Philosophy of Environment and Technology
Writing
My essays, creative non-fiction, and poetry work to understand and improve everyday environmental relationships.
Recent Academic Writings
Environmental Ethics. 47.1 (2025): 5-22
Winner of ISEE's 2024 Holmes Rolston III essay prize, this essay evaluates the promising ways global rewilding movements are centering virtue and eudaemonistic values in their projects. The best rewilding is not simply about restoring good land, but fostering good lives. I take pains to defend rewilding's focus on fostering a Good Life against theoretical worries over the danger of putting humans first.
​​​​​
"Our Technological Environment: Albert Borgmann in the Digital Worlds"
(coming 2026) with M. Joseph Aloi, in Finding our Place in the Digital World: Philosophical Essays on Technology, Phenomenology, and the Environment. Eds. Mike Butler & Ian Werkheiser.
​​
This work is part of an ongoing series of essays bringing Albert Borgmann's philosophy of technology into fruitful conversation with current environmental ethics. I worked with Professor Borgmann for two years in Montana, where I had the honor of organizing the entirety of his handwritten manuscripts and correspondence for the university archives.
​
From the work: "Borgmann’s philosophy of technology offers unifying insight into what is at stake in our changing environmental relationships, both in the rise of screen-time and the restoration of ecosystems. In both arenas we are shaping the quality of our relationships with the world around us. The tools Borgmann offers for evaluating technology find expanded purpose in addressing the deepest task of environmentalism: to shape, not merely sustainable lives, but lives worth living."
​​​
"We’ve Found Something Good Here: Deictic Discourse and Environmental Engagement”
With M. Joseph Aloi, Environmental Ethics 46.4 (2024): 421-436
​​
A second Borgmann essay, this work focuses on the problems and promise of testifying to the value of nature in public, democratic settings. Philosopher Steven Vogel has cast quite a dark shadow over the concept of "nature," especially any claim to speak on behalf of the non-human world. While we sympathize a great deal with most of Vogel's work, we argue that Borgmann offers an alternative which shows how public testimonies to nature's value are vital to robust democratic discourse.
​
Public Writings
​
“A Fierce and Fearful Love: On Delisting the Grizzly”
The Missoulian. May 11th, 2024, p. A6. Op-ed. (598 words) Reprinted in Helena Independent Record, Billings gazette, Ravalli Republic, and The Montana Standard.
“In Memory of Albert Borgmann (1937 – 2023)”
American Philosophical Association, Memorial Minutes, 2023.
Click Here for an expanded version with a short intro to Borgmann's philosophy.
“The Steps up Vineyard Hill: Urban Forest Restoration in Wheeling, WV”
Mustard Seed Mountain Paper, May 1st, 2022: 10-11.
“Who Do We Want to be Here?: Ecological History in the Canadian Rockies”
Research blog post on www.mountainlegacy.ca, Oct.1st, 2019 Cross-posted www.christopherjpreston.com – Sep. 23rd. 2019
​
Poetry
​
Growing up in Town
Camas: Vol. 25: No. 2, 2017: p.4
​