Darrel Moellendorf

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

This paper offers responses to the challenges and questions rasied by the comments of John M. Meyer, Gwen Ottinger, Mark Reiff, and Steve Vanderheiden to my book Mobilizing Hope: Climate Change and Global Poverty. Their concerns are insightful, many, and varied. My reply focuses on the following themes: The relationship between moral concern about climate change and moral concern abut global poverty, the role of hope in responding to climate change, the problem of plutocratic influences in democratic politics and international negotiations, the role of technology in responding to climate change, and the value presuppostion of the book. I cannot do justice to all of the interesting points the commentators make, but I hope at least to have mustered decent replies in these areas.

Metz’s contribution to environmental ethics is a novel theory of moral status, which he argues explains the intuition that although we have direct moral duties to some nonhuman animals, our duties to fellow human beings are always weightier. The theory takes the moral status of an individual to depend on it being the subject and object of friendly relations with human. This paper argues that the account of moral status explains the intuition about the existence and relative weight of duties to nonhuman animals only if evidence of human-nonhuman animal cooperation is ignored. The paper argues additionally that a focus on the moral status of individual nonhuman animals offers no insight into one the most pressing environmental problems of our time, the threat of mass species extinction. Finally, the duties that would seem to follow from the account of moral status are contrary a traditional environmental concern of nature preservation.

This chapter discusses the tradition of just war theory. It focuses on Rawls's comments in A Theory of Justice (TJ). The discussion is entirely in the service of an account of conscientious refusal to fight in war. The chapter focuses on Rawls's best developed discussions of the doctrines of just war and related ideas in The Law of Peoples (LP). It discusses the place of these doctrines in Rawls's account of the law of peoples, the importance of human rights to the accounts, and Rawls's account of the conditions in which the hope for peace is reasonable. Rawls takes Kant's Perpetual Peace as a guide for the development of his views in LP. The domestic conditions that Rawls takes to be necessary to produce satisfaction for the right reasons are demandingly egalitarian. Rawls maintains that it would be unrealistic to hope for an international society comprised entirely of liberal people.

Im fünften Kapitel von Eine Theorie der Gerechtigkeit heißt es, dass sich „[d]ie politische Ökonomie […] an wichtiger Stelle mit dem öffentlichen Sektor und der richtigen Form der grundlegenden Institutionen, die die wirtschaftliche Tätigkeit regeln, mit der Besteuerung, der Eigentumsordnung, der Struktur von Märkten usw. beschäftigt“ (Rawls 1972, 299). Indem sie das tut, stützt sie sich auf „Maßstäbe zur Beurteilung wirtschaftlicher Verhältnisse und wirtschaftspolitischer Programme“ (ebd., 291), weswegen „[e]ine Theorie der politischen Ökonomie […] eine Bestimmung des öffentlichen Wohls auf der Grundlage einer Gerechtigkeitsvorstellung enthalten“ (ebd., 292) muss. Da die politische Ökonomie dementsprechend Gerechtigkeitsvorstellungen zur Bewertung von Institutionen heranzieht, versteht Rawls sie als eine zutiefst normative Disziplin.

Traditional Marxists hold that capitalist modes of production are unjustly exploitative. In 'Self-Ownership, Freedom and Equality' G. A. Cohen argues that this ``exploitation charge'' commits traditional Marxists to the thesis that people own themselves (``self-ownership''). If so, then traditional Marxism is vulnerable to a libertarian challenge to its commitment to equality. Cohen, therefore, recommends that Marxists abandon the exploitation charge. This paper undermines Cohen's case for the alleged link between the exploitation charge and self-ownership primarily by defending an account of the exploitation charge that does not involve self-ownership or compromise the Marxist commitment to equality.

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:

"A climate crisis and other pressures on planetary ecology are causing profound anxieties. Climate change threatens to trap hundreds of millions of people in dire poverty and to separate further an already deeply divided world. However, a new generation of activists is offering inspiration, serving as a hope-maker. This book offers an accessible and empirically informed philosophical discussion of climate change, global poverty, justice, and the importance of political responses, both internationally and domestically, that offer hope. There are reasons enough to worry that the era of pervasive human planetary impact, the Anthropocene, could produce terrible global injustices and massive environmental destruction. But that need not be so. Since the Industrial Revolution growth in productive capacity and the egalitarian struggles to share its benefits widely have made another world possible. We still have reason to hope for a world in which international cooperation to manage Earth systems sustainably prevails, in which the natural treasures of the Earth are valued, in which a vision of prosperity is realized and the scourges of disease, ignorance, and poverty are overcome, in which powerful lobbies defending private interests that threaten sustainability are minimized and contained, and in which democratic politics responding to the values of an educated public prevail. The work of bringing about such a world is the work of mobilizing hope"--

With the significant disconnect between the collective aim of limiting warming to well below 2°C and the current means proposed to achieve such an aim, the goal of this paper is to offer a moral assessment of prominent alternatives to current international climate policy. To do so, we’ll outline five different policy routes that could potentially bring the means and goal in line. Those five policy routes are: (1) exceed 2°C; (2) limit warming to less than 2°C by economic de-growth; (3) limit warming to less than 2°C by traditional mitigation only; (4) limit warming to less than 2°C by traditional mitigation and widespread deployment of Negative Emissions Technologies (NETs); and (5) limit warming to less than 2°C by traditional mitigation, NETs, and Solar Radiation Management as a fallback. In assessing these five policy routes, we rely primarily upon two moral considerations: the avoidance of catastrophic climate change and the right to sustainable development. We’ll conclude that we should continue to aim at the two-degree target, and that to get there we should use aggressive mitigation, pursue the deployment of NETs, and continue to research SRM.

The language of hope is a ubiquitous part of political life, but its value is increasingly contested. While there is an emerging debate about hope in political philosophy, an assessment of the prevalent scepticism about its role in political practice is still outstanding. The aim of this article is to provide an overview of historical and recent treatments of hope in political philosophy and to indicate lines of further research. We argue that even though political philosophy can draw on recent analyses of hope in analytic philosophy, there are distinct challenges for an account of hope in political contexts. Examples such as racial injustice or climate change show the need for a systematic normative account that is sensitive to the unavoidability of hope in politics as much as its characteristic dangers.

Global ethics focuses on the most pressing contemporary ethical issues - poverty, global trade, terrorism, torture, pollution, climate change and the management of scarce recourses. It draws on moral and political philosophy, political and social science, empirical research, and real world policy and activism. The Handbook of Global Ethics brings together leading international scholars to present concise and authoritative overviews of the most significant issues and ideas in global ethics. The essays are structured into six key topics: normative theory; conflict and violence; poverty and development; economic justice; bioethics and health; environment and climate ethics. Covering the theoretical and practical aspects of global ethics as well as policy, the Handbook provides a benchmark for the study of global ethics to date, as well as outlining future developments. It will prove an invaluable reference for policy-makers and for students and scholars in philosophy, international relations, political science, environmental and development studies and human rights law.

Treaty Norms and Climate Change MitigationDarrel MoellendorfCurrently the international community is discussing the regulatory framework to replace the Kyoto Protocol after 2012. The unveiling of the new framework is scheduled to occur at the December 2009 COP in Copenhagen. The stakes are high, since any treaty will affect the development prospects of per capita poor countries and will determine the climate change–related costs borne by poor people for centuries to come. Failure to arrive at an agreement would have grave effects on the development prospects of poor countries, many of which will experience the most severe effects of climate change. The original UNFCCC treaty recognizes these kinds of concerns and requires that further treaty negotiation pay them heed. Any agreement will be required to conform to UNFCCC norms related to sustainable development and the equitable distribution of responsibilities. In this paper I argue that UNFCCC norms tightly constrain the range of acceptable agreements for the distribution of burdens to mitigate climate change. I conclude that any legitimate treaty must put much heavier mitigation burdens on industrialized developed countries. Of the various proposals that have received international attention, two in particular stand out as possibly satisfying UNFCCC norms regarding the distribution of responsibilities.

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

This article discusses obstacles to overcoming dangerous climate change. It employs an account of dangerous climate change that takes climate change and climate change policy as dangerous if it imposes avoidable costs of poverty prolongation. It then examines plausible accounts of the collective action problems that seem to explain the lack of ambition to mitigate. After criticizing the merits of two proposals to overcome these problems, it discusses the pledge and review process. It argues that pledge and review possesses the virtues of encouraging broad participation and of providing a procedural safeguard for the right of sustainable development. However, given the perceptions of the marginal short term costs of mitigation, pledge and review is unlikely, at least initially, to issue in an agreement to make deep reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. Because there is no rival approach that seems likely to better instantiate the two virtues, pledge and review may be the best available policy for mitigation. Moreover, recent economic research suggests that the co-benefits of mitigation may be greater than previously assumed and that the costs of renewable energy may be less than previously calculated. This would radically undermine claims that the short term mitigation costs necessarily render mitigation irrational and produce collective action problems. Given the circumstances, pledge and review might be our best hope to avoid dangerous climate change.