Dr Nigel Dower

Biography

Nigel Dower is Honorary Senior Lecturer in Philosophy, University of Aberdeen and Academic Consultant (t/a ‘Cosmopolitan Agendas’). He joined the University of Aberdeen in 1967 where he has taught until 2004, except for three years teaching Philosophy in Zimbabwe (1983-86) and five months as Gillespie Visiting Professor, College of Wooster, Ohio in 2000. He was Head of Department from 1996-1999 and 2000-2001. In June 2004 he took early retirement in order to pursue his interests in ‘exploring ethics in a globalise world’ through teaching, lectures, writing and consultancy. He was visiting Professor in the University of Akureyri, Iceland in Sept-October 2004, and will be Visiting Professor in Colorado State University, Fort Collins in January-May 2006.

His main research interests are in the field of the ethics/philosophy of development, environment and international relations. He taught for many years two special subjects relating to his research, one on the ethics of international relations, covering normative theories, war and peace, theories of justice/human rights and global citizenship, and the other on the ethics of development, environment and technology. He has also\ taught various other courses on the ethics of sustainable development. (See list of publications below.)

In 1997 he wrote World Ethics - the New Agenda for the Edinburgh University Press (1998) and is Editor of its Edinburgh Studies in World Ethics. His interest in development ethics is reflected in membership of the International Development Ethics Association (IDEA), of which he is President, and the Development Ethics Study Group of the Development Studies Association (DSA), of which he is convener. He is also a member of the Educational Advisory Board for the Earth Charter and the IUCN Ethics Specialist Group. In 1997-1999, as one of the Associate Directors of the Centre for Philosophy, Technology & Society (which operated from 1990 to 2002), he led a research project on the idea of global citizenship and how educational courses at Undergraduate level might be developed. This resulted inter alia in Global Citizenship - A Critical Reader, edited by Nigel Dower and John Williams (EUP 2002) and his latest book An Introduction to Global Citizenship (EUP 2003).