Environmental Justice

Abstract

I share a couple of ideas about the collaborative work that we could do, at the Emergent Ethics Network, working hand in hand with the Kennedy Institute. First, I would favour a problem-based approach, dealing with concrete issues and, then, building an iteratively universal (M. Walzer) understanding of how a sensible environmental ethics might look like when dealing with health and bioethics. Transdisciplinarity should also be key, allowing not only a conversation between scholars stemming from different backgrounds but also actors working on the field (physicians, activists…). Here are a couple of concrete examples: 1) the Real World Data versus Randomised Control Trials controversy which takes place today both in empirical development economics and clinical trials in medicine; 2) the incompleteness of the language we try to speak when proceeding with DNA manipulations and what this implies with regard to our precautionary principle; 3) the need for exercises of hybrid prospective where scenarios and numerical simulations should take into account both the environmental evolution of our planet, the social evolution of our human societies and the spreading diseases which interact with global warming and human activities; 4) the need to imagine and build new institutions capable of taking care of our global commons, health in the first place.