Papers by Darrel Moellendorf
J.B. Metzler eBooks, 2023
One important by-product of globalization, which is sometimes lost on critics, is that the increa... more One important by-product of globalization, which is sometimes lost on critics, is that the increased association of persons around the global economy makes credible the claim that these persons have duties of justice to one another.1 I shall not fully defend that view here, as I have discussed it in detail elsewhere.2 The salient point for present purposes is that whatever the evils that globalization produces, and they are considerable to be sure, there also two important related moral facts, if I may use that term loosely, that globalization also produces: the evils can be criticized as injustices; and standards of justice may provide guidance in offering alternatives.
Paragon House eBooks, 2008
"Global Justice" brings together a collection of groundbreaking philosophical essays - ... more "Global Justice" brings together a collection of groundbreaking philosophical essays - written by some of the world's most distinguished moral and political theorists - that address the most important moral issues of our time.Topics covered in this compelling volume include: human rights; national and multicultural identities; poverty, and the effectiveness of charity; racial and gender equality; justice and international relations; democracy and the future world order; and much more.This will become an invaluable reference for anyone with an interest in any aspect of global justice.
Mobilizing Hope
Climate change creates long-term, intergenerational effects. Our capacity to affect the living ci... more Climate change creates long-term, intergenerational effects. Our capacity to affect the living circumstances of future people raises the question of which principle of intergenerational justice best explains our duty to mitigate climate change on behalf of future generations. This chapter examines four possible principles: Help and Do No Harm, Discounted Utilitarianism, Intergenerational Equality, and Anti-Catastrophe. The survey provided in the chapter reveals serious problems with the first three of these principles. In the end, Anti-Catastrophe has a considerable degree of plausibility. Moreover, its plausibility is augmented by the fact that it is consistent with the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.
Mobilizing Hope
Climate change is but one example of a planetary system put under stress by human activity. The i... more Climate change is but one example of a planetary system put under stress by human activity. The impact and stress are so profound that there is a call among planetary scientists to designate a new geological epoch, the Anthropocene. This chapter discusses both the threats that the Anthropocene poses and the prospects for a vision of global prosperity and sustainability it affords. The threats include the risk of crossing planetary boundaries, disrupting the fragile equilibria of Earth systems. The consequences could be environmental disruption, massive suffering, and even global apartheid. Because this would be the product of human activity, the era might rightly be called the Misanthropocene. Resisting the Misanthropocene calls for a conception of a realistic utopia for the Anthropocene. This chapter examines two such conceptions, the Arcadian and the Promethean. Such a realistic utopia may focus efforts at mobilizing hope for the Anthropocene.
Mobilizing Hope
To realize the goal of Paris, mitigation pledges will have to become more ambitious. This chapter... more To realize the goal of Paris, mitigation pledges will have to become more ambitious. This chapter details four Problems of Political Economy that slow mitigation progress. The most serious political problem among these is due to the power of the fossil fuel industry to influence politics according to its interests. The chapter highlights Martin Luther King Jr.’s theory of mass mobilization to argue that countering the power of the fossil fuel industry requires popular mobilization. Inspirations for the politics of mobilization can be found in hopeful visions of a sustainable and prosperous world. The Green New Deal, based on an expansion of employment and income through green growth, constitutes such a vision. The politics of green growth is superior to zero growth on several counts. A hopeful politics that combines a vision of prosperity with sustainability can help to motivate a politics of mass mobilization for rapid de-carbonization.
Global Inequality Matters, 2009
In the previous chapter, I argued that coercion accounts fail to provide compelling reasons to be... more In the previous chapter, I argued that coercion accounts fail to provide compelling reasons to believe that duties of distributive justice to non-compatriots are either less weighty or less demanding in content than duties to compatriots. Now, some philosophers who affirm that duties of justice are owed to persons across state borders base their view on an account of justice that takes its requirements to be largely uniform between persons and not affected by their membership in political or economic associations. Others maintain, on the contrary, that membership affects the requirements. Call this thesis membership dependence. Membership dependence holds that the requirements of justice between persons are affected by associational membership either because the content of the duties is in some part membership dependent, or because the strength of the duties is. Membership dependence is affirmed by some egalitarian liberals as a pivotal thesis in an argument in defense of the claim that duties of distributive justice to non-compatriots are not egalitarian, even though duties to compatriots are. Call this non-compatriot non-egalitarianism. Coercion accounts are versions of non-compatriot non-egalitarianism. One strategy for rejecting non-compatriot non-egalitarianism is to reject membership dependence.
The Routledge Handbook of Ethics and Public Policy, 2018
A climate crisis and other pressures on planetary ecology are causing profound anxieties. Climate... more 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 struggles to share its benefits widely and in an egalitarian way have made another world possible. We still have reason to hope for a world in which international cooperation to m...
The Oxford Handbook of International Political Theory
This chapter notes that normative International Political Theory (IPT) developed over the past se... more This chapter notes that normative International Political Theory (IPT) developed over the past several decades in response to political, social, and economic events. These included the globalization of trade and finance, the increasing credibility of human-rights norms in foreign policy, and a growing awareness of a global ecological crisis. The emergence of normative IPT was not simply an effort to understand these events, but an attempt to offer accounts of what the responses to them should be. Normative IPT, then, was originally doubly responsive to the real world. Additionally, this chapter argues that there is a plausible account of global egalitarianism, which takes the justification of principles of egalitarian justice to depend crucially on features of the social and economic world. The account of global egalitarianism applies to the current circumstances in part because of features of those circumstances.
Mobilizing Hope
Efforts to mitigate are constrained by the Geo-Physical Limit, the upper limit on concentration o... more Efforts to mitigate are constrained by the Geo-Physical Limit, the upper limit on concentration of CO2eq in the atmosphere for maintaining a reasonable likelihood of keeping warming within the Paris Agreement targets. The Problems of Political Economy further add to the doubts that mitigation alone can avoid dangerous climate change. The difference between 1.5°C and 2°C is the impoverishment of hundreds of millions of people. Policy should encourage the research and development of forms of Negative Emissions Technology to draw CO2 out of the atmosphere. Because the prospect of having this technology at sufficient scale is uncertain, and deployment could lead to a temporary temperature overshoot, research into Solar Radiation Management should be carried out. The chapter rejects the criticism that intentionally manipulating the planetary climate shows improper regard for nature. Because mitigation policies alone are unlikely to prevent dangerous climate change, promoting technologica...
Cosmopolitan Justice, 2018
Journal of Global Ethics, 2009
Journal of Global Ethics, 2010
Ethics & International Affairs, 2009
Ethics & International Affairs, 2011
Developing World Bioethics, 2001
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Papers by Darrel Moellendorf
- normative theory
- conflict and violence
- poverty and development
- economic justice
- bioethics and health justice
- environment and climate ethics.
Covering the theoretical and practical aspects of global ethics as well as policy, The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Global Ethics 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 is essential reading for students and researchers in philosophy, international relations, political science, environmental and development studies and human rights law.