Join us for this Eva Colorni Memorial Lecture with Lea Ypi and Amartya Sen.
What is moral socialism? “If we seek an answer to the waverer who asks us whether he should be a socialist or not,” wrote the Austro-Marxist Otto Bauer more than a century ago “we do need Kant’s ethics.”
In this lecture, Lea Ypi reflects on the failures of state socialism and global capitalism in the twentieth century and suggests a new way forward. Her account seeks to revive the Enlightenment critique of technocratic reason and is grounded on a universal conception of freedom as moral agency.
Meet our speakers and chair
Lea Ypi is a Professor of Political Theory at the London School of Economics and a Fellow of the British Academy. She is the author of several books, including “Free: Coming of Age at the End of History”, winner of the Ondaatje Prize from the Royal Society of Literature and translated into more than thirty-five languages.
Amartya Sen is Thomas W. Lamont University Professor, and Professor of Economics and Philosophy, at Harvard University and was previously the Master of Trinity College, Cambridge. He is also Senior Fellow at the Harvard Society of Fellows. His research has ranged over social choice theory, economic theory, ethics and political philosophy and welfare economics. In 1998, he was awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for his work in welfare economics. Amartya is an Honorary Fellow of LSE.
Nicholas Stern is IG Patel Professor of Economics and Government, the inaugural Chair of the Global School of Sustainability, and Chair of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at LSE. His forthcoming book, The growth story of the 21st century: the economics and opportunity of climate action, will be published by LSE Press in 2025.
More about this event
The International Inequalities Institute (@LSEInequalities) at LSE brings together experts from many LSE departments and centres to lead cutting-edge research focused on understanding why inequalities are escalating in numerous arenas across the world, and to develop critical tools to address these challenges.
The Eva Colorni Memorial Trust was established by Amartya Sen to commemorate the life and work of Eva Colorni and to reflect and further her belief in the possibility of social justice. Eva was an excellent teacher and writer whose work and passion were concerned with analysing and redressing inequality.
The main activities of the Trust are to award bursaries to undergraduate students of economics who are experiencing hardship at London Metropolitan University, where Eva taught for many years, and to hold lectures on the theme of social justice. The first five lectures were published in a book, called Living As Equals and includes an essay by Amartya Sen on Social Commitment and Democracy. There is more information about the Trust and past lectures on the Eva Colorni Memorial Trust website.
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