An important, but dangerous truism

Friday, October 23, at 5:30 pm, the Museum of Nature and Humankind promotes a new event aimed at engaging the public with contemporary issues and the challenges facing humanity today. The lecture, delivered by Dale Jamieson, Professor Emeritus of Environmental Studies and Philosophy at New York University, explores the relationship between humans and nature and the philosophical and ethical questions surrounding environmental protection.

The event, organized in collaboration with the Department of Philosophy, Sociology, Education and Applied Psychology, opens with institutional welcome remarks by Luca Pagani, Scientific Coordinator of the Museum of Nature and Humankind, followed by an introduction by Pierfrancesco Biasetti, Professor of the Department.

For much of the last century there has been a widespread perception that we are living through a growing environmental crisis. Using the tools of their trades, scientists, philosophers, theologians, historians, economists and others have all tried to identify the fundamental drivers of the crisis. According to many, it is the human separation from nature that is at the root of the crisis. Some go on to argue that our attempted solutions often recapitulate the problem, for example by relocating human (often indigenous) populations in order to create designated areas in which nature is protected.  But unless one is a supernaturalist, it is difficult to see why embracing this truism matters: it is an obvious truth that humans are subject to the same natural laws that govern everything else.

Perhaps the most natural consequence of this truism is to see it as suggesting that we should see smoking factories, exploding bombs, and polluted rivers as simple expressions of nature, in the same way that we see migrating herds of wild animals and verdant rainforest ecosystems. But this would seem to undermine the case for environmental protection, and is certainly not the moral that environmentalists want to draw from it.

In this lecture, Dale Jamieson examines why the seemingly obvious claim that humans are part of nature matters, and whether it can bear the philosophical and ethical weight often placed upon it.

The lecture will be held in English. The event takes place in the Museum’s Auditorium. Admission is free, but registration through the registration form is required.

Dale Jamieson is Professor Emeritus of Environmental Studies and Philosophy at New York University (NYU), where he founded the Department of Environmental Studies and the Center for Environmental and Animal Protection. An internationally recognized philosopher, he is a leading authority on environmental ethics and animal welfare, with research focusing on the global values and policy challenges of climate change. His foundational publications include Ethics and the Environment (2008) and Reason in a Dark Time (2014). In 2016, he was honored with the prestigious William R. Freudenburg Lifetime Achievement Award.

Registration form