As part of the activities of the Philosophy of Work Network organized by Denise Celentano (Université de Montréal) and Pablo Gilabert (Concordia University), Michael Cholbi (University of Edinburgh) will give a presentation entitled: “Fit for beachcombers and workaholics alike: Productive pluralism as a post-work vision.”

More details to come!

Abstract

The notion of ‘post-work’ has been ascendant in both popular and academic discourses, but there is not yet a consensus on the nature of post-work or a cataloguing of different social visions that might plausibly be labelled post-work. Here I articulate and defend my own ‘productive pluralism’ as an attractive post-work vision. Productive pluralism imagines social arrangements in which individuals can (if they wish) be largely free from work, particularly paid work, but also free to work (if they wish). This vision is post-work not in striving for the elimination of work altogether but for (a) the withering away of harmful work-centred norms and assumptions, (b) fostering or celebrating a wider array of relationships to the productive sphere than are validated under work-centred norms, and (c) liberating the goods of work from work’s current dominant place among means for satisfying basic material needs.