Section Moral and Political Philosophy
The Section Moral and Political Philosophy is dedicated to teaching and researching classical topics in moral, political and legal philosophy. In ongoing research projects, philosophical theories are further developed in relation to contemporary problems, in particular with regard to questions of justice and legitimacy in space and time, dealing with historical injustice, climate change, responsibility towards future generations and the challenges posed by globalization in all areas of life. Active efforts are made to take questions of the good life and just coexistence beyond the institutional boundaries of academia and to conduct public discussions.
The Section Moral and Political Philosophy coordinates the interdisciplinary Master's program in Political, Economic and Legal Philosophy (PELP) and is significantly involved in the Master's program in Applied Ethics.
Members of the Section Moral and Political Philosophy are continuously conducting externally funded research projects, both within philosophy and in cooperation with colleagues from other disciplines and institutions. In 2010, the Department of Philosophy became one of the seed institutes of the Wegener Center for Climate and Global Change. Lukas Meyer is head and speaker of the FWF Doctoral Program Climate Change (2014-2018 and 2018-2022) and since 2019 he has been co-speaker of the 2019 founded profile-building unit Climate Change / Field of Excellence Climate Change at the University of Graz. Doctoral and research students participate in workshops where invited experts and members of the research unit present ongoing work on topics that are central to the research projects.
CURRENT RESEARCH PROJECTS
JUSTLA - Justice in the 21st century: a Latin American perspective
Funded by: EU (European Commission), HEU; Project leader: Meyer, Lukas
Duration: 01.01.2025-21.12.2028
Funded by: World Health Organization; Project leader: Rekers, Romina
Duration: 6.12.2025-6.12.2026
Making Morality Impartial: An Experimental Investigation of the Veil of Ignorance
Funded by: EU (European Commission); Project leader: Pölzler, Thomas
Duration: 05.10.2023 - 04.10.2026
A Political Conception of Transitional Justice
Funded by: FWF (Austrian Science Fund); Project leader: Rekers, Romina Andrea
Duration: 01.09.2021 - 31.10.2025
Women organizations participation in climate-health adaptation strategies for VBDs in Paraguay
Funded by: GLIDE (Oxford-Johns Hopkins Global Infectious Disease Ethics Collaborative); Project leader: Rekers, Romina
Duration: 01.03.2024- 01.03.2025
Funded by: other; Project leader: Moser, Elias
Duration: 05.10.2021 - 31.12.2024
Basic Needs and Intergenerational Climate Justice
Funded by: FWF (Austrian Science Fund); Project leader: Meyer, Lukas
Duration: 01.10.2020 - 30.09.2024
Funded by: other public institutions; Project leader: Meyer, Lukas
Duration: 01.01.2022 - 30.06.2024
Climate-Health Adaptation Strategies in South America
Funded by: GLIDE (Oxford-Johns Hopkins Global Infectious Disease Ethics Collaborative); Project leader: Rekers, Romina
Duration: 01.03.2023 - 01.03.2024
JUSTDECARB - Socially Just and Politically Robust Decarbonization
Funded by: FFG (Austrian Research Promotion Agency); Project leader: Meyer, Lukas
Duration: 07.12.2020 - 06.12.2023
Sharing the effort of the European Green Deal among Countries
Funded by: others; Co-leader: Steiniger, Karl and Williges, Keith; Partner: Meyer, Lukas
ongoing project
Bioethics, Distributive Justice and Pandemics
Funded by: CNPq Brasilien (University of Graz is an international partner and is not receiving funding from the project budget (non beneficiary)); Collaborators: Meyer, Lukas; Rekers, Romina Andrea und Truccone, Santiago
Duration: 19.12.2022 - 31.12.2024
The reversal of historical injustice and changed circumstances
FWF Individual projects P 30084
Duration: 02.10.2017 - 01.10.2022
Project leader: Lukas Meyer
Meaning in Life and the Future of Humanity
FWF Meitner Program M 2928
Duration: 01.09.2020 - 31.08.2022
Project leader: Jonathan Knutzen
Workshop - Ruling in a Wanton World: Arthur Applbaum's Work and the Philosophy of Legitimacy Beyond the State
Funded by: others
Duration: 29.05.2022 - 31.05.2022
Organizer: Lukas Meyer, Department of Practical Philosophy
Doctoral Program Climate Change - Uncertainties, Thresholds and Strategies
FWF Doctoral Program W 1256
Duration: 01.03.2014 - 28.02.2022
Project leader: Lukas Meyer
Funded by: Climate and Energy Fund
Duration: 11.09.2017 - 29.02.2020
Project leader: Lukas Meyer; Partners: Karl Steininger and Eva Schulev-Steindl
Adaptation efforts in the global greenhouse - TP Philosophy
Funded by: Climate and Energy Fund
Duration: 01.03.2013 - 08.01.2018
Project manager: Lukas Meyer; Project staff: Harald Stelzer
KliMacht | CliMatters (including special exhibition at the UniGraz@Museum)
Funded by: Federal states (incl. their foundations and institutions)
Duration: 01.10.2015 - 01.10.2016
Project leader: Lukas Meyer; Project collaborator: Jakob Pock
Sustainable management of the risks of climate change (SCRiM)
Funded by: National Science Foundation, USA
Duration: October 2012 - October 2016
Partner: Lukas Meyer
European transdisciplinary assessment of climate engineering
Funded by: EU (European Commission)
Duration: 01.06.2012 - 30.09.2014
Project leader: Lukas Meyer; Project collaborator: Harald Stelzer
Rights to a green future. Uncertainty, Intergenerational Human Rights and Pathways to Realization (ENRI-Future)
Funded by: European Science Foundation (ESF)
Duration: 03.04.2012 - 07.08.2014
Project leader: Lukas Meyer
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 5th Assessment Report
IPCC and Austrian Federal Ministry of Science and Research
Duration: May 2010 - April 2014
Lead author 5th Assessment Report: Lukas Meyer
Climate justice. The significance of historical emissions
FWF Individual project P 22398
Duration: 01.05.2010 - 30.11.2013
Project leader: Meyer, Lukas
Meeting the challenges of international and European climate policy after Copenhagen
Funded by: Austrian Climate Research Program
Duration: 01.02.2011 - 06.11.2013
Project leader: Lukas Meyer; Project collaborators: Dominic Roser, Alexa Zellentin
Design of a critical-rationalist ethics
FWF Individual projects P 20785
Duration: 01.05.2008 - 31.10.2011
Project leader: Harald Stelzer; Project collaborator: Philippe Streit
Who has been a guest at the Section Moral and Political Philosophy so far? Here is the list of all previous guests of the Section Moral and Political Philosophy.
These works by our (former) colleagues have received awards in recent years:
2024
- Rutger Lazou won the GEWI Prize for his dissertation "What is Owed to the Losers of the Energy Transition? The Case of Fossil Fuel Reserve Owners." The dissertation was supervised by Lukas Meyer and Margaret Moore.
2023
- Thomas Pölzler won the Research Prize of the Provincial Government of Styria. His main research areas are ethics and moral psychology.
- Laura García-Portela won the Roland Atefie-Prize of the ÖAW and the Luis Díez del Corral Dissertation Prize for her dissertation „Rectifying Climate Injustice. A backward-looking approach to reparations for climate change loss and damage." The dissertation was supervised by Lukas Meyer.
2022
- Thomas Pölzler is among the winners of the Wolfgang Stegmüller Award by the Society for Analytic Philosophy. He received the award for his book “Moral Reality and the Empirical Sciences”.
- Norbert Paulo won the Research Prize of the Provincial Government of Styria for his work „Empirische Ethik: Grundlagentexte aus Psychologie und Philosophie" and his habilitation „Empirically-Informed Moral Epistemology" as well as the DFG Heisenberg Preis.
2021
- Kian Mintz-Woo won the Andrew Light Award for Public Philosophy by the International Society for Environmental Ethics.
The Department of Philosophy - Section Moral and Political Philosophy - at the University of Graz initiated the participatory project "Denkzeitraum" in 2011, which has since been working with the City of Graz to address questions such as "Who owns time?", "Who owns the future?" and "Who owns thinking?".
The Student Council for Philosophy, in cooperation with the Section Moral and Political Philosophy, has investigated the Nazi past of the Department of Philosophy at the University of Graz and published the results in a brochure with the title "Kontinuitäten und Brüche. Das Grazer Philosophische Institut im Nationalsozialismus".
Collaborators: Deborah Biging, Maximilian Burkard, Anna Klieber, Thomas Knapp, Dora Lenart, Georg Reiter, Antonia Veitschegger, Klemens Wieringer
Contact Anna Klieber
In 2013, Lukas Heinrich Meyer, Mark Peacock, Peter Schaber and Michael Schefzyk founded the international peer-reviewed journal Moral Philosophy and Politics (de Gruyter). They have been publishing two issues per year since 2014. Michael Schefczyk acts as Editor in Chief. See www.degruyte r.com/view/journals/mopp/mopp-overview.xml
The literature archive of the Section Moral and Political Philosophy consists of over 11,000 articles, essays and texts (many from Lukas Meyer's holdings). The texts are assigned a numbering system (reference ID). The archive is constantly being expanded and can be easily searched by keyword or author search. Ms. Maria-Theresia Kuzmics has been managing the archive since 2016.
If you would like to view the archive, please send an email to kanita.kovacevic@uni-graz.at.
In summer 2013, we published a report on the first four years since the Section Moral and Political Philosophy was established after Lukas Meyer took up the professorship in spring 2009.
The bilingual brochure provides an overview of the staff, research projects and events of the department as well as the studies (co-)supervised.