Prof. Dr. Darrel Moellendorf

The cluster professorship is located at the interface of political science and philosophy and examines in particular phenomena that transcend national borders.

Central topics of the professorship are: The idea and meaning of human dignity in political justifications; the moral value and proper targeting of sustainable development; the rationale and role of socio-economic rights for human development; the identification of appropriate goals for the post-2015 sustainable development agenda; the requirements for equitable international trade and financial regimes; the causes of poverty and global inequality; the equitable distribution of obligations to mitigate climate change and the burden of climate adaptation; the identification of appropriate international climate change regimes; the relevance of geoengineering for climate policy; the justification and practicalities of sustainable development through an international tax system; and finally, the moral foundations of cross-border solidarity.

The work in the field of normative theories of global justice is in many respects based on empirical analyses in the areas of politics, economics, law and international relations, insofar as these deal with transnational problems. Based on these studies, the associated forms of normativity in transnational politics are examined and reflected upon at the professorship. Many questions concerning normative orders of environmental crises reveal similar modes of reflexivity and also focus on interdisciplinary questions of the normativity of intergenerational orders.

Our publications and presentations focused on issues of global justice, global bioethics, human rights, just war theories and environmental racism. The key findings were presented in publications and presentations.

Darrel Moellendorf has published on the question of how a war can be brought to a just end and on the question of whether a state can restrict the emigration of citizens whose medical training it has financed. Daniel Callies also worked and published on the question of whether it can be legitimate to restrict the emigration of citizens whose medical training was financed by the state. Eszter Kolllár has written about justice, immigration and global equality of opportunity. And Merten Reglitz published an article on Kant, global poverty and justice. Daniel Hammer presented his work on collective action and personal responsibility in an international presentation. And Susanne Börner also presented her work on environmental justice in an international presentation. Brian Milstein gave a presentation on crisis theory. All of these topics are relevant to the political debate and many of the publications evaluate selected aspects of public policy.

The most important publications of this professorship of the Cluster of Excellence:

Moellendorf, Darrel: “Just Endings”, in: H. Frowe & S. Lazar (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of the Ethics of War, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016.

Moellendorf, Darrel: “Two Doctrines of Jus ex Bello“, in: Ethics 125:3: 2015, pp. 653-673.

Callies, Daniel: “Brain Drain, Contracts, and Moral Obligation”, in: Moral Philosophy and Politics Vol. 3 No. 1: March 2016, pp. 83-93.

Kollár, Eszter: “Global Equality of Opportunity and Self-determination in the Context of Immigration”, in: Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy, 2016 (published online).

Reglitz, Merten: “A Kantian Argument against World Poverty”, in: European Journal of Political Theory, 2016, (online: http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1474885116662566).

The most important events of this professorship of the Cluster of Excellence:

Workshop on Chris Armstrong’s Manuscript “Justice and Natural Resources”, January 22 2016.

“International Workshop on the Ethics and Economics of Climate Change”, March 3-4 2016.

Frankfurt-Ottawa Workshop “Normative Perspectives on Labor Immigration”, June 6, 2016.

Arguing for Equality – ‘Author meets Critics’ workshop and Political Egalitarianism – Public Lecture by John Baker, December 19-20, 2016.

Lecture Series “The Value of Nature” organized in cooperation with ISOE and Senckenberg Gesellschaft für Naturforschung, December 2016-January 2017.