Staff profile

I'm currently writing a monograph exploring the obligations individuals have with regards to global poverty. In the book, I use Iris Young’s concept of structural injustice to develop an account that treats poverty as an essentially aggregative harm requiring institutional change. I draw on Stephanie Collins' concept of a collectivization duty to describe the obligations individuals, who contribute to the reproduction of poverty, have to act responsively with a view to preventing the continuance of it. I propose that taking such action is a mandatory precaution individuals are required to take in order to lessen their chances of contributing to the reproduction of significant Injustice going forward.

In the future I will extend this research to consider whether the aggregate of individuals that contribute to a social environment can be considered the primary agents of social justice. In doing so, I will consider how such individuals can utilise intermediary agents (such as governments) as a means to discharging these obligations.

In 2014 I joined Durham's School of Government and International Affairs. I am part of both the Centre for Political Thought and the Global Policy Institute, as well as being a member of the Society for Applied Philosophy and the Economics and Ethics Network.

Before taking up my post at Durham I was a postdoctoral fellow at Goethe University Frankfurt part of the Justitia Amplificata centre for advanced studies led by Professor Rainer Forst and Professor Stefan Gosepath.

My PhD is from the University of York (supervised by Professor Matt Matravers and Dr Martin O'Neill) and I did my first two degrees in the philosophy department at the University of Glasgow.

• Global Justice
• Social Justice
• Moral Contractualism
• Human Rights
• Iris Young
• Collectivization Duties
• Labour Justice

• Political Theory

• Draft Papers
• Shared Blog

• 0000: Conference Funding: Society of Applied Philosophy Event Funding for Workshop 'Labour Market Injustice' (£2000) with Tom Parr and Andrew Walton.
• 0000: Fellowship:

  Visiting Fellowship, Justitia Amplificata, Goethe University, Frankfurt.

• 0000: Teaching Award: ‘Outstanding Academic Support in Social Science and Health’ Durham Students’ Union Annual Awards.

Available for media contact about:

• Human rights: Moral and Political Philosophy
• Ethics:
• Political thought & theory:
• Philosophy:

Authored book

• Walton, Andrew, Abel, Will, Kahn, Elizabeth & Parr, Tom (2021). Introducing Political Philosophy. Oxford University Press.

Book review

• Kahn, E. (2020). Global Poverty, Injustice and Resistance, Gwilym David Blunt (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 2020) 290 pp., cloth £69.99, eBook $80. Ethics and International Affairs 34(3): 415-418.

Chapter in book

• Kahn, Elizabeth (2016). Poverty, Injustice and Obligations to take Political Action. In Ethical Issues in Poverty Alleviation. Gaisbauer, Helmut P., Schweiger, Gottfried & Sedmak, Clemens Cham: Springer. 209-224.

Journal Article

• Kahn, Elizabeth (2021). Beyond Claim‐Rights: Social Structure, Collectivization, and Human Rights. Journal of Social Philosophy 52(2): 162-184.
• Kahn, Elizabeth (2019). Injustice and collectivization in world politics. Global Justice: Theory Practice Rhetoric 11(2): 29-50.
• Kahn, Elizabeth (2019). A structural approach to the human right to just and favourable working conditions. Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy 22(7): 863-883.
• Kahn, Elizabeth (2014). The Tragedy of the Commons as an Essentially Aggregative Harm. Journal of Applied Philosophy 31(3): 223-236.
• Kahn, Elizabeth (2012). Global Economic Justice: A Structural Approach. Public Reason 4(1-2): 48-67.