Transdeszendenz, Ökologie, Demokratie

Corine Pelluchon analyzes the obstacles to a new ecological enlightenment, the basic principles of which she has developed in her works. By linking subjectivity and social structures, she exposes the structure of domination and counters it with the ethics and politics of consideratio.

Corine Pelluchon examines the psychological and political obstacles standing in the way of the emergence of a new ecological Enlightenment, the basic principles of which she has developed in her books. Her starting point is the thesis that the current ecological and democratic crises cannot be understood without analyzing the system of domination that structures our relationships with other people, animals, nature, and with ourselves. In dialogue with phenomenology, critical theory, and existentialism, the analysis uncovers the anthropological roots of modern destructiveness: the refusal to acknowledge one’s own vulnerability, the denial of death, fantasies of omnipotence, and the decoupling of technical rationality from responsibility. The author demonstrates that these mechanisms give rise to a culture of death, which manifests itself in the trivialization of violence, the destruction of life, and the erosion of democratic institutions. Violence against animals, ecological extractivism, and the growing susceptibility to authoritarian populist discourses thus appear as interconnected expressions of the same imaginary of domination and the same denial of mortality.
In response to these dynamics, the essay introduces the concept of consideratio. It refers to a way of being that forms the foundation for the virtues enabling us to find joy in changing our lifestyle. It is based on a deepening of our self-awareness as vulnerable, born, and mortal beings, through which we intensely experience our belonging to the shared world. This experience leads to an expansion of subjectivity, which Corine Pelluchon calls transdescendence. This transformation of our relationship to ourselves and to others forms the ethical and political prerequisite for an ecological democracy. At the same time, it opens the possibility of a hope, not to be understood as optimism, but as the ability to recognize, despite the crises, the harbingers of a new horizon – a perspective that gives us the energy to reframe the future.

Corine Pelluchon:
Transdeszendenz, Ökologie, Demokratie / Transdescendence, Ecology, Democracy
Anmerkungen / Notes
Birgit Weyel:
Ansprache bei der Verleihung des Dr. Leopold Lucas-Preises 2025 / Address at the Award Ceremony of the 2025 Dr. Leopold Lucas Prize
Anmerkungen / Notes
Die bisherigen Preisträger

• By (author) Corine Pelluchon
• Edited by Birgit Weyel
• With Florian Zacher