Kian Mintz-Woo receives Andrew Light Award for Public Philosophy 2021

© Kian Mitz-Woo

With this award, the International Society for Environmental Ethics (ISEE) endeavors to recognize public philosophers working in environmental ethics and philosophy who bring unique insights or methods that broaden the reach, interaction, and engagement of philosophy with the wider public. This may be shown in published work or engagement in environmental issues of public importance.

Kian Mintz-Woo, a guest research scholar in the Equity and Justice Research Group of the IIASA Population and Just Societies Program, who is also associated with University College Cork in Ireland, has demonstrated a sustained commitment to publicly engaged philosophy and made important contributions that provide a distinctive example of critical contemporary work in public environmental philosophy.

His academic writing focuses on climate ethics, particularly carbon pricing, discounting, and the social cost of carbon. The Andrew Light Award recognizes both the social salience of this work and Mintz-Woo’s sustained efforts in fostering broader public conversations about climate change.

Mintz-Woo says: "I am very excited to receive the Light Award, I think that climate change is perhaps the most pressing issue of our time, in the sense that our actions today have a disproportionate impact on the future, and I believe philosophers can provide a public service by explaining the social and ethical issues involved."

The award will be presented at an ISEE group session at the Eastern Division Meeting of the American Philosophical Association on 19 January 2022.

Adapted from a press release by the International Society for Environmental Ethics.