Ethics for Disaster

Ethics for Disaster shows how individual and government preparation and response to hurricanes, earthquakes, tornadoes, wildfires, pandemics, and other disasters are ethical matters. Confronting the social inequalities revealed by these disasters, we must also acknowledge how the complete lack of preparation for climate change and pandemics has shifted these threats from old-fashioned isolated disasters into constant modern risks.

This second edition presents four new chapters about disaster-as-risk, focusing on climate change; more intense confrontation by the elements of earth, air, fire and water; the COVID-19 pandemic; and innocent victims and refugees. Now more than ever, we need good and just moral principles to guide us through the disruptive crises ahead. Where standard ethical frameworks and government action fail to address new issues and guide just choices, humanism and humanitarianism become vital for deciding what we owe innocent victims and climate refugees.

Combining moral philosophy, political theory, public policy, and environmental science, Ethics for Disaster presents new ways to think about changes in the world we all share.