PANEL 18 / WATER ETHICS AND THE GOVERNANCE OF A FINITE COMMON GOOD
CONVENOR: ALBERTO PIRNI
All enquiries about the panel should be sent to [email protected].
Water is a fundamental condition of life, public health, social cooperation, and ecological integrity. Yet decisions concerning water, how it is allocated, governed, priced, protected, or commodified, are often framed as technical or managerial issues rather than as choices that embed and enact moral values.
This panel examines water ethics in contemporary debates in political philosophy and applied ethics, arguing that water governance is never ethically neutral and that conflicts over water are, at their core, conflicts over justice, responsibility, and the common good.
Building on recent developments in environmental ethics, political philosophy, and the ethics of public policy, the panel explores water as a finite, relational, and contested common good. A central aim of the panel is to connect theoretical reflection with applied and institutional perspectives, showing how concepts such as water justice, sustainability, stewardship, and the common good can be translated into concrete governance practices. Special attention will be given to climate change as a multiplier of ethical challenges, intensifying scarcity, uncertainty, and conflict, and forcing societies to confront difficult questions about long-term responsibility and resilience.
All enquiries about the panel should be sent to [email protected].
Water is a fundamental condition of life, public health, social cooperation, and ecological integrity. Yet decisions concerning water, how it is allocated, governed, priced, protected, or commodified, are often framed as technical or managerial issues rather than as choices that embed and enact moral values.
This panel examines water ethics in contemporary debates in political philosophy and applied ethics, arguing that water governance is never ethically neutral and that conflicts over water are, at their core, conflicts over justice, responsibility, and the common good.
Building on recent developments in environmental ethics, political philosophy, and the ethics of public policy, the panel explores water as a finite, relational, and contested common good. A central aim of the panel is to connect theoretical reflection with applied and institutional perspectives, showing how concepts such as water justice, sustainability, stewardship, and the common good can be translated into concrete governance practices. Special attention will be given to climate change as a multiplier of ethical challenges, intensifying scarcity, uncertainty, and conflict, and forcing societies to confront difficult questions about long-term responsibility and resilience.
