Towards an Ethics of Water Governance

When:

8 May 2013

19:00 Hour - 00:00 Hour

Event organizer:Philosophy & Technology

Description

Water is recognised to pose some very urgent questions in the near future. A significant number of people are deprived of clean drinking water and sanitation services, with an accordingly high percentage of people dying from water borne diseases. At the same time, an increasing percentage of the global population lives in areas that are at risk of flooding, partly exacerbated by climate change. Although it is increasingly recognised that adequate governance of water requires that issues of "equity" or "social justice" are taken into account, political philosophers or applied ethicists have so far not or only barely been involved in the debate on water governance. In this paper, it is argued that political philosophers or applied ethicists should become more involved in the debate on water governance. Their role can be twofold: (1) clarifying the debate; and (2) help analysing some urgent distributive questions related to water governance. The paper is concluded with an outline for an ethics of water governance.

References (selection)
Doorn, N. 2013. "Water and justice: Towards and ethics of water governance" Public Reason 5/1
Mostert, E. and N. Doorn 2012. "The European Flood risk directive and ethics". Water Governance 2/6: 10-14.
Doorn, N. forthcoming. "Peter G. Brown and Jeremy J. Smith (eds.) Water Ethics: Foundational Readings for Students and Professionals." Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics: DOI: 10.1007/s10806-10011-19310-x.available online

Prior to the lecture, the General Membership Meeting of the Philosophy & Engineering Department will be held from 5pm. When registering, please indicate whether you wish to attend

Speaker(s)

Neelke Doorn is assistant professor of Ethics and Governance at the Department of Philosophy of Delft University of Technology and assistant director of the 3TU.Centre of Ethics and Technology. Between 2007-2011, she worked on the project Moral Responsibility in R&D networks. This research resulted in a PhD thesis, which she defended in May, 2011. Neelke has a master degree in Civil Engineering (Delft 1997, MSc) and Philosophy (Leiden 2005, MA), with additional training in Law (appr. 90% of LLB curriculum finished; expected to obtain degree in 2013/14). Her current research concentrates on moral and distributive issues in governance, more in particular the governance of flood risks and technological risks. She is involved in Ibo van de Poel's VICI project New Technologies as Social Experiments and the NanoNextNL project, in which she studies the governance and regulation of nanotechnology.
More information in the undermentioned link.