Join us for the next Baker Center Energy and Environment Forum,  on Thursday, 
January 31, at 3.30 pm in the Toyota Auditorium in the Baker Center.

Doug MacLean, from the Department of Philosophy at University of North 
Carolina, Chapel Hill will give a 45 minute presentation and then lead a 
discussion with participants. His talk is titled:  “Ethics and the Distribution of 
Risk”

Abstract: Techniques designed to aid decision makers in developing and 
evaluating policy recommendations aim primarily to aggregate and balance risks, 
costs, and benefits.  It is well known that these techniques are better suited 
to measuring and comparing quantities of good and bad outcomes than they 
are at evaluating the morally relevant distributive consequences of alternative 
decisions.  Some of these consequences raise familiar considerations of justice.  
In this talk, I will describe some distributive issues, and I will focus especially 
on issues that pose unique challenges to the familiar methods of measuring and 
aggregating individual preferences for different risk scenarios.
 
Doug MacLean is a Professor in the Department of Philosophy at the University 
of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.  Professor MacLean’s current research focuses on 
practical ethics and issues in moral and political theory that are particularly 
relevant to practical concerns. Most of his recent writing examines how values 
do and ought to influence decisions, both personal decisions and government 
policies. Professor MacLean holds a Ph.D. in Philosophy from Yale University. 
 
The Baker Center Energy and Environment Forum is an opportunity for 
academics to share their research findings to a broad set of academics, 
researchers, and students from outside their own discipline but who have a 
common interest in environmental and energy issues. For more information 
about the Baker Center Energy and Environment Forum visit the forum’s 
website: http://web.utk.edu/~jlarivi1/bcinter.html. 

Prof. MacLean's presentation is cosponsored by the University of Tennessee 
Department of Philosophy and TNSCORE.  
Please join us for what promises to be a very interesting discussion and 
presentation.

Paul Armsworth, College of Arts and Sciences
Jacob LaRiviere, College of Business Administration 
Becky Jacobs, College of Law
Chris Clark, College of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources