Benjamin Hale

Teaching in Spring 2021: PHIL 3140 004

overview

Benjamin Hale is associate professor in the Philosophy Department and the Environmental Studies Program. He is author of the book The Wild and the Wicked: On Nature and Human Nature (MIT Press: 2016), co-editor of the journal Ethics, Policy & Environment, and former officer (VP, 2013-16; President, 2016-2019) of the International Society for Environmental Ethics. From 2019-2020 he was the Interim Director of the Bruce D. Benson Center for the Study of Western Civilization and from 2006-2008 he was Director of the Philosophy Department's Center for Values and Social Policy. He continues active engagement with the Center for Values and Social Policy, and is particularly instrumental in co-coordinating the annual Rocky Mountain Ethics Congress with Alastair Norcross. His primary area of research interest is environmental and public health ethics, where he focuses mostly on big picture practical questions that overlap with public policy and economics, though he maintains active interest in a wide range of concerns in applied ethics, normative ethics, and even metaethics. Much of his substantive recent work centers on ethical and environmental concerns related to natural disasters, ecological intervention, and emerging technologies.

For more information, see Professor Hale's personal website and CV.

Prospective graduate students with a sincere interest in environmental ethics should contact Professor Hale directly at bhale@colorado.edu to discuss options. Where appropriate, they may consider applying to the Environmental Studies program and working with his lab group, the Committee on Environmental Thought (ComET). There are no restrictions on applying to both programs simultaneously.

selected papers

• “What is the Future of Conservation?” (with Daniel F. Doak, Victoria Bakker, and Bruce Evan Goldstein). Trends in Ecology and Evolution. Jan, 2014.
• "The Veil of Opulence," The New York Times, August 12, 2012.
• "The World that Would Have Been: Moral Hazard Arguments Against Geoengineering," Reflecting Sunlight: The Ethics of Solar Radiation Management Ed. Christopher Preston. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield. 2012.
• “Getting the Bad Out: Remediation Technologies and Respect for Others”The Environment: Philosophy, Science, and Ethics. Eds. William P. Kabasenche, Michael O'Rourke, and Matthew H. Slater. Boston: MIT Press. 2012.*
• “Nonrenewable Resources and the Inevitability of Outcomes.”The Monist. 94(1). July 2011.*
• “Carbon Sequestration, Ocean Fertilization, and the Problem of Permissible Pollution” (with Lisa Dilling), Science, Technology, and Human Values. 2011.*
• “Is Justice Good for Your Sleep? (And therefore, Good for Your Health?)” (with Lauren Hale), Social Theory and Health. 7(4). 354-370. 2009.*
• “Remediation and Respect: Do Remediation Technologies Alter Our Responsibility?” (with Bill Grundy), Environmental Values. 18(4). 2009.*
• “Choosing to Sleep,” Benjamin Hale and Lauren Hale in The Philosophy of Public Health, ed. Angus Dawson. (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2009).*
• "What's so Moral About the Moral Hazard?"Public Affairs Quarterly, 23(1). 1-23. Jan 2009.*
• "Open to Debate: Moral Consideration and the Lab Monkey,"American Journal of Bioethics, 8(6). 53-54. June 2008.
• “Private Property and Environmental Ethics: Some New Directions,”Metaphilosophy, October 2008.*
• “Technology, the Environment, and the Moral Considerability of Artifacts,” in New Waves in Philosophy of Technology, ed. Evan Selinger, Jan Kyrre Berg Olsen, and Søren Riis. (Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing, 2007).
• “Culpability and Blame after Pregnancy Loss,”Journal of Medical Ethics, Jan 2007: 33-24.*
• “Risk, Judgment, and Fairness in Research Incentives,”American Journal of Bioethics, 7(2), 2007.
• “Gavagai Goulash: Growing Organs for Food,”THINK! Philosophy for Everyone. Periodical of the Royal Institute of Philosophy. 16 (2007): 61-70.*
• "The Moral Considerability of Invasive, Transgenic Animals," Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics. Volume 19, No. 2, 2006.*
• "Identity Crisis: Face Recognition Technology and Freedom of the Will,”Ethics, Place, and the Environment, Volume 8, No. 2, 141-158, 2005.*