Is there a need for a new, a Nordic, environmental ethic?
NSU study circle 6: Nordic Environmental Ethics
18-19 March 2021 in University of Turku, Finland
All sessions take place online in Zoom
Zoom links will be sent to the participants two weeks before the start of the Symposium.
The winter symposium 2021 will explore the possibilities for a Nordic environmental ethic. Are there any particularly Nordic environmental values? What are they like? Can we build Nordic environmental ethics on the welfare state tradition, Nordic mythology, or the Arctic experience? Or are there particular theoretical or methodological approaches shared by Nordic environmental ethicists? This first symposium on Nordic Environmental Ethics will also include a special session dedicated to the environmental philosophy of Arne Næss, one of the first, most original, and most popular Nordic environmental philosophers.
Symposium Programme:
THURSDAY 18th
9:45 Online arrival, possibility to test slide sharing
10:00 Opening the Symposium
10:15-11:15 Keynote: Finn Arler
11:15-12:30 Session 1
• Lara Tickle: Is there a Nordic hunting ethic? Examining the evolution of a common hunting ethos in Sweden.
• Linnea Luuppala: Ethics of Ecological Restoration: A Nordic Perspective
• Helena Siipi & Polaris Koi: Ethically relevant factors of climate nudges in the Nordic context
12:30-13:30 Lunch break
13:30-14:45 Session 2
• Mikko M. Puumala: Climate Change, Nordic Welfare State, and the Moral Demandingness of Compliance
• Lauri Lahikainen & Tuuli Hirvilammi: How to Compromise in Defense of Our Earth: Environmental Virtues and Hard Ecological Limits in the Nordic Eco-Welfare State
• Anders Melin: Energy policy-making and ecofeminism: a critical analysis of normative assumptions in the contemporary Swedish political debate on energy production and consumption
Break 30 minutes – a virtual wall for gathering outdoor break photos
15:15-16:30 Session 3
• Lars Samuelsson: Another reason for environmentalists to embrace non-instrumental values in nature
• Corinna Casi: What to do with the non-economic value of nature?
• Teea Kortetmäki: Land use ethics: respectful cohabitation on Earth and Nordic lessons for it
17-18:00 Sustainability Activism Workshop by Eugene Chislenko from Philosophers for Sustainability
18:30-00:00 Zoom will remain open all evening for informal discussion
FRIDAY 19th
9:15 Online arrival, possibility to test slide sharing
9:30-10:45 Session 4
• Paul M. Pulé: Homer’s Veiled Winged Words: The False promises of Nordic Sensibilities
• Anne Sauka: Bodies and the Environment: Local Onto-genealogies as Co-producers of Knowledge
• Kinga Ciereszko: Is the Nordic idea of human-environment relation possible to imagine elsewhere in the world (precisely in the most crowded places in the world)?
Coffee break
11-12:15 Session 5
• Oskari Sivula: Mapping out our potential cosmic duty to spread life to the galaxy
• Aarnio, Jenna, Mireille Isaro, Laura Puumala, Mikko Puumala, Oskari Sivula, Tiia Topinoja, Juho Vaiste: Establishing Methods for Applied Plant Ethics
• Laura Puumala: Predation as Justified Defense: Animal Existence as a Supreme Emergency
12:15-13:00 Lunch
13:00-14:00 Keynote: Nina Witoszek
14:15-15:45 Session 6: Special Session Dedicated to Arne Næss
• Olli Pitkänen: Pauli Pylkkö´s Critique of Arne Næss: Deep ecology, rationality, and esotericism
• Sigurd Hverven: Identification and alienation in the Anthropocene: Arne Næss and Simon Hailwood
• Patrik Baard: Between principle and practice: What, if anything, can Næss’ apron diagram tell applied ethicists?
15:45-16 Closing the Symposium
All times in Finnish (EET UTC+2) time zone.
Participation fee:
For those funded by an institution: 20€
For students, unemployed, etc.: 10€
In addition, NSU membership fee of 25€/10€.