Robert Kirkman
Associate Professor
- School of Public Policy
Overview
Dr. Robert Kirkman is Associate Professor in the School of Public Policy at the Georgia Institute of Technology. His current research explores the phenomenology of ethical action, that is, how the meaning of ethics arises from basic features of human experience of living in the world. One path of this research considers parallels and underlying connections between ethical action and musical action, especially playing music and improvising with others. Dr. Kirkman also has ongoing work ini the design, implementaiton and assessment of innovative approaches to teaching practical ethics, including problem-based learning and the integration of ethics and design. His prior work in environmental ethics examined the values in play in decisions about the built environment, especially in cities and suburbs in the United States. He is the author of The Ethics of Metropolitan Growth: The Future of our Built Environment (Continuum, 2010) and Skeptical Environmentalism: The Limits of Philosophy and Science (Indiana University Press, 2002).
- Ph.D. Philosophy, State University of New York at Stony Brook
- B.A. Philosophy and History, Miami University
Expertise:
- Engineering Ethics
- Environmental Ethics
- Practical Ethics
- Scholarship Of Teaching And Learning
Interests
- Ethics and Philosophy of Science and Technology
Focuses:
- United States
- Environment
Courses
- PHIL-2010: Intro Philosophy
- PHIL-2025: Philosophical Analysis
- PHIL-3050: Political Philosophy
- PHIL-3102: Ancient Philosophy
- PHIL-3103: Modern Philosophy
- PHIL-3105: Ethical Theories
- PHIL-3109: Engineering Ethics
- PHIL-4176: Environmental Ethics
- PHIL-4803: Special Topics
- PST-1101: Philosophical Analysis
- PST-3109: Ethics&Tech Profession
- PST-4176: Environmental Ethics
- PUBJ-8000: Joint GT/GSU PhD Program
- PUBP-6010: Ethic,Epistem&Public Pol
- PUBP-6326: Environ Values&Pol Goals
- PUBP-8590: Dissertation Colloquium
- PUBP-8803: Special Topics
- PUBP-8823: Special Topics
Publications
Recent Publications
Journal Articles
- Ethical Principles for the Use of Human Cellular Biotechnologies
In: Nature Biotechnology [Peer Reviewed]
Date: 2017
View All Details about Ethical Principles for the Use of Human Cellular Biotechnologies
- Making Smart and Sustainable Infrastructure Projects Viable
In: Urban Planning [Peer Reviewed]
Date: 2017
View All Details about Making Smart and Sustainable Infrastructure Projects Viable
- Problem-Based Learning in Engineering Ethics Courses
In: Interdisciplinary Journal of Problem-Based Learning [Peer Reviewed]
Date: 2017
View All Details about Problem-Based Learning in Engineering Ethics Courses
- Teaching Ethics as Design
In: Advances in Engineering Education [Peer Reviewed]
Date: 2017
- The Risks of Hydraulic Fracturing and the Responsibilities of Engineers
In: Elementa: Science of the Anthropocene [Peer Reviewed]
Date: 2017
View All Details about The Risks of Hydraulic Fracturing and the Responsibilities of Engineers
All Publications
Books
- The ethics of metropolitan growth: the future of our built environment
Date: 2010
The Ethics of Metropolitan Growth is about the decisions people make that shape the built environment, from the everyday concerns of homeowners and commuters to grand gestures of national policy. Decisions about the built environment have taken on a particular urgency in recent months. The financial crisis that began in the home mortgage system, the instability of fuel prices, and long-term projections of oil depletion and climate change are now intertwined with more conventional concerns about metropolitan growth, such as traffic flow and air quality. Now, it would seem, is an excellent time for clear thinking about what the built environment can and should become in the future.View All Details about The ethics of metropolitan growth: the future of our built environment
- Skeptical Environmentalism: The Limits of Philosophy and Science
- Skeptical environmentalism: the limits of philosophy and science
Date: 2002
In Skeptical Environmentalism, Robert Kirkman raises doubts about the speculative tendencies elaborated in environmental ethics, deep ecology, social ecology, postmodern ecology, ecofeminism, and environmental pragmatism. Drawing on skeptical principles introduced by David Hume, Kirkman takes issue with key tenets of speculative environmentalism, namely that the natural world is fundamentally relational, that humans have a moral obligation to protect the order of nature, and that understanding the relationship between nature and humankind holds the key to solving the environmental crisis. Engaging the work of Kant, Hegel, Descartes, Rousseau, and Heidegger, among others, Kirkman reveals the relational worldview as an unreliable basis for knowledge and truth claims, and, more dangerously, as harmful to the intellectual sources from which it takes inspiration. Exploring such themes as the way knowledge about nature is formulated, what characterizes an ecological worldview, how environmental worldviews become established, and how we find our place in nature, Skeptical Environmentalism advocates a shift away from the philosopher’s privileged position as truth seeker toward a more practical thinking that balances conflicts between values and worldviews.View All Details about Skeptical environmentalism: the limits of philosophy and science
Journal Articles
- Ethical Principles for the Use of Human Cellular Biotechnologies
In: Nature Biotechnology [Peer Reviewed]
Date: 2017
View All Details about Ethical Principles for the Use of Human Cellular Biotechnologies
- Making Smart and Sustainable Infrastructure Projects Viable
In: Urban Planning [Peer Reviewed]
Date: 2017
View All Details about Making Smart and Sustainable Infrastructure Projects Viable
- Problem-Based Learning in Engineering Ethics Courses
In: Interdisciplinary Journal of Problem-Based Learning [Peer Reviewed]
Date: 2017
View All Details about Problem-Based Learning in Engineering Ethics Courses
- Teaching Ethics as Design
In: Advances in Engineering Education [Peer Reviewed]
Date: 2017
- The Risks of Hydraulic Fracturing and the Responsibilities of Engineers
In: Elementa: Science of the Anthropocene [Peer Reviewed]
Date: 2017
View All Details about The Risks of Hydraulic Fracturing and the Responsibilities of Engineers
- Navigating Bioethical Waters: Two Pilot Projects in Problem-Based Learning for Future Bioscience and Biotechnology Professionals
In: Science and Engineering Ethics 22, no. 6, pp. 1649-1667 [Peer Reviewed]
Date: 2016
- Navigating Bioethical Waters: Two Pilot Projects in Problem-Based Learning for Future Bioscience and Biotechnology Professionals
In: Science and Engineering Ethics [Peer Reviewed]
Date: November 2015
© 2015 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht We believe that the professional responsibility of bioscience and biotechnology professionals includes a social responsibility to contribute to the resolution of ethically fraught policy problems generated by their work. It follows that educators have a professional responsibility to prepare future professionals to discharge this responsibility. This essay discusses two pilot projects in ethics pedagogy focused on particularly challenging policy problems, which we call “fractious problems”. The projects aimed to advance future professionals’ acquisition of “fractious problem navigational” skills, a set of skills designed to enable broad and deep understanding of fractious problems and the design of good policy resolutions for them. A secondary objective was to enhance future professionals’ motivation to apply these skills to help their communities resolve these problems. The projects employed “problem based learning” courses to advance these learning objectives. A new assessment instrument, “Skills for Science/Engineering Ethics Test” (SkillSET), was designed and administered to measure the success of the courses in doing so. This essay first discusses the rationale for the pilot projects, and then describes the design of the pilot courses and presents the results of our assessment using SkillSET in the first pilot project and the revised SkillSET 2.0 in the second pilot project. The essay concludes with discussion of observations and results. - Navigating Bioethical Waters: Two Pilot Projects in Problem-Based Learning for Future Bioscience and Biotechnology Professionals
In: Science and Engineering Ethics [Peer Reviewed]
Date: November 2015
© 2015 Springer Science+Business Media DordrechtWe believe that the professional responsibility of bioscience and biotechnology professionals includes a social responsibility to contribute to the resolution of ethically fraught policy problems generated by their work. It follows that educators have a professional responsibility to prepare future professionals to discharge this responsibility. This essay discusses two pilot projects in ethics pedagogy focused on particularly challenging policy problems, which we call “fractious problems”. The projects aimed to advance future professionals’ acquisition of “fractious problem navigational” skills, a set of skills designed to enable broad and deep understanding of fractious problems and the design of good policy resolutions for them. A secondary objective was to enhance future professionals’ motivation to apply these skills to help their communities resolve these problems. The projects employed “problem based learning” courses to advance these learning objectives. A new assessment instrument, “Skills for Science/Engineering Ethics Test” (SkillSET), was designed and administered to measure the success of the courses in doing so. This essay first discusses the rationale for the pilot projects, and then describes the design of the pilot courses and presents the results of our assessment using SkillSET in the first pilot project and the revised SkillSET 2.0 in the second pilot project. The essay concludes with discussion of observations and results. - Review of Ingrid Leman Stefanovic and Stephen Bede Scharper, eds. The Natural City: Re-Envisioning the Built Environment,
In: Environmental Ethics
Date: 2013
- Review of Michael Maniates and John M. Meyer, eds. The Environmental Politics of Sacrifice
In: Environmental Ethics
Date: 2012
- Transitory Places
In: Environmental Philosophy
Date: 2012
As a contribution to an experiential approach to environmental ethics, I seek to incorporate into the experience of place a sense of the passing of time across multiple scales. This may spur the recognition that places we are pleased to experience as stable backdrops for our projects may be transitory, in the short or long term, with important consequences for ethical deliberation. The occasion for this essay is a visit to the Karori Sanctuary in Wellington, New Zealand, the site of an ambitious restoration project set against the backdrop of ongoing biogeographic upheaval. - Urban transformation and individual responsibility: The Atlanta BeltLine
In: Planning Theory [Peer Reviewed]
Date: 2012
We consider the case of the proposed Atlanta BeltLine to shed light on what may be crucial limits to ethical decision making and responsible action in shaping or reshaping the built environment, especially as those limits enter into the lived experience of individual residents of metropolitan areas. Drawing from theoretical sources in the humanities and social sciences, we consider the scope and limits of responsible individual conduct within complex urban systems, and derive insights that may be of value to planners and others who have visions for urban transformation. We will also draw from the ongoing analysis of our survey of Atlanta area residents, for purposes of illustration.View All Details about Urban transformation and individual responsibility: The Atlanta BeltLine
- The engineering and science Issues Test (ESIT): A discipline-specific approach to assessing moral judgment
In: Science and Engineering Ethics [Peer Reviewed]
Date: June 2010
To assess ethics pedagogy in science and engineering, we developed a new tool called the Engineering and Science Issues Test (ESIT). ESIT measures moral judgment in a manner similar to the Defining Issues Test, second edition, but is built around technical dilemmas in science and engineering. We used a quasi-experimental approach with pre- and post-tests, and we compared the results to those of a control group with no overt ethics instruction. Our findings are that several (but not all) stand-alone classes showed a significant improvement compared to the control group when the metric includes multiple stages of moral development. We also found that the written test had a higher response rate and sensitivity to pedagogy than the electronic version. We do not find significant differences on pre-test scores with respect to age, education level, gender or political leanings, but we do on whether subjects were native English speakers. We did not find significant differences on pre-test scores based on whether subjects had previous ethics instruction; this could suggest a lack of a long-term effect from the instruction. © 2009 Springer Science+Business Media B.V.
- Did Americans Choose Sprawl?
In: Ethics and the Environment [Peer Reviewed]
Date: 2010
- At Home in the Seamless Web: Agency, Obduracy, and the Ethics of Metropolitan Growth
In: Science, Technology & Human Values [Peer Reviewed]
Date: 2009
- Darwinian humanism and the End of Nature
In: Environmental Values [Peer Reviewed]
Date: 2009
View All Details about Darwinian humanism and the End of Nature
- Failures of Imagination: Stuck and Out of Luck in the American Metropolis
In: Ethics Place and Environment: A Journal of Philosophy & Geography [Peer Reviewed]
Date: 2008
Ethical choice and action in the built environment are complicated by the fact that moral agents often get stuck as they pursue their goals. A common way of getting stuck has its roots in human cognition: the failure of moral imagination, which shows most clearly when moral agents stand on either side of a sharp cultural divide, like the traditional divide between city and suburb. Being stuck is akin to bad moral luck: it is a situation beyond the control of the moral agent for which that agent might nevertheless be held responsible.View All Details about Failures of Imagination: Stuck and Out of Luck in the American Metropolis
- Review of Mathew Humphrey, Ecological Politics and Democratic Theory: The Challenge to the Deliberative Ideal
In: Environmental Ethics
Date: 2008
- Teaching for Moral Imagination
In: Teaching philosophy [Peer Reviewed]
Date: 2008
This paper reports the results of an assessment project conducted in a semester-length course in environmental ethics. The first goal of the project was to measure the degree to which the course succeeded in meeting its overarching goal of enriching students’ moral imagination and its more particular objectives relating to ethics in the built environment. The second goal of the project was to contribute toward a broader effort to develop assessment tools for ethics education. Through qualitative analysis of an exit survey and of a pair of writing assignments, the study yielded some promising results, outlined here, and suggested particular ways of improving both the course and the assessment procedure - Darwinian Humanism: A Proposal for Environmental Philosophy
In: Environmental Values [Peer Reviewed]
Date: 2007
There are two distinct strands within modern philosophical ethics that are relevant to environmental philosophy: an empiricist strand that seeks a naturalist account of human conduct and a humanist strand rooted in a conception of transcendent human freedom. Each strand has its appeal, but each also raises both strategic and theoretical problems for environmental philosophers. Based on a reading of Kant's critical solution to the antinomy of freedom and nature, I recommend that environmental philosophers consider the possibility of a Darwinian humanism, through which moral agents are understood as both free and causally intertwined with the natural world.View All Details about Darwinian Humanism: A Proposal for Environmental Philosophy
- Review of C.A. Bowers, Mindful Conservatism: Rethinking the Ideological and Educational Basis of an Ecologically Sustainable Future
- Engineering ethical curricula: Assessment and comparison of two approaches
In: Journal of Engineering Education [Peer Reviewed]
Date: April 2005
The paper assesses two approaches for delivery of engineering ethics: a full semester ethics course and an engineering course that includes an ethics module. The Defining Issues Test was used to compare the improvement of a student's moral reasoning ability in each class as compared to a control class. Our findings were that the module approach used did not provide any improvement in moral reasoning. In addition, although the ethics course showed improvement when compared to the module, it was not significantly different from the control class. We also found that there was little distinction between males and females and no distinction by age, although education level did have an impact. The results suggest that to improve a student's moral reasoning and sensitivity to ethical issues, engineering ethics must be integrative, delivered at multiple points in the curriculum, and incorporate specific discipline context.View All Details about Engineering ethical curricula: Assessment and comparison of two approaches
- Ethics and Scale in the Built Environment
In: Environmental Philosophy
Date: 2005
View All Details about Ethics and Scale in the Built Environment
- Review of Robyn Eckersley, "The Green State: Rethinking Democracy and Sovereignty"
In: Environmental Ethics
Date: 2005
- Reasons to dwell on (if not necessarily in) the suburbs
In: Environmental Ethics [Peer Reviewed]
Date: 2004
Environmental philosophers should look beyond stereotypes to consider American suburbs as an environment worthy of serious philosophical scrutiny for three reasons. First, for better or worse, the suburbs are the environment of primary concern to most Americans, and suburban patterns of development have caught on elsewhere in the industrialized world. Second, the suburbs are much more of a problem than many environmental theorists suppose, in part because suburban patterns of development are entrenched and difficult to change, and in part because they pose an important challenge to the very idea of an environmental ethic. Third, the search for sound policies and practices for metropolitan growth involves two crucial tasks for which philosophers may be particularly well suited: grappling with the ethical complexity of the suburbs, and fostering a robust and nuanced normative debate about the future of the built environment.View All Details about Reasons to dwell on (if not necessarily in) the suburbs
- Review of Robert C. Paehlke, Democracy’s Dilemma: Environment, Social Equity, and the Global Economy
In: Environmental Ethics
Date: 2004
- Technological Momentum and the Ethics of Metropolitan Growth
In: Ethics, Place and Environment [Peer Reviewed]
Date: 2004
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- The Ethics of Metropolitan Growth: A Framework
In: Philosophy and Geography [Peer Reviewed]
Date: 2004
View All Details about The Ethics of Metropolitan Growth: A Framework
- Review of Bjørn Lomborg, The Skeptical Environmentalist: Measuring the Real State of the World
In: Environmental Ethics
Date: 2003
- Review of John R. E. Bliese, The Greening of Conservative America
In: Environmental Ethics
Date: 2003
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- Through the Looking-Glass: Environmentalism and the Problem of Freedom
In: The Journal of Value Inquiry [Peer Reviewed]
Date: 2002
View All Details about Through the Looking-Glass: Environmentalism and the Problem of Freedom
- Review of David Schlosberg, Environmental Justice and the New Pluralism: The Challenge of Difference for Environmentalism
In: Environmental Ethics
Date: 2001
- Review of Erazim Kohák, The Green Halo: A Bird’s-Eye View of Ecological Ethics
In: Continental Philosophy Review
Date: 2001
- Review of Robert Elliott, Faking Nature: The Ethics of Environmental Restoration
In: The Journal of Value Inquiry
Date: 2000
- Review of Luc Ferry, "The New Ecological Order", translated by Carol Volk
In: Environmental Ethics
Date: 1998
View All Details about Review of Luc Ferry, "The New Ecological Order", translated by Carol Volk
- Why Ecology Cannot Be All Things to All People: The ‘Adaptive Radiation’ of Scientific Concepts.
In: Environmental Ethics [Peer Reviewed]
Date: 1997
- Review of John Torrance, ed., The Concept of Nature
In: The Quarterly Review of Biology
Date: 1994
View All Details about Review of John Torrance, ed., The Concept of Nature
- Failures of Imagination: Stuck and Out of Luck in the Suburbs
Chapters
- Environmental Politics
- Evolution
Date: 2009
- A Little Knowledge of Dangerous Things: Human Vulnerability in a Changing Climate
- Beyond Doubt: Environmental Philosophy and the Human Predicament
- Rousseau in the Suburbs: Geography, Environment, and the Philosophical Tradition
- The Problem of Knowledge in Environmental Thought: A Counter-Challenge
- Urban Environments
Conferences
- Test of Ethical Sensitivity in Science and Engineering (TESSE): A discipline-specific assessment tool for awareness of ethical issues
- A Case for Personal Virtue
- AC 2008-339: The Test of Ethical Sensitivity in Science and Engineering (TESSE): a discipline-specific assessment tool for awareness of ethical issues
In: Proceedings of the 2008 Annual ASEE Conference
Date: 2008
Working Papers
- Workshop Report:" Risks and Policies of Hydraulic Fracturing: Assessment and Deliberation", Georgia Tech, November 13-14, 2014
- On Being Stuck: Looking for the Limits of Ethics in the Built Environment
- On Being Stuck: Looking for the Limits of Ethics in the Built Environment
Date: 2008
We seek here to lay the groundwork for a multi-disciplinary inquiry into one aspect of the phenomenology of moral experience, which is a general project of elucidating what it is like for people to make ethical decisions in particular contexts. Taking urban and suburban environments as the context for decision making, we focus in particular on the common human experience of being stuck. Just as a person can get physically stuck while trying to crawl through a hole that is too small, people can get ethically stuck when some feature of their relationship with their context blocks or deflects their efforts to make good decisions and to do the right thing. We develop a preliminary typology of stuckness for ordinary residents of urban and suburban environments, and suggest ways in which various disciplinary perspectives might be brought to bear on each type. We close by looking ahead to two possible extensions of inquiry into stuckness: a consideration of how people and groups who have some power in shaping the built environment (e.g., developers, planners) may be stuck, and a consideration of when and under what circumstances people might get unstuck.
View All Details about On Being Stuck: Looking for the Limits of Ethics in the Built Environment
Thesis / Dissertations
- Environmentalism Without Illusions: Rethinking the Roles of Philosophy and Ecology
Other Publications
- Special issue in honor of Sue Hendler
- “...By Asking the Right People,” To build or not to build a road… how do we honor the landscape?
- Test of Ethical Sensitivity in Science and Engineering (TESSE)
- Engineering and Science Issues Test (ESIT)
- Ethics also should be part of growth debate
Date: February 2005
View All Details about Ethics also should be part of growth debate
- The Green State
- Democracy’s Dilemma
- Skeptical Environmentalism: The Limits of Philosophy and Science