Emergencies, Disasters and Catastrophes: Perspectives from Ethics and Political Philosophy

Dear Colleagues,

This Special Issue seeks to both deepen and complicate our understanding of disasters, broadly defined, and their moral and political significance. We assume, at the outset, that mass emergencies, disasters, and catastrophes are highly complex phenomena with multiple dimensions of analysis. Likewise, effective disaster management efforts and so-called disaster risk reduction require coordinated responses and both multi-agency and cross-sectoral approaches. Disaster studies thus attract and bring together a wide range of disciplines, including many from fields in the social sciences and humanities. Mass emergencies, disasters, and catastrophes are of course receiving increasing attention in many philosophical disciplines, such metaphysics, aesthetics, philosophy of history, philosophy of culture, and so on. In a sense, the meaning and implications of disasters and catastrophes have long been reflected upon in ethics and political philosophy. Even if we confine ourselves to the Western philosophical canon, we find decisive philosophical–political discussions from Plato, through Thomas Hobbes and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, to Carl Schmitt, Judith Shklar, some Rawlsian contractualists, and contemporary post-foundational thinkers. Think also of the catastrophic scenarios in thought experiments that have fueled outstanding ethical debates framed by major ethical theories. The contemporary landscape offers us impressive contributions of ethical and political–philosophical reflections on mass emergencies, disasters, and catastrophes in connection to a variety of research areas, including, but not exhausted by, those of collective human agency; science, technology, and society studies; the analyses and assessment of hazards and risks; the recent debates on Anthropocene, collapsology, and degrowth, etc. Of particular importance are the approaches to emergencies and disaster situations deriving from bioethics, public health ethics, and different applied ethics, such as environmental ethics, various professional ethics, and last, but not least, the emerging, hybrid discipline of disaster ethics.

We are pleased to invite you to contribute to this Special Issue of Philosophies focused on moral and philosophical–political views on mass emergencies, disasters, and catastrophes. The aim is to explore and show the fertility of this kind of research and to arrive at a better understanding of these phenomena through contributions from a variety of perspectives.

In this Special Issue, original research articles and reviews are welcome. Potential contributors are invited to submit papers on any aspect of the ethics and political philosophy of disasters, broadly construed, including, though not limited to, the research areas mentioned above and the following topics: varieties of catastrophism in democratic societies; concerns about the instrumental justificatory arguments for democracy based on disaster and catastrophe preparedness and response; the threats and challenges of short-termism, citizen myopia, and reactive decision making; issues surrounding existential risks; the moral and political arguments on disasters from effective altruism and long-termism; disasters through the lens of intergenerational justice; the feasibility of the disaster justice approach; the concepts of vulnerability in disasters as well as in disaster research and disaster risk reduction; discussions on social resilience and anti-fragility; the political and moral issues of risks in view of limited knowledge and ineradicable uncertainty; technological solutionism and the tragic structure of disasters; the ethical duties and conflicts that typically arise in the different and overlapping phases of the entire disaster cycle; the responsibilities and obligations of disaster preparedness; the duty to cooperate on a multi-level and cross-sectoral scale; morally guided triage systems in mass casualty incidents and disasters; issues of resource allocation and rationing in disaster preparedness and in disaster response; debates around the rule of rescue, the humanitarian imperative, and duties of care and assistance; questions of the ethics of disaster research; the attribution of causal and moral responsibilities for the outcomes of disasters; the allocation of prospective and retrospective shared responsibilities for disasters; issues surrounding moral dilemmas and value conflicts in disaster settings; and burnout and moral distress in emergency and disaster professionals, particularly in healthcare and humanitarian workers.

We request that, prior to submitting a manuscript, interested authors initially submit a proposed title and an abstract of 200–500 words summarizing their intended contribution. Please send it to the Guest Editor ([email protected]) or to the Philosophies editorial office ([email protected]). Abstracts will be reviewed by the Guest Editor for the purposes of ensuring a proper fit within the scope of this Special Issue. Full manuscripts will undergo a double-blind peer-review process.

I look forward to receiving your contributions.

Dr. Francisco Javier Gil Martín
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

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