International Society for Environmental Ethics (ISEE)
2027 Summer Conference:
"After the Anthropocene?
Dialogues on Ecological Ethics and Planetary Futures"
23 - 25 June 2027 in Bonn, Germany
The International Society for Environmental Ethics (ISEE) is one of the leading scholarly forums for discussing questions of the ethics of nature, environmental ethics and normatively grounded perspectives on contemporary ecological challenges.
About the Conference
“After the Anthropocene? Dialogues on Ecological Ethics and Planetary Futures” carries multiple meanings and invites a multifaceted engagement with the phenomenon of the Anthropocene. Ecological Ethics and Planetary Futures refer to interwoven fields of research and debate that bring ethical reflection on human–nature relations into dialogue with interdisciplinary inquiry: In a shared planetary perspective they strive to elaborate possible and desirable futures for all living beings. The Anthropocene diagnosis itself draws attention to the scale of human influence on Earth’s living systems. Its ethical significance extends beyond debates over formal geological classification. At the same time, references to humanity as a planetary agent risk obscuring unequal contributions to ecological degradation, unequal exposure to harm, and differences in the power to shape change.
The phrase After the Anthropocene? therefore remains deliberately open. It can refer to possible planetary futures, to a critical reassessment of the Anthropocene concept, or to ways of relating to nature that already challenge dominant practices. It neither presupposes a new geological epoch nor assumes that human impacts can simply be undone. The conference asks how ecological ethics can assess these possibilities and guide action amid ecological disruption and uncertainty.
We welcome critical engagement with ideas such as the Symbiocene, pluriversality, convivial conservation, rights of nature, Planetary Health, nature positive economy, and technological responses to ecological crises such as geoengineering, biomimicry, synthetic biology, and AI. Bringing ecological ethics and the environmental humanities into dialogue with the philosophies of nature, biology, and technology, the conference considers possible and desirable planetary futures for all living beings.
Conference venue is the venerable Museum Koenig in Bonn, a wonderful place full of natural treasures, knowledge of nature, love for nature, and environmental education.
The ISEE Business Meeting and a guided tour of Europe’s largest specialist bioethics library will take place on the premises of the Institute for Science and Ethics (IWE) and the German Reference Centre for Ethics in the Life Sciences (DRZE), located in the heart of Germany's largest contiguous Gründerzeit neighborhood.
Optional program activities include a guided tour exploring the museum’s natural history collections exclusively for conference attendees and an expert-led excursion to the wilderness area of the Siebengebirge, situated within the beautiful scenery of the Rhine Valley.
For sustainability reasons, the conference meals will be vegan and vegetarian.
Call for Abstracts
While keynotes and panel discussants are invited, oral presentations and posters will be selected through peer review.
We encourage interested parties to engage in dialogues on what it might mean to think and act “After the Anthropocene?” and to critically reflect on the concepts, values and practices through which humans understand and shape their relations with the living world. The following questions are indicative rather than exhaustive:
How do different understandings of nature, technology and human agency shape ethical responses? What would count as moving beyond the Anthropocene, and how should alternative concepts be assessed? How are responsibilities differentiated across the Minority and Majority Worlds? What can recognition, care, justice or rights contribute to relations with the more-than-human world? How should we evaluate nature conservation, wilderness protection, biodiversity restoration and land use? What are the promises and limits of nature-positive economies and technological interventions, including geoengineering, synthetic biology, biomimicry, and AI? Where are intervention, restraint or non-use ethically warranted? How should relations between human health, nonhuman life and ecological conditions be understood and evaluated?
We invite abstracts addressing questions and issues outlined above from perspectives that include but are not limited to the following:
- Ecological ethics, ethics of nature and environmental ethics
- Philosophy of nature and environmental philosophy
- Philosophy of technology
- Philosophy of biology
- Climate ethics
- Anthropocene research
- Environmental Humanities
- Human-nature relationships
- Traditional ecological knowledge
- Indigenous local knowledge
- Sustainability research
- Wilderness and Biodiversity
- Sustainable Land Transition
- Rights of Nature
- Planetary Health
- Nature conservation
- Politics of Nature
- Interdisciplinary thinking and planetary futures
- Nature positive economy
- ...
Submission guidelines
Please submit an abstract in English language of 250–300 words to isee27@uni-bonn.de by 10 January 2027. Indicate whether you are applying for an oral presentation or a poster presentation in the email subject line.
Your abstract should state the central question, the approach or argument, and its relevance to the conference theme. Please include the presentation title, author name(s), affiliation(s), if applicable, and a contact email address.
Please note that speakers need to be ISEE members at the time of their presentation.
Applicants will be notified of the outcome by the end of February 2027.
Notification of decisions: end-February 2027
Hosts and Organizing Team
Hosts
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Dr. Christina Pinsdorf, Institute for Science and Ethics (IWE)
Christina is leader of the research pillar "Nature, Environment and Sustainability" at the IWE and member of the Scientific Advisory Board of NABU, one of Germany’s largest and oldest nature conservation organizations. The Institute for Science and Ethics (IWE), founded in 1993, is a central research unit of the University of Bonn. It conducts interdisciplinary research across four areas: the ethics of AI and robotics; nature, environment and sustainability; neuroethics; and AI, politics and power. The IWE also advances ethics education and fosters collaboration and dialogue within academia and beyond.
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Dr. Aurélie Halsband, German Reference Centre for Ethics in the Life Sciences (DRZE)
Aurélie is head of the scientific department of the DRZE. The German Reference Centre for Ethics in the Life Sciences (DRZE) is a national documentation and information centre for the entire field of ethics in the biomedical sciences in Germany. The DRZE is a research institution of the University of Bonn that, through interdisciplinary collaboration between philosophy and, in particular, law, medicine, biology, and other natural and social sciences addresses bioethical and research ethics issues and promotes public discourse. As documentation centre it features the world’s largest literature database on bioethics (BELIT).
Organizing Team
- Markus Franke, Institute for Science and Ethics (IWE), IT and Project Manager
- Dennis Gerstenberger, German Reference Centre for Ethics in the Life Sciences (DRZE), Librarian and Project Manager
Practical information
Conference Language
The entire conference will be held in English.
Conference Venue
Museum Koenig Bonn
Adenauerallee 160, 53113 Bonn, Germany
Video Recording
Parts of the conference may be recorded and participation in the conference implies consent to this.
Promotion
Please use this website link:
https://www.iwe.uni-bonn.de/isee27
Conference Fee
A conference fee will apply. More information soon.
Accommodation
If you're looking for an affordable accommodation located right near the conference venue, we recommend the Hotel My Südstadt. The daily conference lunch will also take place in the cafeteria L&D of the same building complex. Exclusively for our conference participants, we have reserved a special block of rooms for 78€ (+ 7% city tax) per night, excluding breakfast (breakfast may be booked as an optional add-on for 13€ per day). This block of rooms can be booked only until 6 weeks before the conference start—after that, the special rates will no longer be available. It should be noted that the hotel is located right next to a busy railroad track.
If you would like to book a hotel room at My Südstadt at discounted conference rates, please contact: isse27@uni-bonn.de.
If you are interested in other mid-range to high-end hotels, we recommend the following hotels within a reasonable distance from the conference venue:
Remaining Questions
Please contact:
isee27@uni-bonn.de
