Document Type
Syllabus
Publication Date
Fall 9-1-2024
Course Description
Environmental ethics is, in part, a subfield of the academic discipline philosophy that studies the extent of, limits to, and grounds for our moral obligations regarding the more-than-human world. What are our duties to other animals? Do nonsentient beings like trees have value in themselves that we should respect apart from their uses as natural resources? Is there a moral reason to do or to protect whatever is “natural”? Environmental ethics is also a practical, interdisciplinary field concerned with identifying and facilitating environmentally ethical behaviors, policies, and social systems. It asks, for example, how much we are each obligated to do to address climate change; how gender, race, and class intersect with environmental problems; and how we ought to eat if we intend to heal the world. This course aims to do justice to both the philosophical and the practical aspects of the field (and to advance the civic engagement goals of a liberal education) by discussing key works, concepts, and theories in environmental philosophy and by offering opportunities for practical environmental engagement.
Recommended Citation
Everett, Jennifer, "PHIL 232A nvironmental Ethics Everett Fall 2024" (2024). All Course Syllabi. 638, Scholarly and Creative Work from DePauw University.
https://scholarship.depauw.edu/records_syllabi/638
Student Outcomes
Students will be able to: ● Distinguish between normative/evaluative and empirical dimensions of environmental problems. ● Describe competing normative and evaluative theories in the field of environmental ethics. ● Articulate their own views on matters of debate within environmental ethics. ● Present a case study of the ethical dimensions of a specific applied environmental problem.