Kenneth Shockley, who joined CSU this summer as the first person to hold the Holmes Rolston III Endowed Chair in Environmental Ethics, will give an inaugural lecture on Friday, Oct. 14, on balancing the need for development with the need for environmental protection.

The free public talk, titled “What We Need to Flourish: Rethinking External Goods and the Ecological Systems That Provide Them,” will be held from 4 to 6 p.m. in Eddy Hall, Room 200. The event will feature an introductory celebration ceremony as well as a question-and-answer period and reception afterwards.

Shockley, who was associate professor of philosophy and academic director of the Sustainability Academy at the University at Buffalo-SUNY before being named to the endowed chair in CSU’s Department of Philosophy last spring, specializes in the interdependence of environmental values and environmental policy, especially relating to the ethical challenges of climate change.

Too often, Shockley says, development and environmental protection are thought of as being at odds. In his talk he will argue that just as development requires that we support robust social systems, it requires we support robust ecological systems. Rather than being at odds with one another, development requires robust environmental protection, according to Shockley.

The Holmes Rolston III Endowed Chair in Environmental Ethics, created by the Kenneth and Myra Monfort Charitable Foundation and Professor Emeritus Holmes Rolston of CSU’s Department of Philosophy, is the College of Liberal Arts’ second endowed chair.

The event is sponsored by the Department of Philosophy and the CSU Ethics Colloquium.