BEGIN:VCALENDAR VERSION:2.0 PRODID:-//wp-events-plugin.com//7.4.2//EN TZID:Europe/Amsterdam X-WR-TIMEZONE:Europe/Amsterdam BEGIN:VEVENT UID:0-33@visions-for-the-future.sites.uu.nl DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Amsterdam:20260915T150000 DTEND;TZID=Europe/Amsterdam:20260915T163000 DTSTAMP:20260903T133810Z URL:https://visions-for-the-future.sites.uu.nl/events/speaker-series-with- dr-darel-moellendorf/ SUMMARY:Speaker Series with Dr. Darrel Moellendorf DESCRIPTION:\n\n\nThe session takes place online. You can join the session through the MS TEAMS link. \n\n\n\nPlutocracy as a Problem for Climate Jus tice\n\n\n\nClimate change has been recognized publicly as a problem for s everal decades. Yet public policy has permitted fossil fuel investment and demand to continue to grow to record levels. Accompanying that growth\, h owever\, there has been significant expansion in the much smaller renewabl e energy sector\, and some\, albeit woefully inadequate\, progress in redu cing emissions in some parts of the world. An adequate explanation for why this is the case is important for making more rapid progress in the energ y transition. I argue that several explanations on offer fail to explain m atters adequately\, these include attempts offered by moral philosophers h aving to do with the inadequacy of traditional moral concepts as well as o ther attempts that rely on global and intergenerational versions of collec tive action problems. \; In contrast\, I argue that the existence of a plutocratic tendency better explains the circumstance. By “plutocratic tendency” I mean a distortion of democratic processes and deliberative r ationality that occurs due to the susceptibility of the deliberative bodie s to the capacity of wealth to influence the outcomes of deliberation and the deliberate\, although not necessarily coordinated\, deployment of this capacity to exploit that susceptibility. This is the exercise of plutocra tic power. The talk offers evidence of such a tendency and power. Plutocra cy is rarely discussed in political theory\, but I argue that it is a majo r obstacle both to effective climate change mitigation and to approximatin g the ideal of democratic equality. In order adequately to mitigate climat e change\, the forces of plutocracy will have to be countered. The struggl e for climate change mitigation is\, then\, also in part a struggle for de mocracy.\n\n\n\nAbout the speaker: Darrell Moellendorf is Professor of Int ernational Political Theory\, Professor of Philosophy\, and a member of th e research group Normative Orders at Goethe at Johann Wolfgang University Frankfurt am Main. He is also a Distinguished Visiting Professor of Philos ophy at the University of Johannesburg. And he is a member of the Wissensc haftliche Gesellschaft at Goethe University Frankfurt. He is the author of five monographs: Cosmopolitan Justice (2002)\, Global Inequality Matters (2009)\, The Moral Challenge of Dangerous Climate Change: Values\, Poverty \, and Policy (2014)\, Mobilizing Hope: Climate Change and Global Poverty (2022)\, and The Examined Illness: A Philosopher Confronts Deadly Disease (2026). He also co-edited six collected volumes. He has been a member of t he School of Social Sciences at the Institute for Advanced Study (Princeto n)\, a Senior Fellow at Justitia Amplificata at Goethe University Frankfur t\, and a Goethe Fellow at the Forschungskolleg Humanwissenschaften. From 1996 to 2002 he was a lecturer at the University of the Witwatersrand in J ohannesburg\, South Africa. And he has taught at San Diego State Universit y\, Cal Poly Pomona\, and Riverside Community College.\n\n\n\nIf you would like to receive calendar invites with the links to all our speaker series events and receive updates on our project please email us at a.c.moiteiro dasneves@uu.nl. \;\n END:VEVENT BEGIN:VTIMEZONE TZID:Europe/Amsterdam X-LIC-LOCATION:Europe/Amsterdam BEGIN:DAYLIGHT DTSTART:20260329T030000 TZOFFSETFROM:+0100 TZOFFSETTO:+0200 TZNAME:CEST END:DAYLIGHT END:VTIMEZONE END:VCALENDAR