KHAS CORE Talks – Dr. Hüseyin Sungur Kuyumcuoğlu

KHAS CORE Talks series continues with Dr. Hüseyin Sungur Kuyumcuoğlu‘s speech entitled “Sweatshop Regulation and Global Equality”.

You can follow the speech on Tuesday, March 15 at 20:00 on Zoom.

Please fill the registration form in advance.

Abstract: Sweatshops are workplaces where usually many people work under adverse working conditions. Activists and progressive governments sometimes interfere in the working conditions of these sweatshops. Their methods may include boycotts of the products produced in these facilities, bans on the import of these products or tariffs imposed by the home country, and enforcing the host country’s laws that aim at regulating sweatshops. Some argue that such interference in sweatshop conditions is morally wrong since it may either harm or disrespect workers it is supposed to help. The reason why an interference may harm or disrespect the workers is because the enterprise that runs the sweatshop may choose to lay-off some workers as a result to maintain their profit at the desired level. This argument, therefore, prohibits any interference in sweatshop conditions on moral grounds. In this presentation, I argue in dissent and build a contractualist argument in favor of moral permissibility of an interference in sweatshops. 

Hüseyin S. Kuyumcuoğlu received a BSc degree from the computer engineering program at Boğaziçi University where he later completed an MA degree in philosophy. He received his Ph.D. from the Department of Philosophy at the State University of New York, Binghamton, with his dissertation titled “Sweatshops: A Normative Analysis.” His proficiency in philosophy is on applied ethics, normative ethics, social and political philosophy, and logic. He is also a co-founder of the Society for Practical Philosophy, Turkey; a philosophy society for early career academics that organizes conferences and workshops.