Philosophy (Chapter 9) Greening the College Curriculum
— Collett & Karakashian 1996

"Philosophy" (Chapter 9) [Environmental Ethics in the Undergraduate Philosophy Curriculum]. In Jonathan Collett and Stephen J. Karakashian, eds., Greening the College Curriculum: A Guide to Environmental Teaching in the Liberal Arts (Washington, DC: Island Press, 1996), pages 206-234.
Online at: http://hdl.handle.net/10217/45060

Few discussions of teaching environmental conservation continue long without reaching the philosophical question "Why?" How are values discovered and judged? What we must do is importantly a biological question. How much habitat do these endangered species require? Fortunately, persons may often agree on a course of action without entirely agreeing on their reasons why. Unfortunately, often they do not. Almost every piece of environmental legislation passed in the last half century has been fought over. Pluralists maintain that there can be several kinds of environmental ethics. Is there a unifying theory that can guide us in practice when different kinds of ethics seem to conflict? Overconsumption, overpopulation, and maldistribution all seem sources of the environmental crisis. The four most critical issues are peace, environment, development, and population. Nor can anyone be at peace with neighbors or nature without a philosophy of residence in the world. We here examine several types of courses, and suggest relevant materials. There is something morally naive about living in a reference frame where one species takes itself as absolute and values everything else relative to its utility. An education without an environmental ethics is incomplete.