Search

In der gegebenen globalen Governance-Struktur stellen souveräne Einzelstaaten die zentralen kollektiven Akteure dar, die Verantwortung für einen zeitnahen und effektiven Klimaschutz übernehmen müssen. Dieser Aufsatz vertritt die These, dass die Differenzierung der Einzelstaaten zumutbaren Verantwortung für den Klimaschutz die Bedingungen berücksichtigen sollte, aufgrund derer sie als kollektiv-verantwortungsfähige Akteure verstanden werden können. Dies gilt sowohl mit Blick auf ihre historische Verantwortung für die Verursachung des Klimawandels als auch im Hinblick auf die Zukunft. Dabei ist für zeitnahen und effektiven Klimaschutz allerdings von zentraler Bedeutung, dass die Verantwortungsfähigkeit aller Mitgliedstaaten der UNFCCC erhalten bleibt, damit sie als kollektive Akteure ihren differenzierten Beitrag zum Klimaschutz leisten können. Within the global governance structure of today, sovereign states are the crucial collective agents to take on responsibility for timely and eff ective climate protection. This paper claims that to diff erentiate the responsibilities of individual states, the conditions enabling states to act as responsible collective agents must be considered in the first place. This is the case not only with regard to their historical contribution to climate change, but also regarding their responsibilities towards the future. For timely and eff ective climate protection to be possible, it must be secured that all states being party to the UNFCCC remain responsible collective agents. Only given their capacity to be responsible collective agents, states can contribute to climate protection according to their diff erentiated responsibilities.

Stark vereinfacht ist Angewandte Ethik derjenige Teil der praktischen Philosophie, der Theorien der normativen Ethik auf unterschiedliche Bereiche des menschlichen Handelns und Zusammenlebens anwendet. Sie befasst sich mit den spezifischen ethischen Fragen verschiedener Berufsfelder und Gesellschaftsbereiche sowie mit ethischen Herausforderungen aus der nationalen und internationalen Politik. Die heutige Angewandte Ethik entstand in den 1970er-Jahren, weil technologische, wirtschaftliche und politische Entwicklungen neue ethische Herausforderungen mit sich brachten (1.). Diese Herausforderungen führten zur Entwicklung verschiedener Bereichsethiken: Medizinethik, Wirtschaftsethik, Umweltethik und die Ethik des Politischen (2.). Da die Anwendung normativer Ethik-Theorien auf spezifische Einzelfälle nicht immer leicht ist, finden sich in der Angewandten Ethik verschiedene Methoden zur Analyse ethischer Herausforderungen (3.).

There seem to be good reasons that democratic institutions must be reformed in order to minimize the danger of unsustainable policy decisions infringing upon duties of intergenerational justice. This is why there exist a number of different proposals of how to reform democratic states in order to foster their duties towards the future. However, the debate lacks a systematic assessment of these suggested reforms within a coherent theoretical and normative framework. This paper aims at developing such a framework. We suggest two conceptual dimensions defining the spectrum of different justifiable institutional reforms: the relation between democracy and justice as one dimension and the conditions considered relevant for viewing democracies as responsible collective agents as the other. Depending on how we understand this relation and these conditions, it is possible to substantiate a set of types of institutional reforms that will promote democracies’ capacities to comply with their responsibilities towards the future.

In diesem Beitrag argumentiere ich für die folgenden Schlussfolgerungen: Erstens, Quoten stellen keinen normativen Selbstzweck dar. Sie sind lediglich ein Mittel, um nicht-diskriminierende Auswahlverfahren sicherzustellen. Zweitens, in einer Demokratie sind Quoten vor allem dann plausibel, wenn sie für die Besetzung derjenigen Ämter eingesetzt werden, die den größten Einfl uss auf politische Entscheidungen haben. Drittens, Quoten für junge Bürgerinnen und Bürger lassen sich rechtfertigen, weil die Diskurse der Jungen aufgrund der demografischen Entwicklung Gefahr laufen, vernachlässigt zu werden. Viertens, Quoten für junge Bürgerinnen und Bürger können die Legitimität von politischen Entscheidungen und deren langfristige Folgen erhöhen. Dessen ungeachtet bin ich aufgrund der demografischen Entwicklung aber skeptisch, dass die politische Einflussnahme der Jungen durch im Rahmen der Demokratie rechtfertigbare Quoten entscheidend verbessert werden kann.

Schon ein oberflächlicher Blick in die Tagespresse, in Printmedien und einschlägige Webressourcen zeigt, dass in vielen Industrieländern medizinethische Fragen zunehmend auf der Tagesordnung stehen. Auch ethische Expertise in Klinik, Lehre und Forschung hat mittlerweile ihren festen Stellenwert, ist etabliert, in zahlreichen Formen institutionalisiert und Teil eines «bioethics biz». Die Verbreitung von Medizinethik zeigt sich in vier Dimensionen: in der klinischen Praxis (Ethikberatung, Ethikkomitees, Ethik-Konsiliardienste, ethische Fallbesprechungen etc.), in der Lehre (im Medizinstudium und in vielen anderen gesundheitsbezogenen Ausbildungsgängen), in der Wissenschaft (medizinethische Forschung, nationale und internationale Förderprogramme, medizinethische Institute und Forschungszentren) und in der Gesellschaft (Ethikkommissionen zu Humanforschung und für die Beratung von Politik und Öffentlichkeit).

In the Cancun Adaptation Framework (CAF), the parties to the United Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) agreed “that adaptation is a challenge faced by all Parties, and that enhanced action and international cooperation is urgently required to enable and support the implementation of adaptation actions aimed at reducing vulnerability and building resilience in developing country Parties […].” Furthermore, the conference of the parties (COP) requests the developed countries to provide developing countries with additional finance, technology, and capacity-building. This paper argues that this decision tends to oversimplify matters because it seems to differentiate responsibilities for climate change adaptation according to differences in the contribution to anthropogenic climate change only. However, the differentiation of responsibilities for climate change adaptation is more complex than it first appears to be. To show why the differentiation of responsibilities for climate change adaptation is more complex, this paper analyzes the aspects of responsibility as a fourfold concept. Someone (i. the subject of responsibility) is always responsible for something (ii. the object of responsibility), answerable to some institution (iii.), and held accountable to a norm (iv.). The paper argues, first, that the appropriate object of responsibility in climate change adaptation is the burdens to be shared for effective and efficient adaptation. Second, for such adaptation to occur, however, subjects of responsibility should not only be developed countries. If appropriate competence and decision-structures are given in developing countries, these countries should also be deemed responsible for their own adaptation. Third, the paper shows that those vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change should decide on their own what adaptation measures they wish to take. Fourth, the argument of this paper suggests that ability-to-pay principles are the most appropriate

In diesem Beitrag argumentiere ich für die folgenden Schlussfolgerungen: Erstens, Quoten stellen keinen normativen Selbstzweck dar. Sie sind lediglich ein Mittel, um nicht-iskriminierende Auswahlverfahren sicherzustellen. Zweitens, in einer Demokratie sind Quoten vor allem dann plausibel, wenn sie für die Besetzung derjenigen Ämter eingesetzt werden, die den größten Einfluss auf politische Entscheidungen haben. Drittens, Quoten für junge Bürgerinnen und Bürger lassen sich rechtfertigen, weil die Diskurse der Jungen aufgrund der demografischen Entwicklung Gefahr laufen, vernachlässigt zu werden. Dessen ungeachtet bin ich aufgrund der demografischen Entwicklung aber skeptisch, dass die politische Einflussnahme der Jungen durch im Rahmen der Demokratie rechtfertigbare Quoten entscheidend verbessert werden kann.

In this paper, I argue that the normative framework of liberal democracy is one of the sources of the failure of international climate politics. The liberal framework makes it very likely that at least some democracies will not consent to an international agreement to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions. In this situation, the institution of judicial review might be viewed as crucial to overcome the risk of a tragedy of the commons. However, judicial review cannot serve this purpose in the case of climate change and an institutional change of the kind required cannot be derived from within the normative framework of liberal democracy itself.

In this paper I argue for the following conclusions. First, quotas are not normative goals in themselves but only a means to reach non-discriminatory selection procedures. Second, in a democracy quotas are most plausibly used as a means to fill offices in those bodies which have a major impact on how well interests or discourses are translated into policy. Third, quotas for the young can be justified since, due to demographic development, their discourses tend to be marginalized. Fourth, youth quotas cannot be a means to ensure long-term policy-making, but they can enhance legitimacy of long-term impacts from policy decisions taken today.

The aim of this paper is to link empirical findings concerning environmental inequalities with different normative yard-sticks for assessing whether these inequalities should be deemed unjust, or not. We argue that such an inquiry must necessarily take into account some caveats regarding both empirical research and normative theory. We suggest that empirical results must be contextualised by establishing geographies of risk. As a normative yard-stick we propose a moderately demanding social-egalitarian account of justice and democratic citizenship, which we take to be best suited to identify unjust as well as legitimate instances of socio-environmental inequality.

In this comment a challenge Kerr’s claim that a coherent expression of a ‘liberalism of freedom’ needs an extended first Rawlsian principle of justice incorporating the principle of fair equality of opportunity for two reasons. First, such an extended first principle leads to illiberal consequences by narrowing down the scope of individual responsibility for choice and effort way too much. Second, such an extended first principle misses a main Rawlsian insight, namely that in a theory of justice the principle securing basic liberties and the principle of fair equality of opportunity serve different purposes.

This paper argues that an analysis of the dissatisfactory outcomes of international negotiations concerning climate change must take into account procedures of political decision‐making in democracies. Although the normative ideal of republican democracy has means of dealing with such dissatisfactory results, political processes in republican democracies take too much time and risk becoming stuck in tragic or dilemmatic decision structures when facing challenges such as climate change. Consequently, this paper discusses possibilities for redesigning republican democratic institutions to counter‐act these negative forces. However, all possibilities discussed either call into question the normative ideal of republican democracy itself or would take too much time to be realized.

Chancengleichheit ist ein viel komplexeres Ideal als gemeinhzin angenommen. Das Ideal lässt sich weder auf einen streng egalitären Standard reduzieren, noch kann es als bloss prozedurale oder bloss substantielle Forderung aufgefasst werden. Diese Untersuchung zeigt, wie das Ideal zu verstehen ist und welche Funktion ihm im philosophischen Liberalismus zukommen sollte. Chancengleichheit hat im Liberalismus allerdings eine viel geringere Bedeutung als Politik und Philosophie glauben machen.

Commonly, in liberal thought equal opportunity is understood as principle of distribution. However, such a point of view misses the close conceptual relation between equal opportunity and liberty. This paper’s aim is to show, why there is such a close conceptual relation between the two ideals. From this follows that within liberalism equal opportunity and liberty can only be defended together if they conceptually correlate. In a first step the conceptual structure of both ideals is in focus. This discussion shows why equal opportunity must be conceived as an egalitarian conceptualization of claims of liberty. In a second step this paper discusses the potential conflicts between equal opportunity and liberty. Defending these conflicts has further consequences for conceptualizing liberty. Most commonly, in liberalism liberty guarantees conditions to realize an autonomous life. Therefore, it is necessary to show, why equal opportunity can serve this goal. Hence, in a third step this paper sketches two arguments for this purpose. Chancengleichheit wird im Liberalismus gemeinhin als ein egalitäres Prinzip der Verteilungsgerechtigkeit aufgefasst. Deshalb wird in der Debatte das enge konzeptionelle Abhängigkeitsverhältnis zwischen Chancengleichheit und Freiheit zu wenig berücksichtigt. Dieser Aufsatz zeigt, weshalb Chancengleichheit und Freiheit aufgrund ihrer konzeptionellen Struktur voneinander abhängen. Dies hat zur Konsequenz, dass Chancengleichheit und Freiheit im Liberalismus nur dann widerspruchsfrei verteidigt werden können, wenn die beiden Ideale einander auch konzeptionell entsprechen. In einem ersten Schritt wird die konzeptionelle Struktur der beiden Ideale näher untersucht. Diese Diskussion zeigt, dass Chancengleichheit immer eine egalitäre Explikation eines Freiheitsanspruches darstellt. In einem zweiten Schritt stehen die zwischen Chancengleichheit und Freiheit behaupteten Konflikte im Zentrum, deren Aufrechterhaltung Folgen für das im Liberalismus verteidi

This comment questions Lister’s reading of the reciprocity condition in three respects. First, it challenges the view that this condition necessarily leads to egalitarian claims about just distribution. Secondly, it questions Lister’s argument that the reciprocity condition is linked to substantial schemes of egalitarian distribution irrespective of context. Thirdly, it claims that entitlements to justice for people with mental or psychological impairments cannot be based on a distinction between willingness and unwillingness to contribute to the cooperative venture of a society.

This paper provides a critical comment on Philip Kitcher’s as yet unpublished book The Ethical Project. In the first part it explains why Kitcher’s position is naturalist as well as pragmatist. In the second part it is argued that the role ethics plays in human history is richer than Kitcher conceives it: Building on his view, this paper suggests that ethics not only provides a mechanism to diminish the risk of social conflict and social instability, but it also enables the emergence of self-conceptions. This reveals according to what processes certain particular changes occurred in the evolution of ethics.

The Loss and Damage Network is a network of scientists and practitioners informing the loss and damage debate and includes members from about 20 institutions. This summary paper, written on the occasion of COP22 in Marrakesh, summarizes four recent research contributions to the debate.

This paper suggests a way to elaborate the ethical implications of the Warsaw International Mechanism (WIM) as decided at COP 19 from the perspective of justice. It advocates three proposals. First, in order to fully understand the responsibilities and liabilities implied in the WIM, adaptation needs to be distinguished from loss and damage (L&D) on the basis of the different goals which should be attributed to adaptation and to L&D approaches. Second, the primary concern of the WIM should be compensatory justice. In case of climate L&D, three aspects of compensatory justice should be kept separate: corrective liability, remedial responsibility, and with regard to the resources available, fair remedy. Third, it is crucial to distinguish between recoverable damage and irrecoverable or at least not fully recoverable loss. This distinction is crucial because it informs the principles of fair remedy and because damage and loss may differ in their relevance for the stability and functioning of a human system.

Evidence of observed negative impacts on natural and human systems from anthropogenic climate change is increasing. However, human systems in particular are dynamic and influenced by multiple drivers and hence identifying an anthropogenic climate signal is challenging. Here we analyze the case of lake Palcacocha in the Andes of Peru, which offers a representative model for other glacier lakes and related risks around the world because it features a dynamic evolution of flood risk driven by physical and socioeconomic factors and processes. Furthermore, it is the object of a prominent climate litigation case, wherein a local Peruvian citizen sued a large German energy producer over risk of flooding from lake Palcacocha. Adopting a conceptual model of cascading impacts and multiple drivers of risk, we first study climatic and other geophysical drivers of flood risk. We find that an anthropogenic signal from flood risk to greenhouse gas emissions is traceable. In parallel, flood risk has been strongly shaped (and increased) by interacting socioeconomic, institutional and cultural processes over the past few decades. The case raises important questions about the differentiation of responsibilities relating to flood risk of both global and local agents, which are, however, difficult to address in cases like Palcacocha, where we reveal a complex network of interlinked global, national and local drivers. Following from this, we outline a normative framework with a differentiated perspective on responsibility, implying that global emitters commit to support strengthening capacities in affected regions and localities and that local institutions and societies engage in local risk reduction measures and policies in collaboration with and driven by local communities.

Adaptation to changing and new environmental conditions is of fundamental importance to sustainability and requires concerted efforts amongst science, policy, and practice to produce solution-oriented knowledge. Joint knowledge production or co-production of knowledge have become increasingly popular terms to describe the process of scientists, policy makers and actors from the civil society coming together to cooperate in the production, dissemination, and application of knowledge to solve wicked problems such as climate change.Networks are particularly suited to produce knowledge in a joint fashion. However, the process of joint knowledge production (JKP) in networks has rarely been examined. In this paper, we present a sketch of the adaptation network landscape and assess how joint knowledge production supports the development of solution-oriented knowledge in climate change adaptation networks. We conclude that the processes of JKP are diverse, complex, and highly dependent on the interests and roles of actors within the network. To keep such processes alive, signposts in form of analysis and intermediary products along the network lifetime should be positioned as means of stocktaking and monitoring for the future.

This paper provides a critical comment on Philip Kitcher's as yet unpublished book The Ethical Project. In the first part it explains why Kitcher's position is naturalist as well as pragmatist. In the second part it is argued that the role ethics plays in human history is richer than Kitcher conceives it: Building on his view, this paper suggests that ethics not only provides a mechanism to diminish the risk of social conflict and social instability, but it also enables the emergence of self-conceptions. This reveals according to what processes certain particular changes occurred in the evolution of ethics