Copies of my recent publications can be found below. Feel free to contact me for other drafts at [email protected]. I also appreciate comments!
"Eco-Relational Pluralism: Political Liberalism's Challenge to the Economic Growth Imperative." Ethics, Policy & Environment, forthcoming (published online 12/22/22).
"Mining Thacker Pass: Environmental Justice and the Demands of Green Energy." Environmental Justice, Vol 16, No. 2, 2023.
"Liberty and the Environment: Friend or Foe." EBSCO Pathways to Research in Sustainability, 2022.
"Common But Differentiated: A Theory of Responsibility for Environmental Harm." Ethics and the Environment, Vol. 27, No. 1, 2022.
"Justice and Ecocide: A Rawlsian Account." Environmental Ethics, Vol. 43, No. 3, 2021.
"Rorty's Public-Private Distinction as a Pragmatic Tool." Contemporary Pragmatism, Vol. 15, No. 4, Winter 2018.
"Review of John Töns, John Rawls and Environmental Justice: Implementing a Sustainable and Socially Just Future" Environmental Ethics, Vol. 45, No. 1, 2023.
"Review of Alexander Douglas, Spinoza and Dutch Cartesianism" The Philosophical Forum, Vol. 47, No. 1, 2016.
"Degrading Our Environment: Western Philosophy and Man's Separation from Nature" OlioNote, Spring 2017.
Title: Environmental Transformative Justice: Responding to Ecocide
Abstract: My dissertation’s central objective is to normatively devise ethically appropriate sociopolitical and juridical responses to ecocide (i.e., grave environmental harm). More specifically, the work seeks to philosophically engage the ethical question of what is owed to human societies that are displaced due to intentional environmental destruction.
Ultimately, my dissertation attempts to remedy these situations by bringing environmental issues under the purview of the discipline of Transitional Justice. The novelty of such an approach is its assertion that ‘social transformation’ rather than merely ‘correcting the harm done’ or ‘restoring the status quo’ is necessary for overcoming these kinds of wrongs because absent social change, the conditions that reinforce, entrench, and reproduce these sorts of injustices remain in place.
Since the focus is on transforming communities’ relationships and interactions with their environment, instead of simply repairing the damage from past injuries, my dissertation offers a full account of what I call environmental transformative justice. To achieve this my dissertation establishes the context in which environmental transformative justice is operative because of harm suffered (i.e., social death and loss of vital interests stemming from intentional environmental destruction) and the manner in which the harm occurred (i.e., direct, indirect, or negligent state action); employs a Rawlsian constructivist theory of justice to determine its ideal aims; offers guidance on how to pursue these aims by exploring the relationship between constructivist and comparative approaches to justice (e.g., Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum); identifies actors' responsibilities for pursuing these aims by developing a notion of common but differentiated responsibility based on Iris Young’s two-tiered model of responsibility, and supports the assertion that environmental transformative justice ought to be pursued from within a Transitional Justice framework, by demonstrating ways in which Transitional Justice mechanisms (e.g., criminal tribunals, truth commissions, public apologies, pardons, lustration, memorialization, reparations, and constitutional conventions) can assist in furthering environmental aims (i.e., promoting ecological sustainability, preservation, and restoration).