A moral right to urban living? Social-ethical analyses

该研究项目涉及三个方面的问题：城市生活的道德权利是否可以捍卫，这种权利可能意味着什么，以及在政治上可以以何种方式实施。在负担得起的城市住房明显短缺的背景下，一场关于政治解决方案的有争议的辩论正在激烈进行。主要问题是国家干预的作用和程度。这一争议不仅源于对经济的不同看法，而且还源于关于城市住房的不同规范性观念，但这些观念很少明确表达。如果城市住房问题被认为只是个人偏好的问题，那么国家对市场的干预就没有什么说服力。然而，如果出于就业机会或环境问题的原因，城市生活被视为一个正义问题，那么情况可能会有所不同。该项目采用跨学科方法。为了考虑有关的伦理问题，它遵循一种连贯的方法，并依赖于对经验数据的经济和社会学分析。全球目标-城市生活的道德权利意味着什么，它可以得到捍卫，它可以在哪些方面得到实施-分几个步骤来实现。首先，需要考虑住房条件及其参数-城市和农村地区生活条件平等的问题、住房市场的状况、有关人员的社会地位或法律的状况。第二步，需要仔细审查在最近的重大社会伦理辩论中发展起来的规范性推理。从这些论点和关于分区、区域规划和住房的相关辩论出发，可以确定当代政治辩论的规范性影响。基于这类跨学科获得的信息，可以阐明城市生活道德权利的描述性含义和规定性维度，这是分析这种道德权利是否可以捍卫或必须受到质疑的先决条件。为了能够进行影响评估，随后进行了最后一轮邀请外部专家的研究，以便能够思考如何在经济上实现这一道德权利，以及如何处理可能出现的不良副作用。

The research project tackles the threefold question wether a moral right to urban living may be defended, what such a right might imply and in which way it could be implemented politically. Set against the backdrop of an evident shortage in affordable urban housing, a controversial debate on political solutions is raging. Main issue is the role and degree of state intervention. The controversy is not only rooted in different perceptions of the economy, but also in diverging normative ideas concerning urban housing, which are, however, seldom made explicit. If the question of urban housing is considered an issue of individual preference only, then state intervention into the markets carries little conviction. If, however, urban living is seen as a question of justice for reasons of job opportunities or environmental concern, then things might be different. The project applies an interdisciplinary approach. For the consideration of the ethical issues in question it follows a coherentistic methodology and relies on the economical and sociological analysis of empirical data. The global aim - what would a moral right to urban living imply, can it be defended, in which was could it be implemented - is pursued in several steps. First of all, housing conditions and their parameters - the question of equality of living conditions in urban and rural areas, the situation on the housing market, the social status of those concerned or the legal situation - need to be considered. In a second step the normative reasoning that has been developed in significant social-ethical debates of the recent past needs to be scrutinized. Departing from those argumentations and the relevant debates on zoning, regional planning and housing, the normative implications of contemporary political debates may be identified. On the basis of this type of interdisciplinarily acquired information, the descriptive meaning and prescriptive dimensions of a moral right to urban living can be spelled out which is a prerequisitel to analyze wether such a moral right can be defended or must be challenged. To enable impact assessment, a last research round inviting external expertise is then applied to enable reflections on how to shape the economic realization of such a moral right and how to deal with possible undesired side-effects.