Detrimental Reliance and the Ethics of Sustainability: A talk by Randall Curren April 1, 2010

Sustainability is arguably the defining challenge of our time, but ethicists have barely begun to conceptualize its ethical dimensions. What are the principles most important to capturing what is ethically at stake, and what do they imply for personal ethics, professional ethics, and social ethics? These are basic questions of sustainability ethics, and the answers to them are far from settled in theory, let alone in practice.

This talk will assess a number of principles invoked in the literature of sustainability, and will argue that some of the wrongs inflicted through sustainability-impairing practices can best be understood through a principle of detrimental reliance. Prof. Curren derives this principle from a generalized moral version of the legal principle of detrimental reliance or reliance-based estoppel.

Randall Curren is a professor of Philosophy at the University of Rochester and the editor of Theory and Research in Education, an international, interdisciplinary journal, specializing in educational ethics, politics, and policy. Some of his recent publications include "Cultivating the Intellectual and Moral Virtues" (1999), "Moral Education and Juvenile Crime" (2002), and "Developmental Liberalism" (2006). Professor Curren's visit is cosponsored by the department of Philosophy at the University of Minnesota, Morris.

Official Website: http://www.ias.umn.edu/thursdayscals10.php