Environmental Ethics

Seen from space a planet suffering from drought, dry and cracking, with no life

International treaties, including Conferences of the Parties, have been signed and global warming countermeasures are being proposed all over the world. Resources on this page are drawn from the Uehiro-Carnegie-Oxford Conference, 'Global Warming-Environmental Ethics and Its Practice',  which took place in New York in October 2015, with an international group of participants seeking to address the following questions: Is it possible to establish an environmental ethics to combat global warming? 

  • Are there any major differences in environmental philosophies between Eastern and Western thought? 
  • What are the key values that are necessary to make people recognize the importance of sustainability? 
  • How can ethics solve obstacles to prevention of global warming?
  • How can we get bystanders and free riders to feel a sense of responsibility?
  • What should be our role in helping to preserve sustainable environment? Is environmental education helpful for sustainability?

Programme [PDF]

Stephen Gardiner (Professor of Philosophy and Ben Rabinowitz Endowed Professor of Human Dimensions of the Environment, University of Washington)
'Accepting Collective Responsibility for the Future'

Toshio Kuwako (Graduate School of Decision Science and Technology, Tokyo Institute of Technology)
'Theory and Practice of Environmental Ethics Facing the Benefits and Risks from Complex Interaction between Human Activities and Dynamics of the Globe'

Evan Berry (Associate Professor, Philosophy and Religion, American University)
'Is Climate Change One Problem? Culturally Particular Notions of Harm in a Warming Planet'
Audio | Transcript

Guy Kahane (Deputy Director, Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics)
'Climate Change and Human Moral Psychology'
Audio | Transcript

Peter Higgins (University of Edinburgh)
'Global Intimacy: How do we cultivate a care for ‘place’ when the place is the planet? '
Audio | Transcript

Narumi Yoshikawa (Assistant Professor, Institute for Waseda Environmental Science)
'TEIKEI Movement and Agricultural Ethics'
Transcript

Dale Jamieson (Professor of Environmental Studies, New York University)
'How to Live in the Anthropocene'
Audio | Transcript

Mitsuyo Toyoda (Associate Professor at Niigata University, Center for Toki and Ecological Restoration)
'Re-constructing Democratic Culture at the Age of Environmental Crisis'
Transcript

Ingmar Persson (Professor of Practical Philosophy, University of Gothenburg)
'Climate Change – The Hardest Moral Challenge'
Audio | Transcript

Gustaf Arrhenius (Professor of Practical Philosophy, Stockholm University)
'Population Ethics in the Time of Global Warming'
Audio

Takako Takano (Waseda University)
'Ethical Consequences of 'Educations' Linked to Sustainability'
Transcript

Julian Savulescu (Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics)
'The Psychology and Ethics of the Tragedy of the Commons'
Audio | Transcript

Paul Gallay (President, Riverkeeper)
'Defending New York's Hudson River'
Video and Transcript