Associate Professor, Department of Philosophy
Director, Ethics Institute
Northeastern University
371 Holmes Hall
Boston, MA 02115-5000
Tel: (617) 373-3619
Fax: (617) 373-4359
r.sandler@neu.edu
CV
Ronald Sandler is an associate professor of philosophy in the Department of Philosophy and Religion, a researcher in the Nanotechnology and Society Research Group, and a research associate in the Environmental Justice Research Collaborative at Northeastern University. His primary areas of research are environmental ethics, ethics and technology, ethical theory, and Spinoza.
Sandler has taught courses on subjects ranging from philosophy of religion to ethics after Darwin and from contemporary moral issues to history of philosophy. He has received Northeastern University’s Excellence in Teaching Award.
Recent Publications
The Ethics of Species: An Introduction
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We are causing species to go extinct at extraordinary rates, altering existing species in unprecedented ways and creating entirely new species. More than ever before, we require an ethic of species to guide our interactions with them. In this book, Ronald L. Sandler examines the value of species and the ethical significance of species boundaries and discusses what these mean for species preservation in the light of global climate change, species engineering and human enhancement. He argues that species possess several varieties of value, but they are not sacred. It is sometimes permissible to alter species, let them go extinct (even when we are a cause of the extinction) and invent new ones. Philosophically rigorous, accessible and illustrated with examples drawn from contemporary science, this book will be of interest to students of philosophy, bioethics, environmental ethics and conservation biology.
Nanotechnology: The Social And Ethical Issues
Published by the Woodrow Wilson Center’s Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies, this report emphasizes ways in which social and ethical issues intersect with governmental functions and responsibilities, such as science and technology policy, funding and regulation. The report includes a typology of the social and ethical issues associated with nanotechnology, and discusses several specific issues of each type.
Read more about the report here
Selected Publications
Sandler, R., The Ethics of Species (Cambridge University Press, in press).
Sandler, R., ed., Ethics and Emerging Technologies (Palgrave-Macmillan, in press).
Sandler, R., Character and Environment: A Virtue-Oriented Approach to Environmental Ethics (Columbia University Press, 2007).
Sandler, R. and Pezzullo, P., eds., Environmental Justice and Environmentalism: The Social Justice Challenge to the Environmental Movement (MIT Press, 2007).
Sandler, R. and Cafaro, P., eds., Environmental Virtue Ethics (Rowman and Littlefield, 2005).