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Environmental Value: A Conversation with Dr. Robert Audi
Join professor of philosophy Robert Audi for a lunchtime conversation on the concept of “environmental value.”
Event Details
In 2023, Indiana Humanities continues our Unearthed programming theme, encouraging Hoosiers to discover and discuss their relationships with the natural world. As we kick off the new year, we invite you to a lunchtime conversation with Dr. Robert Audi, professor of philosophy at the University of Notre Dame.
Dr. Audi will explore the concept of “environmental value.” Acknowledging that we all depend on the environment—not just our immediate environment but also increasingly the natural world that humanity inhabits—Dr. Audi will help participants consider key questions: Is the value of the environment just a matter of how well it serves us? If it has value “in itself,” how is that to be understood? Is such value aesthetic? Is there a theological connection? And how might an understanding of the dimensions of environmental value motivate people to take action toward preserving the natural world? Dr. Audi will introduce several dimensions of value, sketch their relevance to our environment and indicate some pathways toward improving individual, national and international efforts toward preservation.
Indiana Humanities presents this program through the generosity of the Association for Practical and Professional Ethics. It is free and open to the public and includes a casual lunch.
About Dr. Robert Audi
Dr. Robert Audi is the John A. O’Brien Professor of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame. He writes, teaches and gives public lectures in four areas: ethics and political philosophy, epistemology, philosophy of mind and action, and philosophy of religion. His books since 2000 include:
- Religious Commitment and Secular Reason, a theory of the relation between church and state and, for individuals, between religion and politics
- The Architecture of Reason, a theory of rationality that provides a partial foundation for ethics
- The Good in the Right: A Theory of Intuition and Intrinsic Value, a presentation of Audi’s view in ethics
- Practical Reasoning and Ethical Decision, an account of the nature and varieties of practical reasoning and its relation to moral standards
- Moral Value and Human Diversity, a nontechnical presentation of major approaches in ethics and value theory
- Rationality and Religious Commitment, a comprehensive monograph in philosophy of religion
- Moral Perception, a theory of perceptual moral knowledge and its relation to emotion, intuition and objectivity in ethics
- Seeing, Knowing, and Doing, an account of perception of the physical apprehension of the abstract and how both underlie our actions
- Of Moral Conduct: A Theory of Obligation, Reasons, and Value (forthcoming in 2023 from Cambridge University Press)
Dr. Audi has served as editor for The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy. He’s a past president of the American Philosophical Association, a former director of National Endowment for the Humanities seminars and institutes, a recipient of prizes and honors for lifetime contributions to philosophy, and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He received his B.A. from Colgate University and both his M.A. and his Ph.D. from the University of Michigan. For more information about Dr. Audi, visit Notre Dame’s Department of Philosophy web page.