The remaining two Articles II and V are both single-authored and currently under peer-review consideration.2 Further, parts of earlier drafts of Article V are forthcoming in German-language anthologies.3 In focusing on sufficientarianism in this thesis, I do not aim at providing an all-encompassing outline and defense of the theory. Despite being a relatively young theory, discussion on suffi- cientarianism has reached a depth that makes such a project too demanding to realize within the time and space constraints of a dissertation. Instead, I have chosen a piecemeal, problem-oriented approach. Taken together, the Articles ad- vance thinking about sufficientarianism as a theory of distributive justice at various different ends of the debate. They should be instrumental in providing a clearer understanding and more 1 Article IV is an interdisciplinary philosophical and economic work. For the main section of the Article (section 3), Peter Heindl carried out the economic literature review, while I took care the philosophical literature. 3.1. is mainly philosophical, 3.5. is mainly economic, and the remaining section 3.2.-3.4. include literature from both fields. Sections 1., 2., 4. and 5., and the overall claims and structure of the Article, are a co-production of both authors. 2 Article II is currently under peer-review at Utilitas (submitted November 26th, 2015); Article V is currently under peer-review at Ethics, Policy & Environment (submitted February 23rd, 2015). 3 An early version of Article V is forthcoming as: 'Der Begriff der Energiearmut', in B. Emunds (ed.), Soziale Ungleichheiten – Herausforderungen für die Umweltpolitik. Marburg: Me- tropolis Verlag. The entire section "Energy poverty versus alternative concepts" is not in- cluded in this version, while the section "Towards a needs-based definition of energy pov- erty" has seen major changes, and the remaining sections minor changes. Further, a collaborative paper with Peter Heindl and Rudolf Schüßler is forthcoming as: 'Anfor- derungen an Energiearmutsmaße, in: Großmann, K., Schaffrin, A., Smigiel, C. (eds.), Ener- gie und soziale Ungleichheit: Zur gesellschaftlichen Dimension der Energiewende in Deutschland und Europa. Springer VS, Wiesbaden. The paper includes a shortened earlier version of the section "Justifying the concept of energy poverty" from Article V. 4 effective responses to some of the main objections against the theory, and contribute to its appli- cation to environmental topics. By this, I hope I have made a relevant and lasting contribution to the advancement of a theory of distributive justice that could shape how we think about the topic in years to come. Philipp Kanschik Berlin, August 3rd, 2016 5 CURRICULUM VITAE – PHILIPP KANSCHIK Birthday May 18th, 1986, Frankfurt am Main Citizenship German Civil status Single Education 01/2014 – 07/2016 University of Bayreuth (Germany) PhD in Philosophy, summa cum laude Title: Sufficientarianism in theory and practice Supervisors: R. Schüßler (Bayreuth) und K. Meyer (Berlin) 10/2015 – 04/2016 Fundação Getúlio Vargas, Rio de Janeiro (Brazil) PhD exchange student 10/2008 – 09/2011 Humboldt University Berlin (Germany) Philosophy, Master of Arts GPA equivalent 3.7, 3rd in class of 50 03/2010 Pushkin-Institute Moscow (Russia) Study trip 07 – 11/2007 University of Stellenbosch (South Africa) University exchange student 10/2005 – 09/2008 University of Bayreuth (Germany) Philosophy & Economics, Bachelor of Arts GPA equivalent 3.7, 2nd in class of 40 2002 – 2003 Westville High School, Indiana (USA) High School exchange student 1996 – 2005 Anna-Schmidt-School Frankfurt (Germany) High school GPA equivalent 3.8, 3rd in class of 60 Work Experience 02/2014 – 01/2016 University of Bayreuth, Department of Philosophy Scientific Researcher 6 10/2011 – 11/2013 McKinsey & Company (Berlin) Management Consultant 10/2010 – 05/2011 Decision Institute (Berlin) Public Sector Consultant 12/2009 – 05/2011 Humboldt University Berlin, Chair for Practical