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Rights, Rules, and Respect for NatureIn Stephen M. Gardiner & Allen Thompson (eds.), Oxford Handbook of Environmental Ethics, Oxford University Press. 2017.For years, many people have believedthat the only reasonable way to approach a problem of environmental concern is to evaluate the eventuating state of affairs. Since environmental matters are primarily about states of affairs, these ‘consequentialist’ approaches appear to make sense. More recently, however, others have looked to different branches of philosophy for guidance. These non- or anti-consequentialist theorists typically fall into two camps: act-oriented camps and character-oriented ca…Read more
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21Engineering 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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17Designer Biology: The Ethics of Intensively Engineering Biological and Ecological Systems (edited book)Lexington Books. 2013.Designer Biology: The Ethics of Intensively Engineering Biological and Ecological Systems 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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94Moral Considerability: Deontological, not MetaphysicalEthics and the Environment 16 (2): 37-62. 2011.Ever since Kenneth Goodpaster published his article "On Being Morally Considerable," environmental ethicists have been engaged in a debate over whether animals, plants, and other natural objects matter morally (Goodpaster 1978). Many, if not most, theorists have treated the problem of moral considerability as a problem of status, arguing that earlier ethical positions have unjustifiably given privileged status to one group of beings over others. They have then proceeded in one of two ways. Eithe…Read more
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28Conservation Floors and Degradation CeilingsEnvironmental Ethics 42 (2): 135-148. 2020.U.S. conservation policy, both in structure and in practice, places a heavy burden on conservationists to halt development projects, rather than on advocates of development to defend their proposed actions. In this paper, we identify this structural phenomenon in several landmark environmental policies and in practice in the contemporary debate concerning oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The burdens placed on conservation can be understood in terms of constraints—as conservat…Read more
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18Wildness without NaturalnessEthics, Policy and Environment 24 (1): 16-26. 2021.ABSTRACT Some fear the Anthropocene heralds the end of nature, while others argue that nature will persist throughout the Anthropocene. Still others worry that acknowledging the Anthropocene grants humanity broad license to further inject itself into nature. We propose that this debate rests on a conflation between naturalness and wildness. Where naturalness is best understood as fundamentally a metaphysical category, wildness can be better understood as an inter-relational category. The raccoons…Read more
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23Clowning Around with Conservation: Adaptation, Reparation and the New Substitution ProblemEnvironmental Values 23 (2): 181-198. 2014.In this paper we introduce the 'New Substitution Problem' which, on its face, presents a problem for adaptation proposals that are justified by appeal to obligations of reparation. In contrast to the standard view, which is that obligations of reparation require that one restore lost value, we propose instead that obligations to aid and assist species and ecosystems in adaptation, in particular, follow from a failure to adequately justify - either by absence, neglect, omission or malice - action…Read more
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87Respecting Autonomy in Population Policy: An Argument for International Family Planning ProgramsPublic Health Ethics 3 (2): 157-166. 2010.This paper addresses whether universal, general education programs are enough to satisfy basic criteria of human rights, or whether comprehensive family planning programs, in conjunction with universal education programs, might also be morally required. Even before the Reagan administration instituted the ‘global gag rule’ at the 1984 conference in Mexico City, prohibiting funding to nongovernmental organizations that included providing information about abortion as a possible method of family p…Read more
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Technology, the environment, and the moral considerability of artefactsIn Jan Kyrre Berg Olsen Friis, Evan Selinger & Søren Riis (eds.), New waves in philosophy of technology, Palgrave-macmillan. 2009.
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Remediation vs. steering : an act-description approach to approving and funding geoengineering researchIn Ronald L. Sandler & John Basl (eds.), Designer Biology: The Ethics of Intensively Engineering Biological and Ecological Systems, Lexington Books. 2013.
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10The wild and the wicked: on nature and human natureMIT Press. 2016.A brief foray into a moral thicket, exploring why we should protect nature despite tsunamis, malaria, bird flu, cancer, killer asteroids, and tofu. Most of us think that in order to be environmentalists, we have to love nature. Essentially, we should be tree huggers—embracing majestic redwoods, mighty oaks, graceful birches, etc. We ought to eat granola, drive hybrids, cook tofu, and write our appointments in Sierra Club calendars. Nature's splendor, in other words, justifies our protection of i…Read more
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Remediation technologies and respect for othersIn David M. Kaplan (ed.), Philosophy, technology, and the environment, The Mit Press. 2017.
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Can We Remediate Wrongs?In Avram Hiller, Ramona Ilea & Leonard Kahn (eds.), Consequentialism and environmental ethics, Routledge. pp. 147-163. 2013.
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47Indeterminacy and impotenceSynthese 200 (3): 1-24. 2022.Recent work in applied ethics has advanced a raft of arguments regarding individual responsibilities to address collective challenges like climate change or the welfare and environmental impacts of meat production. Frequently, such arguments suggest that individual actors have a responsibility to be more conscientious with their consumption decisions, that they can and should harness the power of the market to bring about a desired outcome. A common response to these arguments, and a challenge i…Read more
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16Experience and the Environment: Phenomenology Returns to Earth (review)Human Studies 28 (1): 101-106. 2005.
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17From Treasure to Trash: The Lingering Value of Technological ArtifactsScience and Engineering Ethics 26 (2): 619-640. 2020.Electronic waste is the fastest growing form of waste worldwide, associated with a range of environmental, health, and justice problems. Unfortunately, disposal and recycling are hindered by a tendency of consumers to resist recycling their e-waste. This backlog of un-discarded e-waste poses significant challenges for the future. This paper addresses the reasons why many people might continue to value their technological artifacts and therefore to hoard them, suggesting that many of these common…Read more
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28Year One of Donald Trump’s Presidency on Climate and the EnvironmentEthics, Policy and Environment 21 (1): 1-3. 2018.When Donald Trump was elected the 45th president of the United States in November 2016, many observers in the U.S. and international environmental communities began voicing concerns about the range...
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99The Methods of Applied Philosophy and the Tools of the Policy SciencesInternational Journal of Applied Philosophy 25 (2): 215-232. 2011.In this paper I argue that applied philosophers hoping to develop a stronger role in public policy formation can begin by aligning their methods with the tools employed in the policy sciences. I proceed first by characterizing the standard view of policymaking and policy education as instrumentally oriented toward the employment of specific policy tools. I then investigate pressures internal to philosophy that nudge work in applied philosophy toward the periphery of policy debates. I capture the…Read more
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23Gavagai goulash: Growing organs for food: Hale Gavagai goulashThink 5 (15): 61-70. 2007.The suggestion that we might grow human tissue for the dinner table is likely to provoke a ‘yuk’ response in many of us. But would it be morally wrong? Might it not, in fact, be far preferable to the current situation?
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53Choosing to SleepIn Angus Dawson (ed.), The Philosophy of Public Health, Ashgate. 2009.In this paper we claim that individual subjects do not have so much control over sleep that it is aptly characterized as a personal choice; and that normative implications related to public health and sleep hygiene do not necessarily follow from current findings. It should be true of any empirical study that normative implications do not necessarily follow, but we think that many public health sleep recommendations falsely infer these implications from a flawed explanatory account of the decisio…Read more
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33What we want animals to want (review)American Journal of Bioethics 4 (4): 83-85. 2004.No abstract
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67Risk, Judgment and Fairness in Research IncentivesAmerican Journal of Bioethics 7 (2): 82-83. 2007.No abstract
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6John Dewey and Environmental Philosophy (review)Journal of Applied Philosophy 24 (3): 331-333. 2007.
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53Ethics, Policy & Environment : A New Name and a Renewed MissionEthics, Policy and Environment 14 (1): 1-2. 2011.Readers of Ethics, Place & Environment will notice at least one major change in this inaugural 2011 issue. Namely, we are no longer operating under the same name. At the Eastern Division American P...
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167The moral considerability of invasive transgenic animalsJournal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics 19 (4): 337-366. 2006.The term moral considerability refers to the question of whether a being or set of beings is worthy of moral consideration. Moral considerability is most readily afforded to those beings that demonstrate the clearest relationship to rational humans, though many have also argued for and against the moral considerability of species, ecosystems, and “lesser” animals. Among these arguments there are at least two positions: “environmentalist” positions that tend to emphasize the systemic relations be…Read more
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78Private property and environmental ethics:. Some new directionsMetaphilosophy 39 (3). 2008.This article argues that teachers of environmental ethics must more aggressively entertain questions of private property in their work and in their teaching. To make this case, it first introduces the three primary positions on property: occupation arguments, labor theory of value arguments, and efficiency arguments. It then contextualizes these arguments in light of the contemporary U.S. wise-use movement, in an attempt to make sense of the concerns that motivate wise-use activists, and also to…Read more
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19Geoengineering, Ocean Fertilization, and the Problem of Permissible PollutionScience, Technology, and Human Values 36 (2): 190--212. 2011.Many geoengineering projects have been proposed to address climate change, including both solar radiation management and carbon removal techniques. Some of these methods would introduce additional compounds into the atmosphere or the ocean. This poses a difficult conundrum: Is it permissible to remediate one pollutant by introducing a second pollutant into a system that has already been damaged, threatened, or altered? We frame this conundrum as the ‘‘Problem of Permissible Pollution.’’ In this …Read more
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University of Colorado, BoulderAssistant Professor
Boulder, Colorado, United States of America
PhilPapers Editorships
Environmental Philosophy |