Ryan Darr has been a postdoctoral associate in religion, ecology, and expressive culture at the ISM and will be continuing for another year from 2023-24. Prior to his time at Yale, he was a postdoctoral research associate in philosophy and religion at the Princeton University Center for Human Values. He holds a Ph.D. in religious studies from Yale University. Darr is a religious ethicist. He is currently working on a book that draws from theology, philosophy, and literature to address ethical issues surrounding the emerging mass extinction event. The book situates the value of biodiversity conservation in relation to other ethical goods, including animal welfare, social justice, and decolonization. It also considers the role of grief, ritual, and the arts in recognizing and valuing the species we are losing. In addition, he is further developing work on longstanding interests in the relationship between individual responsibility, harm causation, and structural injustice. His first book, which is forthcoming from The University of Chicago Press, offers a new, robustly theological story of the origin of consequentialism, one of the most influential views in modern moral theory. It uses the new historical account to intervene in contemporary ethical debates about consequentialism and about how ethicists conceive of goods, ends, agency, and causality. More information on Ryan’s work. Listen to this podcast where Ryan discusses the global climate crisis.
