Theodore M. Lechterman Postdoctoral Fellow Resident at the Forschungskolleg Humanwissenschaften: September 2018 – August 2019 Research topic at the Forschungskolleg Humanwissenschaften: »Donors’ Democracy: Private Philanthropy And Political Morality« Project outline: The practice of philanthropy, which voluntarily releases private property for public purposes, represents in many ways the best angels of our nature. But this practice’s noteworthy virtues often blind us to the fact that philanthropy also represents the exercise of private power. My book Donors Democracy argues that this private power threatens the value of democracy, and the risk is grave. The ability to commit private wealth for public ends rivals the authority of communities to determine their own affairs. And, in societies characterized by wide disparities in wealth, philanthropy combines with background inequality to make public decisions overwhelmingly sensitive to the preferences of the rich. Allowing private wealth to control social outcomes collides with core commitments of a democratic society, a society in which persons are supposed to determine their common affairs together, on equal terms.
But why exactly is democracy valuable? How should these values be weighed against the liberty of donors and the many social benefits that philanthropy promises? Donors’ Democracy aims to explore these questions by examining various aspects of the practice of philanthropy: state support for private giving, the use of donations for political speech, the temporal duration of donor intent, the responsibility for providing public goods, the justification for corporate philanthropy, and the practical ethics of giving. These studies build to a surprising conclusion: democracy cannot survive without philanthropy—but making philanthropy safe for democracy also requires radical changes to law and practice. In the process, the book illustrates how engagement with empirical phenomena challenges leading perspectives in contemporary political theory. (Theodore M. Lechterman) Funding of the stay: »Justitia Amplificata. Rethinking Justice − Applied and Global«Research partner: Theodore M. Lechterman follows the invitation of Professor Rainer Forst and the research center »Justitia Amplificata«. Scholarly profile of Theodore M. LechtermanTed Lechterman is a political theorist interested in how the value of democracy applies to economic practices. From 2016 to 2018 he held an Interdisciplinary Ethics Postdoctoral Fellowship at Stanford University, housed between the McCoy Center for Ethics in Society and the Stanford Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society. He received his Ph.D. in Politics from Princeton University in 2016.Website: Please find more information about Theodore M. Lechterman here. Main areas of research: Contemporary political theory, democratic theory, theories of justice, applied ethicsSelected publications:
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