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41The Value of Artefactual OrganismsEnvironmental Values 21 (1). 2012.Synthetic biology makes use of genetic and other materials derived from modern biological life forms to design and construct novel synthetic organisms. Artificial organisms are not constructed from parts of existing biological organisms, but from non-biological materials. Artificial and synthetic organisms are artefactual organisms. Here we are concerned with the non-instrumental value of such organisms. More specifically, we are concerned with the extent to which artefactual organisms have natu…Read more
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40Towards an Adequate Environmental Virtue EthicEnvironmental Values 13 (4). 2004.In this article I consider four concerns regarding the possibility of an environmental virtue ethic functioning as an alternative – rather than a supplement – to more conventional approaches to environmental ethics. The concerns are: (1) it is not possible to provide an objective specification of environmental virtue, (2) an environmental virtue ethic will lack the resources to provide critique of obtaining cultural practices and policies, (3) an environmental virtue ethic will not provide suffi…Read more
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39Private Ownership and Common GoodsPhilosophy in the Contemporary World 12 (2): 1-2. 2005.Balancing, integrating, or otherwise sorting out private ownership, control, and property rights, on the one hand, with social, common, and shared goods or rights, on the other, is manifest in socio-ethical issues ranging from eminent domain to gay marriage and from endangered species protection to social security. In fact, when one surveys the contemporary socio-ethical landscape with this problem in mind, there appears hardly an issue that it does not touch; and it is frequently the central or…Read more
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38Eric Katz on ”De-Extinction”: Ontology, Value and NormativityEthics, Policy and Environment 25 (2): 104-108. 2022.Eric Katz (1992) influentially argued that ecological restoration involves the ‘big lie’ that a successful restoration re-establishes or re-creates all of what was lost through human degradation, a...
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37A Response to Martin Calkins's “How Casuistry and Virtue Ethics Might Break the Ideological Stalemate Troubling Agricultural Biotechnology”Business Ethics Quarterly 15 (2): 319-327. 2005.Martin Calkins proposes the “combined use of casuistry and virtue ethics as a way for both sides to move ahead on [the] pressing issue [of agricultural biotechnology].” However, his defense of this methodology relies on a set of mistaken, albeit familiar, claims regarding the normative resources of virtue ethics: (1) virtue ethics is egoistic; (2) virtue ethics cannot defend any particular account of the virtues as the objectively correct ones and is therefore inextricably relativistic; (3) virt…Read more
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36Nanomedicine and Nanomedical EthicsAmerican Journal of Bioethics 9 (10): 16-17. 2009.As Fritz Allhoff (2009) argues in the target article, the size, interactive, multifunctional, and precision features that nanoscale science and engineering enables is in the process of redefining m...
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35Justice for Animals: Our Collective Responsibility Justice for Animals: Our Collective Responsibility, by Martha Nussbaum, 2023, Published by Simon & Schuster, 400 pp., $28.99 (Hardback), ISBN 978-1982102500 (review)Ethics, Policy and Environment 26 (3): 496-500. 2023.In Justice for Animals: Our Collective Responsibility Martha Nussbaum applies her capabilities approach (CA) to justice to non-human sentient animals (hereafter animals). The book is very much an e...
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33An aretaic objection to agricultural biotechnologyJournal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics 17 (3): 301-317. 2004.Considerations of virtue and character appear from time to time in the agricultural biotechnology literature. Critics of the technologies often suggest that they are contrary to some virtue (usually humility) or do not fit with the image of ourselves and the human place in the world that we ought to embrace. In this article, I consider the aretaic or virtue-based objection that to engage in agricultural biotechnology is to exhibit arrogance, hubris, and disaffection. In section one, I discuss Ga…Read more
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32Book review:Gregory Pence, editor, the ethics of food: A reader for the 21st century. Rowman and Littlefield publishers, 2002. ISBN: 0-7425-1334-3 (PB). XI + 287 pp (review)Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics 18 (1): 85-93. 2004.
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32The Ethics of Species: An IntroductionCambridge University Press. 2012.Machine generated contents note: Preface; 1. Introduction; 2. The value of species; 3. The conservation biology dilemma; 4. Assisted colonization; 5. Shifting goals and changing strategies; 6. The (in)significance of species boundaries; 7. Homo sapiens in particular; 8. Artifactual species; 9. Conclusion.
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28¿Deberíamos Usar la Ingeniería Genética para Salvar Especies?Environmental Ethics 41 (9998): 39-60. 2019.En este artículo, analizo dos estrategias para diseñar especies con fines de conservación, la des-extinción y la genética dirigida. Sostengo que el uso de la ingeniería genética con fines de conservación no es, en principio, incorrecto. Puede haber casos en que la des-extinción de especies y la ingeniería genética dirigida sean preferible a otras estrategias disponibles para la conservación. También sostengo que la des-extinción no es una técnica de conservación tan transformadora como podría pa…Read more
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27De-extinction and Conservation Genetics in the AnthropoceneHastings Center Report 47 (S2). 2017.One interesting feature of de‐extinction—particularly with respect to long‐extinct species such as the passenger pigeon, thylacine, and mammoth—is that it does not fit neatly into the primary rationales for adopting novel ecosystem‐management and species‐conservation technologies and strategies: efficiency and necessity. The efficiency rationale is that the new technology or strategy enables conservation biologists to do what they already do more effectively. Why should researchers embrace novel…Read more
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25The External Goods Approach to Environmental Virtue EthicsEnvironmental Ethics 25 (3): 279-293. 2003.If virtue ethics are to provide a legitimate alternative for reasoning about environmental issues, they must meet the same conditions of adequacy as any other environmental ethic. One such condition that most environmental ethicists insist upon is that an adequate environmental ethic provides a theoretical platform for consistent and justified critique of environmentally unsustainable practices and policies. The external goods approach seeks to establish that any genuinely virtuous agent will be…Read more
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24Ethics and emerging technologies (edited book)Palgrave-Macmillan. 2014.Technology shapes every aspect of human experience and it is the primary driver of social and ecological change. Given this, it is surprising that we spend so little time studying, analyzing, and evaluating new technologies. Occasionally, an issue grabs public attention--for example, the use of human embryonic stem cells in medical research or online file sharing of music and movies. However, these are the exceptions. For the most part, we enthusiastically embrace each new technology and applica…Read more
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23Review of G. Comstock, Vexing Nature? On the Ethical Case Against Agricultural Biotechnology (review)Environmental Values 12 (3): 403-405. 2003.
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22On the Massness of Mass ExtinctionPhilosophia 50 (5): 2205-2220. 2021.The central question in this paper is whether anthropogenic mass extinction is ethically problematic above and beyond the sum of extinctions involved. The point of asking this question is not to determine the ethical status of anthropogenic massive extinction, which is clearly ethical horrendous. It is to see if - as is the case with interrogating the wrongness and badness of extinction - answering it illuminates something about the value of what is being lost and sharpens the considerations tha…Read more
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22Hunting, Fishing, and Environmental Virtue: Reconnecting Sportsmanship and Conservation by Charles J. ListEnvironmental Ethics 36 (3): 373-376. 2014.
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22Review of Fritz Allhoff, Patrick Lin, James Moor, and John Weckert, eds., Nanoethics: The Ethical and Social Implications of Nanotechnology.1 (review)American Journal of Bioethics 8 (8): 70-71. 2008.
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20Food Ethics: The BasicsRoutledge. 2014.Food Ethics: The Basics is a concise yet comprehensive introduction to the ethical dimensions of the production and consumption of food. It offers an impartial exploration of the most prominent ethical questions relating to food and agriculture including: • Should we eat animals? • Are locally produced foods ethically superior to globally sourced foods? • Do people in affluent nations have a responsibility to help reduce global hunger? • Should we embrace bioengineered foods? • What should be th…Read more
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20Engineering the Climate: The Ethics of Solar Radiation Management (edited book)Lexington Books. 2012.Engineering the Climate: The Ethics of Solar Radiation Management is a wide-ranging and expert analysis of the ethics of the intentional management of solar radiation. This book will be a useful tool for policy-makers, a provocation for ethicists, and an eye-opening analysis for both the scientist and the general reader with interest in climate change
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19Environmental Ethics and the Need to Motivate Pro-Environmental BehaviorPhilosophy in the Contemporary World 9 (2): 101-105. 2002.In this article I argue that it is appropriate for environmental ethicists to be concerned with the practical efficacy of their arguments. Such a concern follows from a commonly accepted construal of what would constitute an adequate environmental ethic and it finds precedent in the history of philosophy.
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19The National Nanotechnology Initiative and the Social GoodJournal of Law, Medicine and Ethics 34 (4): 675-681. 2006.The purpose of the National Nanotechnology Initiative is to promote nanotechnology in a way that benefits the citizens of the United States. It involves a commitment to support responsible development of nanotechnology. The NNI's enactment of this commitment is critically assessed. It is concluded that there are not adequate avenues within the NNI by which social and ethical issues can be raised, considered, and, when appropriate, addressed
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18Designer Biology: The Ethics of Intensively Engineering Biological and Ecological Systems (edited book)Lexington Books. 2013.This book consists of thirteen chapters that address the ethical issues raised by technological intervention and design across a broad range of biological and ecological systems. Among the technologies addressed are geoengineering, human enhancement, sex selection, genetic modification, and synthetic biology.
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18The GMO-Nanotech (Dis)Analogy?Bulletin of Science, Technology and Society 26 (1): 57-62. 2006.The genetically-modified-organism (GMO) experience has been prominent in motivating science, industry, and regulatory communities to address the social and ethical dimensions of nanotechnology. However, there are some significant problems with the GMO-nanotech analogy. First, it overstates the likelihood of a GMO-like backlash against nanotechnology. Second, it invites misconceptions about the reasons for public engagement and social and ethical issues research as well as their appropriate roles…Read more
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17The Ethics of Species: An IntroductionCambridge University Press. 2012.We are causing species to go extinct at extraordinary rates, altering existing species in unprecedented ways and creating entirely new species. More than ever before, we require an ethic of species to guide our interactions with them. In this book, Ronald L. Sandler examines the value of species and the ethical significance of species boundaries and discusses what these mean for species preservation in the light of global climate change, species engineering and human enhancement. He argues that …Read more
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11Emma Marris, Wild Souls: Freedom and Flourishing in the Non-Human World (review)Environmental Ethics 44 (4): 375-377. 2022.
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9The Value of Species and the Ethical Foundations of Assisted ColonizationConservation Biology 24 (2). 2009.Discourse around assisted colonization focuses on the ecological risks, costs, and uncertainties associated with the practice, as well as on its technical feasibility and alternative approaches to it. Nevertheless, the ethical underpinnings of the case for assisted colonization are claims about the value of species. A complete discussion of assisted colonization needs to include assessment of these claims. For each type of value that species are thought to possess it is necessary to determine wh…Read more
Areas of Interest
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Applied Ethics |
Meta-Ethics |
Normative Ethics |
Philosophy of Biology |
Value Theory, Miscellaneous |
17th/18th Century Philosophy |