Michel Bourban

Welcome to my website!

I am a researcher in moral, political, and legal philosophy. I work on several fields, including climate justice and climate ethics, environmental ethics, global justice, animal ethics, intergenerational justice, innovation ethics, and citizenship theory. I am interested in topics such as sustainability, eco-anxiety, energy transition, citizenship, human rights, and ideal and non-ideal theory. I am also interested in the history of philosophy, especially the moral and political philosophy of Hutcheson, Rousseau, Kant, and Rawls. 

I am Assistant Professor in Environmental Ethics in the Section of Philosophy at the University of Twente. My research line, “Extending Justice and Citizenship”, aims at clarifying the demands of justice and citizenship in our aera of global environmental changes. It also investigates how these demands can guide just institutional reforms, steer responsible technological innovation, and encourage pro-environmental behaviour. I am the PI of the "Planetary Justice and Energy Transition Technologies" research project, which strengthens the normative foundations of the planetary justice framework and applies this framework to the energy transition.  I am also co-leading a work package in the Horizon Widera Re4Green project, which provides a framework for research and innovation to address overlapping issues in environmental ethics, climate ethics, and research ethics in the context of the European Green Deal. In addition to this, I am a member of the Horizon 2020 TechEthos project, which deals with the ethics of new and emerging technologies with high socio-economic impact, and the NWO ESDiT project, which develops a comprehensive philosophical understanding of technologies that are socially and conceptually disruptive.

I teach a variety of topics in ethics and political philosophy, including environmental ethics, sustainability ethics, climate justice, big data ethics, the ethics of digital extended reality, and engineering ethics. I am Coordinator of the interdisciplinary minor "Environmental Values and Sustainable Transformations".

This website provides access to information on my (short) biography, my (existing and forthcoming) publications, my (past and upcoming) talks, my teachings, and my reviewing and outreach activities. 

If you want to get in touch with me, please send an email to m.bourban@utwente.nl