Darrel Frank Moellendorf

In this paper I argue that hope is best understood as a compound psychological state. When we take hope according to the details of this account, we are in a good position to understand why it is a political virtue of persons. I also argue that securing the institutional bases of hope is a virtue of state institutions, particularly in states in transition from severe injustice. And, finally, when the bases are secure, a person who fails to hope for the political future is in that regard prima facie blameworthy

Anthropogenic climate change is a global process affecting the lives and well-being of millions of people now and countless number of people in the future. For humans, the consequences may include significant threats to food security globally and regionally, increased risks of from food-borne and water-borne as well as vector-borne diseases, increased displacement of people due migrations, increased risks of violent conflicts, slowed economic growth and poverty eradication, and the creation of new poverty traps. Principles of justice are statements of what persons are owed either by others or by institutions and policies. Climate change gives rise to many concern of justice. This article briefly summarizes some of the most important of these, including claims to have climate change mitigated, claims regarding the sharing of the costs of climate change mitigation, claims for investment into adaptation, and claims to be compensated

“Will which is actually free is the unity of theoretical and practical spirit.” So opens the section of Hegel’s Encyclopedia known as “Free Spirit.” This text as well as both its immediate textual predecessor “Practical Spirit” and the introduction to the Philosophy of right comprise the mature Hegel’s attempt to give an account of freedom of the will, and mark a full departure from the Kantian standpoint on the matter. While Kant sees the evidence of freedom of the will in the moral ought, Hegel contends that the evidence lies in the actions of individuals within certain social arrangements.

In The Idea of Justice (2009), Amartya Sen distinguishes between ?transcendental institutional? approaches to justice and ?realization-focused comparisons,? rejecting the former and recommending the latter as a normative approach to global justice. I argue that Sen?s project fails for three principal reasons. First, he misdiagnoses the problem with accounts that he refers to as transcendental-institutionalist. The problem is not with these kinds of accounts per se, but with particular features of prominent approaches. Second, Sen?s realization-focus does not account well for the value of institutions of global justice. And even Sen agrees that reforms to institutions are urgently needed. And third, the distinction between transcendentalism and comparative approaches is implausible. I close by suggesting a strategy for an alternative institutionalist approach that can offer the kind of guidance for reforming the global order that Sen rightly takes as urgent

This critical commentary on the three sections of the philosophy of subjective spirit as it appears in Hegel's final Berlin Encyclopedia uses them to come to a better understanding and evaluation of his general philosophical perspective. This is in contrast to two sorts of dangers which Hegel scholarship faces. One is getting so caught up in summarizing and interpreting the troublesome texts that no evaluation is provided. The other is to view Hegel unsympathetically through the criteria of contemporary Anglo-America philosophy, so that very little is learned from him except that on most counts he falls short of the standards that this philosophy sets for itself. ;Contrary to these methods I present and evaluate the philosophy of subjective spirit in terms of its fulfillment of the aims of Hegel's system, and in terms of the questions that he suggests it is adequate to answer. There are three such questions. These concern the nature of the relationship between the mind and the body, the compatibility of free human will and natural determination, and the unity of the mind in light of its many activities. ;I also frequently compare Hegel to Kant for two reasons. One is pedagogical, the other intimately related to Hegel's project. We can gain greater understanding of Hegel by illuminating his departures from Kant, about whom much is known. What is more important philosophically, however, is Hegel's criticism of the limits which Kant's transcendental idealism places upon knowledge. The origins of these limits lie in Kant's view of the human mind, the forms of intuition and the spontaneity of understanding. However, if Hegel is to overcome the limits which Kant places upon knowledge, he must provide an account of the mind which circumvents what he considers to be the problems that arise out of Kant's account. ;On most of these counts Hegel's philosophy of subjective spirit is a failure, even if his vision is a captivating one. This analysis, however, does reveal certain advantages that Hegel's conception of freedom has over Kant's

After briefly surveying the mission and principles of the World Trade Organization (WTO), I argue that international trade may be assessed from the perspective of justice, and that the correct account of justice for these purposes is egalitarian in fundamental principle. I then consider the merits of the WTO's basic commitment to liberalized trade in the light of egalitarian considerations. Finally, I discuss the justice of several WTO policies. While noting the complexity of the empirical issues relating to the effects of trade institutions and policies, I conclude that egalitarians have reasons to object to certain of the principles and policies of the WTO.

This book examines the threat that climate change poses to the projects of poverty eradication, sustainable development, and biodiversity preservation. It offers a careful discussion of the values that support these projects and a critical evaluation of the normative bases of climate change policy. This book regards climate change policy as a public problem that normative philosophy can shed light on. It assumes that the development of policy should be based on values regarding what is important to respect, preserve, and protect. What sort of climate change policy do we owe the poor of the world who are particularly vulnerable to climate change? Why should our generation take on the burden of mitigating climate change that is caused, in no small part, by emissions from people now dead? What value is lost when natural species go extinct, as they may well do en masse because of climate change? This book presents a broad and inclusive discussion of climate change policy, relevant to those with interests in public policy, development studies, environmental studies, political theory, and moral and political philosophy

Habermas asserts that his discourse ethics rests on two main commitments: (1) Moral judgments have cognitive content analogous to truth value; and (2) moral justification requires real-life discourse. Habermas elaborates on the second claim by making actual consensus a necessary condition of normative validity. I argue that Habermas's two commitments sit uneasily together. The second entails that his cognitivism is revisionist in the sense that it must reject the law of the excluded middle. Moreover, Habermas's argument in defence of the need for real-life discourse is unconvincing and his derivation of the principle which requires consensus is fallacious

In the first part of this article, we considered how Thandi, a 15-year-old girl, was treated when taken by her mother to their GP, Dr Randera. Dr Randera notified them that Thandi was pregnant, HIV positive, and had syphilis and herpes. Dr Randera also informed them that there was a substantial risk that the baby would be born HIV positive. Both Thandi and her mother wanted an abortion. However, Dr Randera, who was morally opposed to abortions, refused to provide the service and did not refer Thandi to another doctor who would perform the abortion.The saga continues:

The eurocentrism of Hegel's philosophy of history is well known. Hegel's reputation has not benefited from many of the claims in the Philosophy of History; such as the one that African history, having no development, has contributed nothing to world history. Because of the general lack of attention that Hegel's philosophy of subjective spirit has received, it is little known that this eurocentrism is based, in part, on the racism of the philosophy of subjective spirit. Only here does Hegel systematically treat the biological category of race. Reading through this section one can find passages about racial distinctions which seem initially to be rather ambivalent, but taken as a whole are decidedly racist. Much of what Hegel says about the �inferiority� of African culture and the �justification� for the slave trade finds its foundation here. This paper is an exhibition of the relevant passages of the �Philosophy of Subjective Spirit� and an attempt to link them to Hegel's other claims about African culture and the slave trade. I will argue that Hegel's philosophy of spirit is tainted by the unusual (for Hegel) causal role which he gives to a biological category, namely race. I will argue further that his philosophy of spirit is not necessarily racist, only contingently so, that is that his racism does not follow from any of his fundamental claims about spirit. Hegel's account of spirit makes his racism possible, not necessary. The source of his racism can be traced to the general ideology of the nineteenth century. Nonetheless, understanding how Hegel could hold racist views is important for understanding features of his political philosophy. It shows both the problems of the Hegelian conception of person hood and exemplifies the conservative bias built into his method of political philosophy generally