PHILOSOPHY 400/544:
ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS
SPRING 2004
|
PROFESSOR: John Nolt |
OFFICE PHONE: 974-7218 |
|
OFFICE: 818 McClung Tower |
HOME PHONE: 573-4135 |
|
OFFICE HOURS: 9-10 a.m. MWF, and by appointment |
E-MAIL: nolt@utk.edu WEB PAGE: web.utk.edu/~nolt |
Click here for Additional
Items from Class Notes
REQUIRED TEXTS
Avner de-Shalit, Why
Posterity Matters: Environmental
Policies and Future Generations, Routledge, 1995.
Andrew Light and Holmes Ralston III, Environmental
Ethics: An Anthology, Blackwell,
2003
Derek Parfit, Reasons
and Persons, Oxford University Press, 1984.
Holmes Ralston III, Environmental Ethics: Duties
to and Values in the Natural World, Temple University Press, 1988
Paul W. Taylor, Respect
for Nature: A Theory of Environmental
Ethics, Princeton University Press, 1986.
ABOUT THE COURSE
This is an advanced course in
environmental ethics. I define
environmental ethics broadly as the attempt to expand the attribution of intrinsic moral worth beyond now-living
human beings to include one or more of the following:
(A) Future humans. The development of technologies capable of
harming or eliminating even very distant future generations renders
questionable nearly all traditional forms of ethics, since these concerned
chiefly our relations to contemporaries.
But the attempt to expand moral consideration into the far future
quickly runs into deep practical and conceptual problems.
(B) Sentient non-human animals. Many animals are sentient and sentience
justifies at least part of our ascription of moral worth to humans. To what extent, then, are sentient animals
intrinsically worthy of moral consideration?
This is a delicate question, since its answer may have disruptive and
unpopular implications—e.g. vegetarianism, the reduction or elimination of
animal agriculture, restrictions on research uses of animals, or the immorality
of hunting and fishing.
(C) Nature in general. Moral consideration for nature itself is
environmental ethics in the strictest sense.
Some thinkers (biocentrists) argue that each living organism is
intrinsically valuable and so extend fundamental moral consideration even to
lower animals and to plants. Others
(ecocentrists) ascribe intrinsic moral value not only to individual organisms
but to natural wholes or systems—e.g. wetlands, forests, rivers, soils, the
atmosphere, species, ecosystems or the biosphere. But this holism threatens our well-entrenched Western
individualism.
These three attempts to go beyond
traditional ethics are in uncomfortable tension with one another as well as
with the tradition—a tension that provides fertile ground for philosophical
work. The course is divided into three
sections corresponding to this threefold division of environmental ethics.
GRADES
Grades for the course will be
based on the following:
Midterm
exam: 30%
Final
exam: 35%
Term
paper: 35%
Exams will consist of essay
questions. Term paper requirements will
be different for students taking the course for undergraduate credit
(Philosophy 400) than for those taking it for graduate credit (Philosophy
544). Papers should provide a critical analysis of some central idea
in a given area of environmental ethics.
That is, the paper should:
Undergraduate papers should be
about 4000 words in length, graduate papers about 7000. Graduate papers should, in addition to using
the material we cover in class, be based on research into the broader
environmental ethics literature. For
all students, a complete first draft of the term paper is due on April 12. I will provide comments and hand these
papers back for rewriting. The final
draft is due on April 28.
ABOUT ME
I
came to UT in 1978 after receiving my Ph.D. from Ohio State with a dissertation
in the philosophy of mathematics. I have
since published three college textbooks and various articles in these
areas. After the birth of my daughter
in 1985, concern about the world in which my children will live led me into
environmental activism and soon thereafter I began working in environmental
philosophy. My first book on
environmental philosophy, Down to Earth:
Toward a Philosophy of Nonviolent Living, was published in 1995. A second book, What Have We Done?, which analyzes the environmental degradation of
Southern Appalachia, appeared in 1997.
An updated version of this book, entitled A Land Imperiled, will
be published by the University of Tennessee Press next year. My nonprofessional interests include
primitive woodworking, hiking, biking, rock climbing, and organic gardening.
COURSE CALENDAR
Abbreviations used in the course
calendar below are as follows:
R&P Reasons and Persons
WPM Why Posterity Matters
EEA Environmental Ethics: An Anthology (Light and Ralston)
RN Respect for Nature
EER Environmental Ethics (Ralston)
|
Date |
Topic |
Reading |
|
1/12 |
Introduction to Environmental
Ethics |
Palmer in EEA 15-37 |
|
1/14 |
Future Generations: The Non-Identity Problem |
R&P, ch. 16 |
|
1/16 |
Future Generations: The Repugnant and Absurd Conclusions |
R&P chs. 17-18 |
|
1/19 |
No Class:
MLK Day
|
|
|
1/21 |
Future Generations: The Mere Addition Paradox |
R&P ch. 19 |
|
1/23 |
Transgenerational Community I |
WPM, pp. 1-31 |
|
1/26 |
Transgenerational Community II |
WPM, pp. 31-50 |
|
1/28 |
Applications |
WPM, ch. 2 |
|
1/30 |
Critique of Utilitarian
Approaches |
WPM, ch. 3 |
|
2/2 |
Critique of Contractarian
Approaches |
WPM, ch. 4 |
|
2/4 |
Critique of Rights Approaches |
WPM, chs. 5-6 |
|
2/6 |
Animals: Peter Singer |
EEA, pp. 55-64 |
|
2/9 |
Animals: Tom Regan |
EEA, pp. 65-73 |
|
2/11 |
Environmental and Human Ethics |
RN, ch. 1 |
|
2/13 |
Respect for Nature |
RN, ch. 2 |
|
2/16 |
Biocentric Outlook |
RN, ch. 3 |
|
2/18 |
Ethics of Biocentrism |
RN, ch 4 |
|
2/20 |
Midterm Exam
|
|
|
2/23 |
Valuing and the Environment |
EER, ch. 1 |
|
2/25 |
Duties to Sentient Life |
EER, ch. 2 |
|
2/27 |
Duties to Organic Life |
EER, ch. 3 |
|
3/1 |
Duties to Species |
EER, ch. 4 |
|
3/3 |
Duties to Ecosystems |
EER, ch. 5 |
|
3/5 |
Natural Value |
EER, ch. 6 |
|
3/8-3/12 |
No Class:
Spring Break
|
|
|
3/15 |
Environmental Policy |
EER, ch. 7 |
|
3/17 |
Environmental Business |
EER, ch. 8 |
|
3/19 |
Animal and Environmental Ethics |
Katz in EEA, pp. 85-94 |
|
3/22 |
Against Considerablity of
Ecosystems |
Cahen in EEA, pp. 114-28 |
|
3/24 |
Varieties of Intrinsic Value |
O’Niell in EEA, pp. 131-42 |
|
3/26 |
Anthropocentrism I |
Norton in EEA, pp. 163-74 |
|
3/29 |
Anthropocentrism II |
Hargrove in EEA, pp. 175-90 |
|
3/31 |
Deep Ecology |
Fox and Naess in EEA, pp. 251-74 |
|
4/2 |
Ecofeminism I |
Gaard & Gruen in EEA, pp.
275-93 |
|
4/5 |
Ecofeminism II |
Warren & Cheney in EEA, pp.
294-305 |
|
4/7 |
Pluralism I |
Stone in EEA, pp. 193-202 |
|
4/9 |
No Class:
Good Friday
|
|
|
4/12 |
Pluralism II |
Callicott in EEA, pp. 203-19 |
|
4/14 |
Pluralism III |
Wenz in EEA, pp. 220-8 |
|
4/16 |
Pluralism IV |
Light in EEA, pp. 229-47 |
|
4/19 |
Pragmatism I |
Weston in EEA, pp. 306-18 |
|
4/21 |
Pragmatism II |
Minteer & Manning in EEA,
pp. 319-30 |
|
4/23 |
Sustainability |
Scherer in EEA, pp. 333-58 |
|
4/26 |
To be determined |
|
|
4/28 |
To be determined |
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|
4/30 |
No Class:
Study Day
|
|
|
5/4 |
Final Exam 10:15 a.m.-12:15 p.m. |
DISABILITIES: Students who have a
disability that requires accommodation should make an appointment with the Office
of Disability Services (974-6087) to discuss their specific needs and schedule
an appointment with me during my office hours.