Nieuws en evenementen
Due to the summer recess, it is certainly worthwhile to take a look at what colleagues have written about the current situation in recent months:
- Dries Deweer wrote a blogpost for voor Caritas Europa
- Willem van der Deijl wrote about meaningful work and corona in April
- Stefaan Blancke wrote two opinion papers that appeared in the Flemish newspaper De Standaard:
www.standaard.be/cnt/dmf20200421_04930214
www.standaard.be/cnt/dmf2020032 - Michael Vlerick wrote an opinion piece with Prof.dr.Johan Braekcman on the corona crisis
- Ruud Welten wrote about Camus’ De Pest en Corona:
Podcast EUR Studium Generale 'Albert Camus' The Plague in Times of Corona'
'De Pest van Albert Camus en Corona', Podcast Centre Erasme - Ruud Welten wrote about tourism and Corona:
'Thuis vakantievieren, hoe doe je dat?' Interview Dagblad Trouw 3 april 2020
Interview toerisme na Corona in Courrier International (Frans)
Interview Toerisme Amsterdam, Corona
Interview Parool Op vakantie met het vliegtuig: ‘Reizen als dwangneurose’
18 juni 2020 'Nee, van reizen word je geen beter mens'
'Social Distancing' Website 'Corona Catena' Erasmus School of Philosophy - Lucie Chateau (Phd DFI) has published this piece on Diggit: Meme-ing Under Covid-19: On the Phatic Internet and Collectivity. (May 7th, 2020)
- Amanda Cawston did a joint tal for Sapi on Migration, Covid-19 and Care ethics
- Rens van Loon attached a short article/blog entitled Dialogue at the edge of crisis, written by Angel Buster, PhD, and I as reflection on COVID-19 for the International Leadership Association (ILA)
Evenementen
- OZSW conference, 11-12 december 2020
- Descartes lectures, 14-16 oktober 2020
- Workshop Philosophy of Love, 13-14 Februari, 2020
- PhD Defense Huub Brouwer Verdienste, Toeval en Rechtvaardigheid ,
January 7, 2020 - 16.00 Aula Cobbenhagen gebouw) - Workshop on Parental Justice ,January 7, 2020
January 2019-2020 Thesis Prize
The Philosophy Department is delighted to announce that the MA Thesis Prize winner for the January 2019 cohort is Milou Maassen for her thesis entitled "Facing Climate Change: A Levinasian understanding of the individual's moral responsibility to respond to climate change". The thesis was supervised by Dr. Bert van de Ven. The abstract can be found below.
The department congratulates Milou for this excellent work and wishes her all the best for the future!
Facing Climate Change: A Levinasian understanding of the individual's moral responsibility to respond to
climate change - By Milou Maassen
In this thesis, I will argue that Emmanuel Levinas’ notion of an infinite responsibility can improve our individual responses to climate change. As political institutions face challenges that inhibit successful ‘top-down’ responses, I believe we should consider the climate problem from an individual approach. Yet, individuals generally deny responsibility for global problems. Therefore, my aim is to show that we are individually responsible to change our behaviour in light of climate change. In order to do so, I will mainly evaluate Levinas’ ideas from ‘Totality and Infinity’ (1969), in which he describes that the individual bears an infinite moral responsibility for the well-being of the Other. Yet, as he did not develop an ethical theory from which specific norms can be derived, I will be careful in my interpretations of his ideas and their relevance for the climate problem. I will argue that his ideas support the claims that we are responsible to relieve all human suffering caused by climate change, as well as for minimizing our own contributions to it. Moreover, I will discuss two possible objections to this idea, namely whether this approach is anthropocentric, and whether it is overdemanding for the individual. I will conclude that Levinas’ strong focus on the individual is helpful if we want to properly address the question of moral responsibility for the climate problem. Though, working towards a more sustainable future also requires collective action, and it is a process that is never complete.