PHIL 258 (01)

ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS

COURSE OUTLINE

SPRING 2022

1. Practical Matters/Overview

2. Ethics: A Brief Introduction (CHAPTER 1 EE)
a. What is Ethics?
b. Three Skeptical Views of Ethics
c. Three Leading Ethical Theories--Virtue, Deontology, Utiliarianism
d. The Value & Limitations of Ethical Theories

3. Religion & the Environment (CHAPTER 2 EE)
a. Christianity
b. Environmental Stewardship
c. Non-Western (Buddhism, Daoism, Hinduism) & Native American view

4. Animal Rights (CHAPTER 3 EE)
a. The case for
b. The case against

5. Biocentrism (CHAPTER 4 EE)
a. Schweitzer’s view
b. Taylor’s view

6. Ecocentrism (CHAPTER 5 EE)
a. Leopold’s Land Ethic
b. A Modified Land Ethic

7. Deep Ecology and Ecofeminism (CHAPTER 6 EE)
a. Deep Ecology
b. The future of Deep Ecology
c. Ecofeminism

8. Moderate Ecocentrism (CHAPTER 7 EE)

9. Environmental Responsibilities to Future Generations (CHAPTER 8 EE)
a. Reasons for denying responsibilities to future generations

10. Population and Consumption (CHAPTER 9 EE)

11. Food Ethics (CHAPTER 10 EE)
a. Eating Animals?
b. Eating Local?
c. GMO Food? And World Hunger?

12. Wilderness Preservation (CHAPTER 11 EE)
a. The case for
b. The case against

13. The Extinction Crisis (CHAPTER 12 EE)
a. Why species preservation is important

14. Climate Change (CHAPTER 13 EE)
a. The urgent challenge
b. Climate Ethics

15. Environmental Disobedience (CHAPTER 14 EE)
a. Varieties of Protest
b. The justifiability of unlawful protest

16. Other Practical Applications/Matters
a. Global Climate Change
b. Wilderness Management
c. Endangered Species
d. Land Management
e. BP’S Oil Spill
f. Environmental Activism
g. Sustainability
h. Eco-terrorism
i. Industrial Farming
j. Environmental Refugees
l. Carbon Mitigation
m. Synthetic Biology