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52Geoengineering, Political Legitimacy and JusticeEthics, Policy and Environment 21 (3): 265-269. 2018.Geoengineering is commonly defined as ‘the deliberate large-scale manipulation of the planetary environment to counteract anthropogenic climate change’. Technologies which...
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49Environmental midwifery and the need for an ethics of the transition: A quick riff on the future of environmental ethicsEthics and the Environment 12 (2): 122-123. 2007.In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Environmental Midwifery and the Need for an Ethics of the Transition:A Quick Riff on the Future of Environmental EthicsStephen M. Gardiner (bio)It is worth remembering that in many ways environmental ethics is a very successful field. Over the course of only thirty or forty years, we have reached a point at which almost every significant philosophy program in the country offers a course in environmental ethics, there are several esta…Read more
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46Debating Climate EthicsOxford University Press USA. 2016.In this volume, Stephen M. Gardiner and David A. Weisbach present arguments for and against the relevance of ethics to global climate policy. Gardiner argues that climate change is fundamentally an ethical issue, since it is an early instance of a distinctive challenge to ethical action, and ethical concerns are at the heart of many of the decisions that need to be made. Consequently, climate policy that ignores ethics is at risk of
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44Debating Climate Ethics RevisitedEthics, Policy and Environment 24 (2): 89-111. 2021.ABSTRACT In Debating Climate Ethics, David Weisbach and I offer contrasting views of the importance of ethics and justice for climate policy. I argue that ethics is central. Weisbach advocates for climate policy based purely on narrow forms of self-interest. For this symposium, I summarize the major themes, and extend my basic argument. I claim that ethics gets the problem right, whereas dismissing ethics risks getting the problem dangerously wrong, and perpetuating profound injustices. One cons…Read more
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43Trump and Climate JusticeThe Philosophers' Magazine 78 14-16. 2017.A brief critique of President Trump's decision to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement.
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39The Heart of A Perfect Moral StormPhilosophy and Public Issues - Filosofia E Questioni Pubbliche 3 (1). 2013.Download
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36Why ‘global public good’ is a treacherous term, especially for geoengineeringClimatic Change. 2014.Recently, I argued against framing geoengineering—understood here in terms of the paradigm example of stratospheric sulfate injection ('SSI')—as a global public good. My main claim was that this framing is seriously misleading because of its neglect of central ethical concerns. I also suggested that 'global public good' is best understood as an umbrella term covering a cluster of distinct, but interrelated ideas. In an effort to be charitable, I adopted an inclusive approach, considering two gen…Read more
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33Why Geoengineering is not Plan BIn Christopher J. Preston (ed.), Climate Justice and Geoengineering: Ethics and Policy in the Atmospheric Anthropocene, Rowman & Littlefield International. pp. 15-32. 2016.Geoengineering – roughly “the intentional manipulation of the planetary systems at a global scale” (Keith 2000) – to combat climate change is often introduced as a “plan B”: an alternative solution in case “plan A”, reducing emissions, fails. This framing is typically deployed as part of an argument that research and development is necessary in case robust conventional mitigation is not forthcoming, or proves insufficient to prevent dangerous climate impacts. Since coming to prominence with the …Read more
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25Environmentalizing Bioethics: Planetary Health in a Perfect Moral StormPerspectives in Biology and Medicine 65 (4): 569-585. 2022.ABSTRACT:Many of humanity's most serious problems are global, intergenerational, and ecological, yet current institutions are poorly placed to confront such problems. In part, this institutional challenge reflects difficulties with our basic concepts and theories. Bioethics is a central area where such questions arise. Although some have argued for an environmentalized bioethics since its inception, biomedicine has thus far failed to embrace the challenge, and some accuse most bioethicists of be…Read more
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24On the Scope of Institutions for Future Generations: Defending an Expansive Global Constitutional Convention That Protects against Squandering GenerationsEthics and International Affairs 36 (2): 157-178. 2022.We are in the early stages of a new “intergenerational turn” in political philosophy. This turn is largely motivated by the threat of global climate change, which makes vivid a serious governance gap surrounding concern for future generations. Unfortunately, there is a lack of fit between most proposed remedies and the nature of the underlying problem. Most notably, many seem to believe that only piecemeal, issue-specific, and predominantly national institutions are needed to fill the intergener…Read more
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20Geo-Engineering und moralische Schizophrenie: Was ist die Frage?In Angela Kallhoff (ed.), Klimagerechtigkeit Und Klimaethik, De Gruyter. pp. 221-256. 2015.
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20Motivación o Primeros Pasos Hacia una Convención Constitucional Global Para las Generaciones FuturasEnvironmental Ethics 41 (9998): 13-38. 2019.En los últimos tiempos he propuesto la necesidad de elaborar una convención constitucional global centrada en proteger a las generaciones futuras. Este cuerpo deliberativo se ría similar a la convención constitucional de Estados Unidos de 1787, que dio lugar a su estructura actual de gobierno. Se enfrentaría a la “brecha de gobernabilidad” actual respecto de la preocupación por las generaciones futuras. Las instituciones contemporáneas, en particular, tienden a desplazar la preocupación intergen…Read more
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19The Oxford Handbook of Environmental Ethics (edited book)Oxford University Press USA. 2015.A cutting-edge introduction to environmental ethics in a time of dramatic global environmental change, this collection contains forty-five newly commissioned articles, with contributions from well-established experts and emerging voices in the field.
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14Over the last twenty years, the idea that climate change – and indeed global environmental change more generally – is fundamentally a moral challenge has become mainstream. But most have supposed that the challenge is one of acting morally, rather than to our morality itself. Dale Jamieson is a notable exception to this trend. From the earliest days of climate ethics, he has argued that successfully addressing the problem will involve a fundamental paradigm shift in ethics. In general, Jamie…Read more
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11‘Is “Arming the Future” with Geoengineering Really the Lesser Evil? Some Doubts About the Ethics of Intentionally Manipulating the Climate System’.In Stephen Gardiner, Simon Caney, Dale Jamieson & Henry Shue (eds.), Gardiner, Caney, Jamieson and Shue, eds. Climate Ethics: Essential Readings, Oxford., Oxford University Press. pp. 284-312. 2010.
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11Future EthicsIn Armin Grunwald (ed.), Handbuch Technikethik, Metzler. pp. 203-207. 2013.Like it or not, technologists are increasingly being called upon to »save the world«, including from themselves. Today, science and engineering professionals stand on the front-lines both in generating severe risks to the future, and in the search for solutions. This chapter examines the ethical context of their predicament. It begins by outlining the central, characteristic threat to the future, the »tyranny of the contemporary«.
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11Climate Change, Global Health, and Planetary HealthIn Pellegrino Gianfranco & Marcello Di Paola (eds.), Handbook of Philosophy of Climate Change, Springer Nature. pp. 799-819. 2023.Climate change has been called “the biggest global health threat of the 21st century.” This chapter outlines some central ethical dimensions of the challenge. It begins by reviewing a few of the major health impacts expected from climate change. It then summarizes some key issues surrounding the ethical importance of health, and of injustices connected to global health inequalities. Finally, the chapter explores a recent concept – planetary health – that aims to environmentalize public health in…Read more
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9‘Geoengineering and Moral Schizophrenia: What’s the Question?’In William Burns & Andrew Strauss (eds.), William Burns and Andrew Strauss, eds. Climate Change Geoengineering: Legal, Political and Philosophical Perspectives. Cambridge., Cambridge University Press. 2013.Two questions are central to the ethics of geoengineering. The justificatory question asks ‘Under what future conditions might geoengineering become justified?’, where the conditions to be considered include, for example, the threat to be confronted, the background circumstances, the governance mechanisms, individual protections, compensation provisions, and so on. The contextual question asks ‘What is the ethical context of the push toward geoengineering, and what are its implications?’ Unfo…Read more
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9Should We Embrace a “New,” Expansionist Agenda for the Virtues?In Anne Siegetsleitner, Andreas Oberprantacher, Marie-Luisa Frick & Ulrich Metschl (eds.), Crisis and Critique: Philosophical Analysis and Current Events: Proceedings of the 42nd International Wittgenstein Symposium, De Gruyter. pp. 331-342. 2021.Abstract: Does the evolving influence of humanity on the Earth’s environment call for new virtues? How might such virtues be seen as contributing to human flourishing? In this paper, I develop Aristotle’s discussion of magnificence and magnanimity to provide a framework within which to discuss such claims. I also defend the controversial view that even if genuinely new virtues may be involved, these may be virtues to which we should not aspire (now, or perhaps ever).
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7Gardiner, Caney, Jamieson and Shue, eds. Climate Ethics: Essential Readings, Oxford. (edited book)Oxford University Press. 2010.A collection of seminal articles in climate ethics and climate justice.
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7A Machiavellian treatiseCambridge University Press. 1975.In this work, which has survived only in manuscript form and in Italian, Gardiner analyses the great dynastic changes in England's past in order to provide Phillip II with a guide to ruling England and establishing a Catholic dynasty. Gardiner's work is perhaps the clearest example of an attempt to relate Machiavelli's political theories to practical political problems.
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3The Desperation Argument for GeoengineeringPS: Political Science and Politics 46 (1): 28-33. 2013.Radical forms of geoengineering, such as stratospheric sulfate injection (SSI), raise serious concerns about justice and the plight of the most vulnerable. However, these are sometimes dismissed on the basis of a challenge: “What if, in the face of catastrophic impacts, the most vulnerable countries initiate geoengineering themselves, or beg the richer, more technically sophisticated countries to do it? Wouldn’t geoengineering then be ethically permissible? Who could refuse them?” As a US tech b…Read more
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3A Contract on Future Generations?In Axel Gosseries & Lukas H. Meyer (eds.), Intergenerational Justice, Oxford University Press. 2009.Contract theories – such as contractarianism and contractualism - seek to justify (and sometimes to explain) moral and political ideals and principles through the notion of “mutually agreeable reciprocity or cooperation between equals” (Darwall 2002). This chapter argues that such theories face fundamental difficulties in the intergenerational setting. Most prominently, the standard understanding of cooperation appears not to apply, and the intergenerational setting brings on a more severe col…Read more
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2Agent-Centered Eudaimonism and the Virtues: Some Groundwork for a Neoaristotelian Metaphysics of MoralsDissertation, Cornell University. 1998.The dissertation puts forwards the theoretical foundations for an alternative to the traditional egoist interpretation of eudaimonism, the ethical theory associated with ancient Greek philosophers such as Aristotle. The first section builds a case for looking for such an alternative by arguing that the connection between egoism and eudaimonism posited by the traditional view is more complex than usually thought, and so requires more defense than usually thought. The second section suggests a way…Read more
University District, Washington, United States of America
Areas of Specialization
3 more
Applied Ethics |
Normative Ethics |
Social and Political Philosophy |
Environmental Ethics |
Environmental Justice |
Future Generations |
Sustainability |
Virtue Ethics |