IISER MOHALI

Abstract: Organizational leaders often play a key role in creating or maintaining workplace status hierarchies. They may, for instance, give special uniforms, honorary titles, or corner offices to some employees such that these employees come to be treated as superior to others. This paper focuses on workplace policies that are wrong primarily because they contribute to a status hierarchy between their employees, without adequate justification. Three common justifications are considered— drawing on familiar arguments for distributive inequalities considered plausible by egalitarians: efficiency gains, rewarding desert, and compensation for unequal burdens. The paper shows that these justifications, despite having prime facie plausibility, do not turn out to hold great promise upon further scrutiny. It concludes that workplace hierarchies demand a higher justificatory standard than often acknowledged and offers a framework for evaluating their permissibility.

About the Speaker: Sanat is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at the Thapar School of Liberal Arts & Sciences (Patiala). His doctoral dissertation, completed at Central European University (Vienna), focuses on the normative relationship between people’s jobs, their social status, and self-respect. Alongside continuing his research on the philosophy of work and social relations, he is currently leading an interdisciplinary project titled “Elder Care Ecosystem in Punjab.” He holds an MSc in Political Theory from the London School of Economics and a BA in Politics, Philosophy and Economics (PPE) from Ashoka University.