Biographical Notes

Holmes Rolston, III

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Holmes Rolston is University Distinguished Professor of philosophy at Colorado State University. He has written seven books, acclaimed in critical notice in both professional journals and the national press. The more recent are: A New Environmental Ethics: The Next Millennium for Life on Earth (New York: Routledge, 2012, 2nd edn, 2020), Three Big Bangs (Columbia University Press, 2011), Genes, Genesis and God (Cambridge University Press, 1999), Science and Religion: A Critical Survey (Random House, McGraw Hill, Harcourt Brace, Templeton University Press, 2006), Philosophy Gone Wild (Prometheus Books), Environmental Ethics (Temple University Press), and Conserving Natural Value (Columbia University Press). He has edited Biology,Ethics, and the Origins of Life (Jones and Bartlett, Wadsworth). He has written chapters in over a hundred other books and several hundred articles.

Scholars have cited and discussed in print Rolston's work over three thousand times. His articles have been reprinted and anthologized two hundred times. (See publications lists on home-page). His books have been used as texts in six hundred and fifty colleges and universities. See list online at http://hdl.handle.net/10217/37726 His work is published in Australian, Canadian, British, German, Scandinavian, Slovenian, South African, Indian, Japanese, Chinese, and Russian presses and journals, translated, reviewed, or cited in journals and books in French, German, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Finnish, Danish, Czechoslovakian, Polish, Hungarian, Romanian, Slovenian, Russian, Japanese, and Chinese. Environmental Ethics, Philosophy Gone Wild, and Genes, Genesis and God are in Chinese translation.

Rolston was awarded the Templeton Prize in Religion in 2003, awarded by H.R.H. Prince Philip in Buckingham Palace. See the entry on Templeton Prize. He was awarded the Mendel Medal by Villanova University in 2005. See the entry on the Mendel Medal. He delivered the Gifford Lectures, University of Edinburgh, 1997/1998. See the entry on the Gifford Lectures.

Rolston has spoken as distinguished lecturer on all seven continents. He gave the opening conference address to the Royal Institute of Philosophy annual conference, Cardiff, Wales, 1993. He was Distinguished Lecturer in Beijing, China, at the invitation of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Institute of Philosophy. He participated by invitation in pre-conferences and the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro, 1992, where he was an official observer. He spoke at the World Congress of Philosophy, Moscow, 1993, and again in Boston, 1998. He was distinguished Visiting Professor of Bioethics, Yale University, 2005-2006.

Rolston was distinguished lecturer at the 28th Nobel Conference, 1992, at Gustavus Adolphus College, Minnesota, authorized by the Nobel Foundation, Stockholm. The American Philosophical Association named him a distinguished speaker at their Pacific Division, with a three hour panel devoted to his work. He was awarded the Distinguished Visiting Russell Fellow at the Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences, Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley. In 1991, a research conference was held in Berkeley devoted to his work, and the results have been published. He was Distinguished Scholar leading a National Endowment for the Humanities colloquium at North Idaho College. He was awarded a Doctor of Letters (D. Litt.), Davidson College, 2002.

Rolston has been an invited lecturer at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, at Georgetown University, at Vanderbilt University, Ohio State University, the University of Georgia, the University of Colorado Law School, the University of Oregon Law School, California State University, Washington State University, Pennsylvania State University, Harvard University, Yale University Law School, Washington and Lee University, University of Michigan, the University of Manchester, Oxford University, the University of Bergen, the University of Oslo, the University of Helsinki, Uppsala University, Arhus University, Odense University, Bucharest University, Hanazono College, Kyoto University in Japan, the National University of Singapore, the University of Guelph, at four Chinese and eleven Australian universities. See list online at: http://hdl.handle.net/10217/37727 He spoke at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, and at the National Law School of India University, Bangalore. He has been a guest lecturer for the Council for Philosophical Studies. In July-August 1995 he was Visiting Lecturer at the University of Stellenbosch, South Africa. He was a plenary speaker at the 1994 40th Anniversary Conference of the Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel. Earlier, Rolston was named Visiting Scholar at the Harvard University Center for the Study of World Religions. He gave the opening address, Royal Institute of Philosophy, London, Annual Series, on environmental ethics in 2009.

Rolston was named by Macmillan Company the area editor for environmental ethics in the Encyclopedia of Bioethics, Edition II. He was named by the U. S. Congress, Office of Technology Assessment to an Advisory Board for a study of biodiversity and legislation. The American Academy of Religion elected him president of the Rocky Mountain - Great Plains Region. Rolston is listed in Who's Who in the World (23rd edition, 2006, and earlier), Who's Who in America (72nd edition - 2019, and earlier), in Who's Who in Religion (3rd edition, 1986), Who's Who in Science and Engineering (8th edition, 2005-2006, and earlier), and in Who's Who in American Education (7th edition, 2006-2007, and earlier). He is past-president of the International Society for Environmental Ethics and has served on the Board of Governors of the Society for Conservation Biology. He serves on the Advisory Board, American Association for the Advancement of Science, Program of Dialogue on Science, Ethics, and Religion.

Rolston's work is published by a variety of presses--from commercial academic publishers (Prentice-Hall, Random House, McGraw Hill, Routledge, Academic Press, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Blackwell, Jones and Bartlett, Sinauer), through university presses (Yale University Press, Oxford University Press, Cambridge University Press, University of Wisconsin Press, Pennsylvania State University Press and the University of Queensland [Australia] Press, Temple University Press, University of Arizona Press, Columbia University Press), through specialized philosophy publishers (Prometheus Books, Philosophical Library), religious presses (Abingdon, Fortress, Westminster/John Knox), and general publishers (United States Government Printing Office, United Nations Environment Programme, Sierra Club Books, Westview Press, Island Press). He is the author of three dozen articles in encyclopedias and companions.

Rolston has published across a wide spectrum of journals--from leading philosophy journals (Ethics; Philosophy and Phenomenological Research; Inquiry; The Monist, Biology and Philosophy; Canadian Philosophical Reviews; British Journal of Aesthetics, Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism) and journals of theology (Scottish Journal of Theology, Theology Today, Interpretation; through specialized philosophy journals (Philosophy East and West; Environmental Ethics; Zygon; Journal of Medicine and Philosophy) to leading science journals (BioScience; Natural History, Conservation Biology, Journal of Forestry, Quarterly Review of Biology, Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association, Perspectives in Biology and Medicine, Biodiversity and Conservation), to professional law journals (Harvard Law and Policy Review, University of Colorado Law Review, Yale Journal of International Law) and intellectual religious journals (Christian Century; Commonweal; Christianity Today). He has published in American Forests and The Environmental Professional.

Rolston has served as a consultant with over two dozen conservation and policy groups, including the U. S. Congress and a Presidential Commission. He is a member of the Working Group on Ethics of the World Conservation Union (IUCN). He is a founder and the associate editor of Environmental Ethics, a refereed professional journal now continuing over three dcades, and on the editorial board of Zygon: Journal of Science and Religion, Public Affairs Quarterly, Environmental Values, The South African Journal of Philosophy / Suid-AfrikaanseTydskrif vir Wysbegeerte, Socijalna Ekologija (Zabreg, Croatia), the International Journal of Wilderness, and Conservation Biology. He serves on a half dozen other editorial boards. He has been a recipient of NEH and NSF awards. He won the Pennock Award for Distinguished Service at Colorado State University, the Dean's Award for Creativity and Excellence in the Humanities, and has been named University Distinguished Professor.

Rolston's work has received critical notice in The Christian Science Monitor, The Los Angeles Times, and other national papers. He has published in The Denver Post, The Philadelphia Inquirer, and New York Newsday.

The Holmes Rolston Endowed Chair in Environmental Ethics was announced Spring 2014, and Kenneth Shockley was installed in 2016. For the installation ceremonies, see online at: http://hdl.handle.net/10217/178139

The Holmes Rolston Endowed Chair in Science and Religion has been created at Davidson College, Rolston's alma mater, and was earlier held by Andrew Lustig for a decade and is now held by Willa Swenson-Lengyel .

Intellectual Biography: Christopher J. Preston, Saving Creation: Nature and Faith in the Life of Holmes Rolston, III. San Antonio, TX: Trinity University Press, 2009.

Rolston's role in the development of environmental ethics is summarized in "Environmental Philosophy, Section V, Contemporary Philosophy" by Andrew Brennan. In J. Baird Callicott and Robert Frodeman, eds., Encyclopedia of Environmental Ethics and Philosophy, volume 1, pp. 372-381. Detroit, MI: Macmillan Reference, Gale. 2009.

Biographical articles in:

Key Thinkers on the Environment, in Joy A. Palmer Cooper and David E. Cooper, eds. (London: Routledge, 2018), pages 291-297. Earlier edition: Joy A. Palmer, ed, Fifty Key Thinkers on the Environment, Routledge, 2001. Holmes Rolston 1932- (2018) version) -- by Jack Weir. http://hdl.handle.net/10217/37719

Kankyo no Shisoka Tachi (Fifty Key Thinkers on the Environment) Vol. 2: 194-208. Tokyo: Misuzu Shobo, 2004. Translated by Sudou Jiyuji. ISBN 4-622-08162-8. Translated into Japanese: http://hdl.handle.net/10217/37776

Encyclopedia Britannica, 2004 Book of the Year. Chicago: Encyclopedia Britannica 2004. "Rolston, Holmes," pages 92-93. By courtesy of Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc., copyyright 2004. See also Encyclopedia Britannica Online, Holmes Rolston III (American Philosopher and Theologian).
Online at: http://hdl.handle.net/10217/37718

Anne Becher, ed., American Environmental Leaders: From Colonial Times to the Present 2 vols. (Santa Barbara CA: ABC-CLIO, 2000), vol II, L-Z, pages 691-692. New edition (Millerton, NY: Grey House Publishing, 2008), vol. II, L-Z, pp. 695-697. Rolston, Holmes, III, by Michael Egan.
Online at: http://hdl.handle.net/10217/37720

William P. Cunningham, Terence Ball, Terence H. Cooper, Eville Gorham, Malcolm T. Hepworth, and Alfred A. Marcus, eds. Environmental Encyclopedia (Detroit, MI: Gale Research, Inc., 1994), pages 718-719. 2nd ed. (1998), pages 898-899. Environmental Encyclopedia, Third Edition. Vol 2, N-Z, pp. 1224-1225, Bortman, Marci, Peter Brimblecombe, Mary Ann Cunningham, William P. Cunningham, and William Freedman, eds. (Detroit: Thomson/Gale, 2003).
Holmes Rolston, III, by Ann Causey. Online at: http://hdl.handle.net/10217/37717

Encyclopedia of Environmental Ethics and Philosophy (Detroit: Macmillan Reference, Gale, 2009), vol. 2, pp. 211-212, Rolston, Holmes, III, by Philip Cafaro.

Online at: http://hdl.handle.net/10217/39069

Encyclopedia of Religion and Nature, ed. Bron Taylor. (London and New York: Thoemmes Continuum Publishers, 2005), vol. 2, K-Z, pp. 1400-1401.

Rolston,Holmes, III, by Paula J. Posas. Online at: http://hdl.handle.net/10217/37722

Philosopher Gone Wild - Photo-media Biography. Online, streaming video, Windows Media. 43 minutes. Rolston bio-photo-media, updated 2020.
Online at: http://hdl.handle.net/10217/37821

"A Philosopher Gone Wild," (PDF format) in David D. Karnos and Robert G. Shoemaker, eds., Falling in Love with Wisdom: American Philosophers Talk About Their Calling (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), pages 184-187. Online at: http://hdl.handle.net/10217/70415

Clare Palmer, Environmental Ethics (Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 1997), page 42. Biographical Sketch - Holmes Rolston, III.
Online at: http://hdl.handle.net/10217/37728

Cover story, "Natural Thinker," by Steve Lipsher, The Denver Post Empire Magazine, June 8, 1997, cover, and pages 12-15, 22.

Online at: http://hdl.handle.net/10217/168289

Democracy's University: A History of Colorado State University, 1970-2003, by James E. Hansen, II (Fort Collins, CO: Colorado State University, 2007. Pages 322-325. Holmes Rolston, III. Online at: http://hdl.handle.net/10217/37743

Nature, Value, Duty: Life on Earth with Holmes Rolston, III. Festscrift, edited by Christopher J. Preston and Wayne Ouderkirk (Dordrecht: Netherlands: Springer, 2007). Summary online at: http://hdl.handle.net/10217/37723

"The Philosophy Department of Colorado State University and Professor Holmes Rolston III," by Kim, Sung Jin. Pages 129-148 in Hwan Kyong Ch'ol Hak (Environmental Philosophy) (Official Journal of the Korean Society for the Study of Environmental Philosophy), vol. 3, 2004. In Korean.

"Eigingildi í náttúrunni -- heimspekiá villigötum?" In Icelandic. ["Intrinsic Value in Nature -- A Philosophy Gone Wild?]. Interview by Thorvardur Arnason in Hugur 17(2005), pages 12-26. Hugur is an Icelandic annual in philosophy. Includes English transcript at end of article. Online at: http://hdl.handle.net/10217/37730

"Entrevista: Dr. Holmes Rolston III (Interview: Dr. Holmes Rolston, III)," Ação Ambiental (Environmental Action), vol. 7, no. 30, September/October 2004, pages 5-8. Universidade Federal de Viçosa, Brazil. In Portuguese. Interviewer James Griffith. Includes English transcript at end of article.
Online at: http://hdl.handle.net/10217/37729

"Interview with a Green Giant." Online Interview by David Crumm, on Read the Spirit, July, 8-9, 2009. Parts 1 and 2. Rolston is something of a mixture of Charles Darwin, the Dalai Llama, Al Gore, and Billy Graham. Online at: http://hdl.handle.net/10217/37732

StoryCorps Interview. Rolston interviewed by Douglas Yeager, December 11, 2011. Audio, 43 minutes.
Listen to audio online: http://hdl.handle.net/10217/48079

"Holmes Rolston III, Interview by Theo Horesh," pages 227-238 in Theo Horesh, The Inner Climate: Global Warming from the Inside Out. Golden, CO: Bauu Press, 2015. Online at: https://hdl.handle.net/10217/186530

温柔的使命： 生態，信仰，生活的結合 [Gentle Mission： Integrated Ecology, Faith and Living] 長老會環境主日20周年紀念手冊 [Presbyterian Church of Taiwan celebrating the 20th anniversary of the Environmental Sunday]

Article 1: 林益仁，Yiren Lin, 臺北醫學大學醫學人文所所長 [Dean of Taipei Medical School, College of Medical Humanities]

Article 2. Tzu-mei Chen TESA. Taiwan Ecological Stewardship Association, General Secretary] 找家—羅 斯頓的生態哲學[ Looking for home – Rolston’s Ecology and Philosophy], pp. 88-94.

[From "dismissed country preacher" to "the father of environmental ethics"], pp. 101-188.

Online at: https://hdl.handle.net/10217/187175

Avocationally, Rolston is a backpacker, field naturalist, and bryologist. See elsewhere in this website, Rolston Trails and Trips.