Annual conference of the International Society for Environmental Ethics: Environmental Ethics between Action and Reflection

From July 23rd to 25th 2015 the Chair for Philosophy and Ethics of the Environment at Christian-Albrechts-University, Kiel, Germany, will host the annual conference of the International Society for Environmental Ethics. The title “Environmental Ethics between Action and Reflection” expresses the idea that environmental ethics can be understood as encompassing two different routes of inquiry and reasoning. One route is practical: environmental ethics aims to guide action. It starts from moral norms and principles, concepts and ideas (e.g., sustainability, deep ecology, environmental justice) and develops them into guidelines, rules, and objectives for practical engagement and policy-making. The other route is reflective: environmental ethics acts as the bridge between lived practical problems and the conceptual reflections that illuminate them critically according to their presuppositions. By doing so, this philosophical route immerses one in metaethical, epistemological and ontological questions. Along this reflective route, environmental ethicists take the traditional role of philosophers. Both routes are interdisciplinary: On the one hand, in aiming at action-guiding arguments, environmental ethics necessarily builds on reasoned opinions about what and how the world actually is. On the other hand, analyzing the presuppositions of different kinds of arguments being used in environmental discourses heads the inquiry into neighboring philosophical disciplines but also other sciences and humanities, such as political science, anthropology, and economics.

For enquiries you may write to Lieske Voget-Kleschin at: voget-kleschin@philsem.uni-kiel.de

Please look for further information at International Society for Environmental Ethics.