Phl3810 Environmental Ethics
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Handbook entry- a brief description of the subject can be found in the handbook entry. The handbook also provides information about the unit leader, the semester and mode in which the unit is available, the contact hours and the assessment requirements.
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MUSO site - there is a WebCT site for this unit where assessment tasks, lecture notes and other unit resources will be posted. Once enrolled, students taking this unit are advised to check the WebCT site regularly.
Subject description:
The question, 'How should we live?' has always been central to ethics. The practical challenges brought about by our impact on the environment raise this question in a new form. Traditional ethics has concentrated on our duties and obligations towards other people, but has trouble formulating our duties towards animals, species and environments. Environmental ethics looks at both the conceptual issues that are raised by extending our ethical concern beyond humans, and at practical issues of balancing the needs of humans, animals and the environment.
Questions discussed will include:
- Do we have direct moral duties to future generations, animals, plants, species and environments? If so what is the nature and ground of these duties? How are we to solve conflicts among our moral duties to these different kinds of entities?
- What attitudes should we take to conflicts between the needs of people and the protection of the environment? Should we react to over-population among people in the same way as a biologist would react to overpopulation in other species, or do the needs of people always over-ride the needs of the environment? Is this even the right way to frame such questions?
- How can we achieve a just distribution of the burdens involved in preventing pollution and the degradation of environments? This question is particularly acute in the case of greenhouse gas reduction.
- What do we mean when we speak of the intrinsic value of nature? Is wilderness intrinsically valuable and why?
- Can natural values be restored, or is a restored environment always in a sense a fake?
- Do the issues raised by our impact on the environment require a new world-view and a complete revision of our understanding of ourselves and our place in nature? Should we replace anthropocentric values with non-anthropocentric values? This leads to the further question, 'What is anthropocentrism and can we avoid it?'
Students successfully completing this subject should have a good understanding of the ethical issues raised by environmentalism and by the ethical limits placed on human behavior by our environment. The course is designed to engage with real-life issues being fought out in the community and to give students a deeper appreciation of the theoretical underpinnings of those real-life issues.