French professor Corine Pelluchon awarded the Lucas Prize by the University of Tübingen
Corine Pelluchon is Professor of Political Philosophy and Applied Ethics at the Université Gustave Eiffel in Paris. She has been awarded several French and German scholarly prizes and is a Knight of the French Legion of Honour. With her work, Pelluchon provides valuable impulses for a future worth living and strengthens the foundations of a plural and open democracy through her well-founded analyses and concrete proposals. According to the jury, her work thus fulfils the objectives for which the Dr. Leopold Lucas Prize was endowed to an outstanding degree.
A plea for a new enlightenment
With her political philosophy, Pelluchon makes a significant contribution to current social challenges. Her work combines reflection on the foundations of politics and ethics with concrete proposals for political action to achieve justice for animals, protect the environment and strengthen democracy.
Pelluchon argues in favour of a new enlightenment that understands people not only as rational individuals, but also as vulnerable, physical beings involved in relationships. This understanding of ourselves should strengthen our awareness of our interconnectedness with the human and non-human world and lead to responsible behaviour in the interests of the common good.
Pelluchon's commitment to animal rights is particularly noteworthy. She recognises animals as sensitive subjects and demands comprehensive protection rights for them. At the same time, she sees the protection of the biosphere as a central political goal that is closely linked to social justice and democratic participation.
She proposes practical solutions within pluralistic democracies without subscribing to radical or patronising positions. By linking animal ethics with issues of climate protection and social justice, Pelluchon develops a comprehensive concept of social change.
Her philosophy calls for a rethinking towards an age of the living, which places the peaceful and just coexistence of humans and non-human beings at the centre. She does not lose herself in naïve optimism, but takes worries and fears in the face of an increasingly uncertain world seriously and wants to create well-founded hope for an improvement.
Lucas Prize for junior researchers
Dr. Leopold Lucas Prize honours people whose academic work promotes relations between individuals and between peoples and who have rendered outstanding services to spreading the idea of tolerance. It was founded in 1972 by Consul General Franz D. Lucas, Honorary Senator of the University of Tübingen. The occasion was the 100th birthday of his father, the Jewish scholar and rabbi Dr. Leopold Lucas, who was murdered in the Theresienstadt concentration camp in 1943.
The prize donated in his memory is awarded annually by the Faculty of Protestant Theology on behalf of the University of Tübingen. It is endowed with 50,000 euros.
There is also a Dr. Leopold Lucas Prize for early-career researchers, endowed with 20,000 euros, awarded this year to Dr Bahadir Eker. The philosopher receives the prize for his doctoral thesis in philosophy ‘Matters of Perspective. A Theory of Deep Temporality’. His work is a highly original and sophisticated contribution to the complex philosophical debate on the metaphysics of time.
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