05/18/2026
DEMAIN
Vous êtes cordialement invité-es à la troisième conférence du Cycle de conférences sur le travail invisible organisée par la Chaire Ésope en collaboration avec le Centre de Recherche en Éthique. Pour cette troisième conférence, nous avons le plaisir de recevoir Lisa Herzog (Université de Groningen) avec une présentation intitulée « Against Careers ». La conférence aura lieu en anglais.
L’événement se déroulera le 19 mai à midi au local 422 du département de philosophie de l’Université de Montréal (2910 Boulevard Édouard-Montpetit, Montréal, QC) en format hybride.
Inscription :
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Pour informations, veuillez contacter Denise Celentano (UdeM) [email protected] ou Dominic Martin (UQAM) [email protected]
Résumé: This paper argues against work being organized in “careers,” with individuals being expected, over the years, to climb up a ladder of increasing income, power, and status in one specific area of paid work. This organization of work creates an “ideal biography norm” that disadvantages many groups who cannot fulfil it, e.g. active parents and other groups doing “invisible” work. After defining what I mean by “careers” and what kind of critique I raise against the concept, I briefly set out the historical background of how today’s understanding of careers developed. This shows that many arguments that spoke in favor of careers in the past no longer hold. Today, work being organized as careers threatens at least two sets of values: equality of opportunity, understood across people’s whole life, and value pluralism. As an alternative, and to rescue what still stands from the historical arguments in favor of careers, I suggest a model of “merit without careers,” in which certain functional requirements for jobs remain in place, while giving up the assumption of linearity, leaving behind the “ideal biography norm” as the “normal” case. This would better align the organization of work with the values of equality of opportunity and value pluralism.
