Hillel Isaac Steiner (; born 1942) is a Canadian political philosopher and is Emeritus Professor of

Political Philosophy Political philosophy or political theory is the philosophical study of government, addressing questions about the nature, scope, and legitimacy of public agents and institutions and the relationships between them. Its topics include politics, ...

at the

University of Manchester , mottoeng = Knowledge, Wisdom, Humanity , established = 2004 – University of Manchester Predecessor institutions: 1956 – UMIST (as university college; university 1994) 1904 – Victoria University of Manchester 1880 – Victoria Univ ...

. He was elected to the Fellowship of the British Academy in 1999.

Work

Steiner's writings are focused on contemporary philosophical work on the conceptual analysis of freedom, rights and justice, and on the relation between moral and economic rationality. His most noted work is ''An Essay on Rights'' which won the

Political Studies Association The Political Studies Association (PSA) is a learned society in the United Kingdom which exists to develop and promote the study of politics. It is the leading association in its field in the United Kingdom, with an international membership includi ...

's best book prize for 1994. In it, he develops what has since come to be known as a left-libertarian theory of distributive justice. This book brings together Steiner's work on the pure negative conception of liberty, the Will Theory of rights, and a liberal model of exploitation. Embracing the libertarian right of self-ownership, he argues that its consistent universalization requires that individuals be vested with equal rights to negative freedom that are global in scope and that take account of interpersonal inequalities in natural resource values, including those of genetic endowments. He was also the first person to use the term "

throffer In political philosophy, a throffer is a proposal (also called an intervention) that mixes an offer with a threat which will be carried out if the offer is not accepted. The term was first used in print by political philosopher Hillel Steiner; whi ...

", which is now used in and beyond political philosophy, in print. He is a member of the following organisations:

American Philosophical Association The American Philosophical Association (APA) is the main professional organization for philosophers in the United States. Founded in 1900, its mission is to promote the exchange of ideas among philosophers, to encourage creative and scholarl ...

, Aristotelian Society, Association for Legal and Social Philosophy, Basic Income Earth Network.

British Philosophical Association The British Philosophical Association (BPA) is a British organisation set up in October 2002 to promote the study of philosophy. Early history During the early 1980s the merging of educational establishments and financial cut-backs meant that so ...

, European Society for the History of Economic Thought,

Society for Applied Philosophy The Society for Applied Philosophy is a philosophical organization founded in 1982 by Brenda Almond. The purpose of the organization is promoting study and research in philosophy in areas with real-world applications, and work that is intended to ...

, and the

September Group Analytical Marxism is an approach to Marxist theory that was prominent amongst English-speaking philosophers and social scientists during the 1980s. Described by G. A. Cohen as "non-bullshit Marxism", members of this school seek to apply the t ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Steiner, Hillel 20th-century Canadian philosophers 21st-century Canadian philosophers British political philosophers Canadian political philosophers Political philosophers Living people Academics of the University of Manchester Left-libertarians 1942 births Libertarian theorists