The Earth: Ethics, Politics & Economics

Featured in Haverblog's "Cool Classes" series.

This page gives the syllabus for a course on "The Earth: Ethics, Politics & Economics," that I am teaching at Haverford College in spring 2019. The course seeks comprehensively to answer one question: What are the moral consequences of a growth-centered society and its inevitable environmental impacts?

SYLLABUS

This course introduces students to questions about our duties concerning the environment. How, it asks, should we deal with clashes among environmental values, economic growth, and people's desires? Such clashes include the following: Should we invalidate contracts to dump waste made between corporations and poor and marginalized communities? Should we send all the waste to poor countries, if their standard of living is lower and therefore—some economists say--the economic costs to them of the waste are less than they would be to rich-country inhabitants? Why preserve species that nobody gives a hoot about? In deciding who should pay to fight the costs of climate change, how do we balance among the claims of currently rich countries that polluted in the past, and countries on the make that are polluting heavily now? We examine arguments for and against prominent answers to these questions, in order to help students come up with their own well-informed answer to the course’s central question: What are the moral consequences of a growth-centered society and its inevitable environmental impacts? The course aims to hone the skills in analysis, theory-building, and arguing that are highly valued in legal and environmental advocacy, in public life and the professions, and in graduate school.

What The Course Will Do

The course begins by considering specific problems of environmental justice: whether we should preserve wilderness, what’s so great about sustainability, how we should allocate resources among different means of preserving biodiversity, what limits should we accept on consumption for the environment’s sake, how do we balance saving nature and preventing hunger. We then move to considering whether economics can help solve the environmental crisis, or instead worsens it. We next turn to examining three political ideologies that respond to the environmental crisis: green politics, deep ecology, ecofeminism, and conservatism. The course concludes by critically examining a recent influential book: Stephen M. Gardiner’s A Perfect Moral Storm: The Ethical Tragedy of Climate Change (2011). This book, which has touched off a debate among scholars and policy wonks, tries to specify the problem at the root of the climate crisis. The book explains why it is so hard to deal with climate change: climate change is a perfect moral storm, involving deep moral failings by all people and all institutions, and a widespread failure to carefully consider the problem. By pressing us to carefully consider the problem, Gardiner gives us grounds for real hope. For, as John Dewey famously said, "A problem well posed is half solved."

It is in that spirit that this course will conduct its business. We shall focus on the problems of the ethics, politics and economics of the Earth: on clashes and trade-offs among conflicting values, on how to allocate scarce resources among alternative priorities, on disputes over the relevant facts, and on disagreements over how to understand the relevant concepts. For by understanding the shape and specifics of each of the problems, we will be halfway to solving them. And what we need in the environmental crisis are serious solutions. We do not need the simple-minded cure-alls purveyed by zealots and talking heads.

Course Requirements. To earn full credit, you must:

(1) Participate in class discussion. I know many people find this daunting. Nevertheless, try. One main aim of the course is to help you improve in argument.

(2) Submit 6 response papers. Each session, you may submit a paper, of not more than 350 words, that examines some thesis asserted or considered in one of that session's readings. The paper should state the thesis and then argue for or against it. If you argue for it, you should provide your own reasons for it--not the author's reasons. If you argue against it, you should tell us what you think the truth is. Here's an example of arguing against the thesis: "Judith Shklar argues that it was better to proceed with the Tokyo and Nuremberg Trials than to summarily punish the accused, as Winston Churchill had proposed. I shall argue instead that it would have been better to follow Churchill's proposal and summarily punish the accused. My main reason will be that summarily punishing the top leaders while avoiding trials would have given the world the punishment it wanted to see, while ensuring that no one could argue that the Allies were using corrupt and unjust legal procedures to obtain predetermined political results. By contrast, the trials muddied the distinction between normal times and extraordinary times, and thus encouraged people to think that the Allies valued neither legality nor justice." For full credit, you must submit 6 such papers. The deadlines for submitting the papers are on the schedule below.

(3) Submit a paper proposal. You are required to submit, in Week 8, a proposal for your final paper. The proposal should state a question concerning one of the topics covered in the course, say why the question is important, state your answer to the question (i.e., your thesis), give the key reasons by which you will defend the thesis, state two serious objections to your thesis, and state how you will respond to the objections. The proposal should be not more than 800 words long. (For tips on how to say why the question is important--i.e., to show that there's a more general question we can't fully answer until we've answered yours, check out Chapter 4 of Wayne Booth et al, The Craft of Research (Chicago, 2008, available online through Tri-Co libraries), especially sections 4.1 and 4.2.)

(4) Submit a final paper. You are required to submit, by noon on the last day of exams, a final paper. The paper should state a question concerning one of the topics covered in the course, say why the question is important, state your answer to the question (i.e., your thesis), defend the thesis with argument, state two serious objections to your thesis, and respond to the objections. The paper should be not more than 4,000 words long.

Course Assessment. Course marks will be computed on the following distribution: Class Participation: 20%; Response Papers: 35% (5.84 % each); Paper Proposal: 15%; Argumentative Paper: 30%

Course format. The course will be discussion oriented. I will usually begin sessions by presenting a thesis advanced in the week’s reading. I will discuss its implications. I will then ask one or many of you whether you think the thesis true or false, and why. We shall then examine the reasons you offer for your view. We shall then turn to the reasons the text offers in defense of the thesis. I will ask you what you think of those reasons, and so forth. The course in part aims to improve your skill in reasoned argument.

Course Objectives. By the end of the course, students should

(1) Have become familiar with the key concepts of the theories and arguments about environmental ethics covered in the course;

(2) Have strengthened their skills in applying these concepts to current debate about the problems of environmental ethics;

(3) Have honed their ability to specify how and why specific values clash when dealing with problems of environmental ethics;

(4) Have improved their skills in specifying the disagreement over the relevant facts involved in disagreement over environment problems.

(5) Have learned how to accurately describe the structure of a theory, specifying its key concepts, its main claims, the basic model underlying it, and the question to which it is an answer;

(6) Have honed their skills in specifying the structures of arguments, breaking them into premises-axioms, middle premises-lemmas, and conclusions-theorems;

(7) Have improved their ability in distinguishing between similar concepts denoted by the same word and spotting equivocations in arguments;

(8) Have honed their skills in evaluating and challenging the premises of an argument with rational and well-ordered arguments of their own;

(9) Have improved their ability to evaluate the deductive validity or inductive strength of an argument’s progress from premises to conclusions;

(10) Have worked out for themselves a detailed and developed argument arguing a thesis about one of the questions covered in the course.

E-mail policy. You are welcome to e-mail me with questions about the course. I try to answer e-mails within 48 hours of receipt. Don’t expect an answer before then. Fast generally means shoddy.

REQUIRED BOOKS (ON RESERVE AT HC LIBRARIES)

[1] John S. Dryzek, The Politics of the Earth: Environmental Discourses, 3^rd ed. (Oxford UP, 2013)

[2] Robert E. Goodin, Green Political Theory (Oxford: Polity, 1992)

[3] Stephen M. Gardiner, A Perfect Moral Storm: The Ethical Tragedy of Climate Change (Oxford University Press, 2011)

RECOMMENDED BOOKS (ONLINE OR ON RESERVE)

[1] Roger Scruton, How to Think Seriously about the Planet: The Case for an Environmental Conservatism (Oxford UP, 2012)

[2] Debating the Earth: The Environmental Politics Reader, ed. John Dryzek and David Schlosberg (Oxford UP, 2013)

SCHEDULE

Week 1. Introduction

Week 2. Problems of the Ethics, Politics & Economics of the Earth. One Such Problem: How Best to Understand the Ethical Dimensions of the Climate Crisis? (1) The View that It Is Principally a Colossal Ethical Failure in which We Are All Complicit. (2) The View That It is Principally a Challenge to Responsible Stewardship by Us, Understood as Nations; and an Overview of the Debate Between Climate-Change Catastrophists and Climate-Change Skeptics. (3) What Role Can Cost-Benefit Analysis Play in Understanding the Ethical Dimensions of the Climate Crisis, and Why Do Economists Disagree So Sharply on the Costs of Climate Change. (4) What Do We Mean by “The Environment?”

Stephen M. Gardiner, "Preface," "Introduction: The Global Environmental Tragedy," A Perfect Moral Storm, pp. xi-xiv, 3-15.

Roger Scruton, "Global Alarming," How to Think Seriously about the Planet, pp. 38-71.

John Broome, "The Ethics of Climate Change," Scientific American, June 2008, pp. 69-73. Usefully explains why Nicholas Stern and William Nordhaus make diverging projections on the economic costs of global warming and various policy packages: they discount future costs at quite different rates.

Avner de-Shalit, "Where Philosophy Meets Politics: The Concept of the Environment," The Environment: Between Theory and Practice (Oxford UP, 2000), pp. 37-45

Week 3. A Problem of Environmental Justice: Do Citizens Have a Duty to Ensure Equal Protection from Environmental Risks Produced by Their Country to People in Other Countries? (2) Why All the Fuss about the Environmental Crisis? The Promethean Response: "It’s Not So Bad, and What Is Bad Will Be Solved by Markets and Human Ingenuity." (3) A Survivalist Interpretation of Species Extinctions: Have We Created an Irreversible Process that Will Destroy the Wild, So that All Remaining Species Will Be Especially Compatible With a Human-Covered Planet? What Moral Attitude Should We Take Toward this Anthropocentric Future?

Shrader-Frechette, “Developing Nations, Equal Protection, and the Limits of Moral Heroism,” Environmental Justice, pp. 163-183.

Bjorn Lomborg, “The Truth about the Environment,” Debating the Earth: An Environmental Politics Reader, ed. Dryzek and Schlosberg (Oxford UP, 2005): 74-79.

Stephen M. Meyer, “The End of the Wild,” Boston Review 29 (Summer 2004): 1-17, READ to top of p. 14 ONLY.

Week 4. (1) The Survivalist Response to Environmental Change: “We’re Headed for Catastrophe If We Don’t Make Radical Changes.” (2) The Promethean Response to Environmental Change: “Markets and Human Ingenuity will Take Care of It, So There’s No Genuine Crisis” (3) Are There Ecological Limits to Economic Growth? (4) The Promethean Argument from Substitutability against Survivalism: Once a Resource Is Depleted, We Can Often Substitute to a Replacement, And We Can Increase the Productivity of Our Remaining Resources through Market Incentives.

John Dryzek, “Looming Tragedy: Limits, Boundaries, Survival,” The Politics of the Earth, READ pp. 25-43 ONLY

Dryzek, “Growth Unlimited: The Promethean Response,” The Politics of the Earth, READ pp. 52-63 ONLY

Kenneth Arrow et al, “Economic Growth, Carrying Capacity, and the Environment,” Science 268 (April 1995): 520-521.

Robert M. Solow, "Is The End of the World at Hand?" in The Economic Growth Controversy, ed. A. Weintraub et al (International Arts and Sciences Press, 1973), pp. 39-61, READ pp. 39-55 ONLY.

Famously challenges the survivalist predictions that prolonged further growth without radical changes will spell catastrophe, on the ground that they falsely assume that natural resources will not become more productive, and that we cannot substitute to other resources once a resource is depleted.

FIRST RESPONSE PAPER DUE

Week 5. (1) The Sustainable-Development Response to the Environmental Crisis: Eco-Technocrat Management of Growth? (2) The Ecomodernist Response: Would Humans Do Less Harm to Nature If They Separated from It? (3) The Market-Solutions Response to the Environmental Crisis. (4) Why Not Have Market Solutions AND Local Control?

John S. Dryzek, “Greener Growth: Sustainable Development,” The Politics of the Earth, READ pp. 147-150 and 155-159 ONLY

An Ecomodernist Manifesto

John S. Dryzek, “Leave It to the Market: Economic Rationalism,” The Politics of the Earth, READ pp. 122-138 ONLY

Roger Scruton, "Market Solutions and Homeostasis," How to Think Seriously about the Planet, pp. 137-182.

SECOND RESPONSE PAPER DUE

Optional:John B. Cobb, Jr., "Toward a Just and Sustainable [Global] Economic Order,” in Environmental Ethics, ed. Light and Rolston, pp. 359-370.

Week 6. (1) Preservation or Conservation? Should We See Animals and Natural Objects as Economic Units, or as Bearers of Rights?The Debate between Gifford Pinchot and John Muir over Conservation versus Preservation. (2) How Aldo Leopold Tried to Reconcile Preservation and Conservation with an Ecologically-Grounded Conservation.

Bryan G. Norton, “The Environmentalists’ Dilemma,” Toward Unity among Environmentalists, pp. 3-13.

Norton, “Moralists and Aggregators: The Case of [John] Muir and [Gifford] Pinchot,” Toward Unity among Environmentalists, pp. 17-38.

Aldo Leopold, “The Land Ethic,” Environmental Ethics, ed. Light and Rolston, pp. 38-46.

THIRD RESPONSE PAPER DUE

Week 7. (1) Biodiversity: What Is It? What’s So Good about It? (2) Is There An Alternative to the Triage Approach to Prioritizing Which Species to Preserve? (3) Are Our Environmental Problems Examples of the Tragedy of the Commons?

Bryan G. Norton, “A Rationale for Preserving Species: An Apology and a Taxonomy,” Why Preserve Natural Variety (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988): 3-22.

Norton, “Avoiding Triage: An Alternative Approach to the Priorities Problem,” Why Preserve Natural Variety, pp. 258-269.

Garrett Hardin, "The Tragedy of the Commons," Science 162 (1968): 1243-1248.

SPRING BREAK

Week 8. (1) Consumption: What Sorts of Constraints on It Should We Accept for the Environment’s Sake? (2) A Middle Ground Between Malthusian-Survivalist and Cornucopian-Promethean Views of the Limits to Consumption.

Herman E. Daly, "Consumption: Value-Added, Physical Transformation, and Welfare," in The Ethics of Consumption, ed. Crocker and Linden (Rowman & Littlefield, 1998), pp. 19-27.

Mark Sagoff, "Do We Consume Too Much?" The Economy of the Earth, 2nd edition (Cambridge University Press, 2008): 110-136.

Allen L. Hammond, "Limits to Consumption and Economic Growth: The Middle Ground," in The Ethics of Consumption, ed. Crocker and Linden, pp. 63-67.

Optional:

Douglas Booth, "Conspicuous Consumption, Novelty, and Creative Destruction," Hooked on Growth: Economic Addictions and the Environment (Rowman & Littlefield, 2004), READ pp. 11-33 ONLY.

PAPER PROPOSAL DUE

Week 9. (1) What Would Be the Likely Politics of Trying to Move to a No-Growth Society? Of Being in Such a Society? What Would Be the Likely Politics of Trying to Move to a Sustainable-growth Society? Of Being in Such a Society? (2) What Environment-related Duties of Justice Do We Owe Future Generations? Is Sustainability One of them? (3) Is Sustainable Growth Impossible? If So, Should We Opt for a No-Growth Sustainable Development? (4) Does Demanding Sustainable Development of All Countries Mean Asking Poor Countries to Sacrifice Desperately Needed Growth, and So Unfairly Keeping them Far Less Rich than the Rich Countries?

David Luban, "The Political Economy of Consumption," in The Ethics of Consumption, ed. Crocker and Linden (Rowman & Littlefield, 1998), pp. 113-130.

Brian Barry, “Sustainability and Intergenerational Justice,” in Environmental Ethics: An Anthology, ed. Light and Rolston, pp. 487-499, READ pp. 487-497 ONLY.

Herman E. Daly, "Sustainable Growth: An Impossibility Theorem," in Valuing the Earth: Economics, Ecology, Ethics, ed. Herman E. Daly and Kenneth N. Townsend (MIT Press, 1993): 267-273.

Wilfred Beckerman, "Poverty and the Environment in the Third World," Small Is Stupid: Blowing the Whistle on the Greens (1995): 25-39.

Week 10. What Do Greens Want? Green Political Principles and Green Values.

Robert E. Goodin, "Green Corollaries," Green Political Theory, pp. 54-77.

Robert E. Goodin, "Green Heresies," Green Political Theory, pp. 78-83.

Goodin, "The Thesis," in Green Political Theory, READ pp. 13-18 ONLY.

Robert E. Goodin, "A Green Theory of Value," in Green Political Theory, pp. 19-55.

FOURTH RESPONSE PAPER DUE

Week 11. (1) Does Green Politics Require Green Lifestyles? (2) Deep Ecology, the Environmentalism of the Poor, and Environmental Conservatism

Re-read Goodin, "Green Heresies," 78-83

Arne Naess, “The Deep Ecological Movement: Some Philosophical Aspects,” in Environmental Ethics, ed. Light and Rolston, pp. 262-274, READ pp. 264-273 ONLY.

Ramachandra Guha, “The Environmentalism of the Poor,” in Debating the Earth, ed. Dryzek and Schlosberg, pp. 463-480, READ pp. 463-465 AND 470-477 ONLY

Roger Scruton, "Conservatism," in Political Theory and the Ecological Challenge, ed. Andrew Dobson and Robyn Eckersley (Cambridge UP, 2006): 7-19.

FIFTH RESPONSE PAPER DUE

Week 12. (1) Ecological Feminism? (2) How Would Our Attitudes Toward Nature and Gender Change If We Saw Ourselves as Potential Prey? (3) Overview of Climate Change as a Perfect Moral Storm Composed of Three Interlocking Storms: The Global Storm, the Intergenerational Storm, and the Theoretical Storm. (4) The Key Exacerbator of the Perfect Storm: the Problem of Moral Corruption. (5) The Consumption Tragedy: Is Our Consumption Behavior Absurd or Shallow, Rather than Self-Interested?

Karen J. Warren, “The Power and the Promise of Ecological Feminism,” Environmental Ethics 12 (1990): 125-146, READ pp. 125-138 ONLY.

Val Plumwood, "Being Prey [Surviving a Crocodile Attack]," Utne Reader July-August 2000

Stephen M. Gardiner, "A Perfect Moral Storm," A Perfect Moral Storm, pp. 19-48.

Gardiner, "The Consumption Tragedy," A Perfect Moral Storm, pp. 49-72.

Optional: Dale Jamieson, "The Nature of the Problem," in The Oxford Handbook of Climate Change and Society, ed. Dryzek, Norgaard, and Schlosberg (Oxford UP, 2011): 38-55

Week 13.(1) (1) Is the Global Storm a Tragedy of the Commons? (2) The Second Interlocking Moral Storm: The Intergenerational Storm. (3) Climate Refugees as Another Part of the Tragedy?

Gardiner, "A Shadowy and Evolving Tragedy," A Perfect Moral Storm, pp. 103-140.

Gardiner, "The Tyranny of the Contemporary," A Perfect Moral Storm, pp. 143-184.

Matthew Lister, "Climate Change Refugees," Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy 17 (2014): 619

SIXTH RESPONSE PAPER DUE

Week 14. (1) The Third Interlocking Moral Storm: The Theoretical Storm: Weaknesses of Cost-Benefit Analysis and Discounting as Tools for Understanding the Climate Crisis. (2) The Role of Moral Corruption in the Perfect Moral Storm of Climate Change. (3) So How Then Should We Understand the Environment?

Gardiner, "Cost-Benefit Paralysis," A Perfect Moral Storm, pp. 247-291

Gardiner, "Jane Austen vs. Climate Economics," A Perfect Moral Storm, pp. 301-338.

Avner de-Shalit, "Where Philosophy Meets Politics: The Concept of the Environment," The Environment: Between Theory and Practice (Oxford UP, 2000), pp. 37-45

Optional:

Mark Sagoff, "The Poverty of Climate Economics," in The Oxford Handbook of Climate Change and Society, ed. Dryzek, Norgaard, and Schlosberg (Oxford UP, 2011): 55-67

FINAL PAPER DUE LAST DAY OF EXAMS AT NOON VIA E-MAIL