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International Studies in Phenomenology and Philosophy

Book | Chapter

181670

Do you believe in life after work?

a noninstrumental defense of work–life balance

Karolina Lewestam Paulina Bednarz-Łuczewska

pp. 123-134

Abstract

The paper is an attempt to provide a normative, non-consequentialist grounding for the claim that life-work balance is morally valuable and should be promoted. The argumentation is based on the extrapolation of the established theories into the new field, the so-called theoretical extension (Snow et al., Ethnography 4(2):181–200, 2003). We claim that given the universal recognition of the intrinsic value of harmonious life, there is a prima facie duty not to hinder life-work balance, and we focus on the search of agents responsible for bringing it about. We come to the conclusion that the structure of responsibility allocation in this case mirrors that of other structural injustices in situations of bounded rationality, and we take the oppression of women as our model of the distribution of blame. Using Claudia Card's "complicity" criterion, we conclude that agents should gradually opt out from the oppressive scheme that renders work-life balance difficult or even impossible.The question of allocation of moral responsibility for work-life balance has not been addressed in the literature so far. Moreover, our perspective is original thanks to the explicitly noninstrumental approach to the question of work-life balance.

Publication details

Published in:

Coutinho de Arruda Maria Cecilia, Rok Boleslaw (2016) Understanding ethics and responsibilities in a globalizing world. Dordrecht, Springer.

Pages: 123-134

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-23081-8_7

Full citation:

Lewestam Karolina, Bednarz-Łuczewska Paulina (2016) „Do you believe in life after work?: a noninstrumental defense of work–life balance“, In: M. C. Coutinho De Arruda & B. Rok (eds.), Understanding ethics and responsibilities in a globalizing world, Dordrecht, Springer, 123–134.