Review of the public lecture, December 9, 2025
On December 9, 2025, the network was delighted to welcome Sally Haslanger (MIT) for a public lecture.
In her talk, Haslanger explained how social systems are composed of interconnected subsystems, such as political and economic systems, as well as transport, healthcare, and education systems. To understand how social systems emerge and how they can be transformed, she suggested considering different levels of analysis: individuals at the micro level, material systems such as the healthcare or education system at the meso level, and society at the macro level. Social systems, Haslanger suggested, can be transformed, in particular, through interventions in material systems. This lens allows an examination and better understanding of structural injustice.
Using the example of care work, Haslanger discussed how (unjust) social systems can be transformed and what challenges may arise in the process. She pointed, for instance, to the fact that women who perform care work are often motivated by relationships, as well as to differing views on the extent to which the family, as part of the private sphere, should be protected from state intervention.Following the lecture, participants discussed visions for the future, responsibility for structural injustice, and examples of state interventions in care work.
About:
Sally Haslanger is Ford Professor of Philosophy and Women’s & Gender Studies at MIT. She also teaches in MIT D-Lab, a hands-on program using participatory design to create inclusive, accessible, and sustainable solutions to global poverty challenges. Broadly speaking, her work links issues of social justice concerning gender, race, class (and other social categories) with contemporary work in epistemology, metaphysics, philosophy of language. For more information, see: http://sallyhaslanger.weebly.com