CFP: The Journal of Ethics special issue - Climate Ethics: Prospects and Retrospectives

CLIMATE ETHICS: PROSPECTS AND RETROSPECTIVES

A Workshop and Special Issue

The Journal of Ethics will publish a special issue on Climate Ethics: Prospects and Retrospectives and seeks proposals from a wide variety of perspectives.

Special Issue editors and workshop organizers: Prof. Kyle Fruh (Duke Kunshan University) and Dr. Marcus Hedahl (Annapolis, Maryland).

Climate ethics is a relatively young field, but nonetheless a lot has changed – both in the area and in the world – since climate change first started showing up in philosophy discussions. Some early and highly influential entries are now 30 years old. Meanwhile, 2024 was the first calendar year to exceed the much-discussed 1.5⁰ C increase in global average temperature over pre-industrial baselines. This special issue invites scholars to revisit early, influential work in climate ethics, or assess the evolution of a theme of interest in climate ethics in light of what’s happened in the intervening period – in terms of advancing climate change, in terms of evolving climate policies, and in terms of critical response and uptake of earlier work. This special issue aims to provide a way station in the development of climate ethics, looking back for insights in order to more productively look toward its future.

Confirmed contributors include:

• Stephen Gardiner
• Chris J. Cuomo
• Dale Jamieson
• Nancy Tuana
• Henry Shue

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS

Proposals for consideration should address the special issue theme and consist of an abstract 750-1,000 words in length (citations not counted).

All submissions should be prepared for blind review. Please remove all identifying information from the submission.

Please submit your abstracts to [email protected] no later than 11:59 PM August 31st, 2025 (EDT).

Accepted proposals will need to adhere to the following timeline for the full development of the paper:

• All contributors will participate in a special issue workshop April 30 - May 2, 2026 with a draft paper. The workshop will be held in-person at Duke Kunshan University (Kunshan, China, near Shanghai). In-person attendance is an expected condition of contributing to the special issue, provided that, as we expect to be able to do, we are able to significantly offset or perhaps even cover all costs of travel.
• Submission of final draft in fall 2026 (8,000 - 11,000 words).
• All papers will then undergo the journal’s peer review process that must be concluded by the middle of 2027, when the special issue will be published (see below).

Possible topics might include but are in no way limited to:

·      The intersection of climate ethics and climate governance through Kyoto, Paris, and the present and future.

·      The dichotomy between emphasis on individual behaviors related to reducing greenhouse gas production and political activism as the fulfillment of individual moral obligations related to climate change.

·      Other themes of interest over the years of climate ethics and into the future, such as:

     o   responsibility to future generations

     o   common but differentiated responsibilities

     o   the evolving relationship between ethical considerations and IPCC reports, or climate science more generally

     o   the trajectory of ethical positions and questions regarding geoengineering

     o   ethical questions and positions concerning climate activism

     o   emerging new voices in climate ethics

·      Specific, early, highly influential publications that are in some clear and distinctively interesting way worth revisiting at this pivotal time.

CONTACT
For more information please contact the editors at

[email protected]

Kyle Fruh holds a B.A. from Amherst College and a Ph.D. in Philosophy from Georgetown University. He has published in areas such as climate ethics, promissory obligation, philosophy of sport, and moral exemplarity. His Moral Heroism without Virtue is due out with Cambridge University Press in October, 2025. 

Marcus Hedahl holds a B.S. in Physics from the University of Notre Dame, and a Ph.D. in Philosophy from Georgetown University. He previously served as a Dahrendorf Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, London School of Economics and Political Science and as an Environmental Justice Fellow at the Kennedy Institute of Ethics. He now serves as a Professor of Philosophy.

Authors of accepted proposals will need to submit their final manuscript in the fall of 2026 through The Journal of Ethics EM manager. All submissions will go through the standard The Journal of Ethics review procedure (publication only on the basis of an editorial decision based on at least two double blind reviews). At that time, all manuscripts should be prepared according to the journal’s guidelines provided on The Journal of Ethics website. The Special Issue will follow all Springer Journal Policies, including Peer Review Policy, Process and Guidance and peer review selection policy. This journal offers the option to publish Open Access. You are allowed to publish open access through Open Choice. Please explore the OA options available through your institution by referring to our list of OA Transformative Agreements.