Lisa Kretz completed her doctoral training in the Department of Philosophy at
Dalhousie University under the supervision of Dr. Trish Glazebrook. Her dissertation was
titled “Reconceptualizing the Ecological Self” and focused on the intersection of
ecology, self-concept, and ethics. She holds a Master of Arts degree from the University
of Alberta where she studied under the direction of Dr. Allen Carlson in the area of
environmental aesthetics. Lisa also has a Bachelor of Education and an Honours Bachelor
of Arts in Philosophy and Visual Art from the University of Western Ontario.
Her most recent work focuses on the problem of akrasia, an issue discussed by Socrates in
Plato’s Protagoras, wherein one knows the right thing to do but fails to act accordingly.
She is interested in identifying how to bridge the gap between theoretical commitments
and behaviour and discusses the problem as it pertains to climate change. Lisa argues
that theory, practice and pedagogy must be empirically rooted in moral psychology
regarding motivation and behaviour change to remedy the theory-action gap; namely the gap
between espoused moral values and the actions that reflect such values. In a related vein
she is exploring how hope motivates behavior in the context of environmental crisis, and
argues that ecological philosophy requires a significant orientation to the role of hope
in both theory and practice. Lisa has also been publishing in the area of animal
liberation with a focus on the immoral dimensions of hunting non-human animals.
Articles
Contributions to Books
