Environmental Ethics

This is the course page for "Environmental Ethics," which I taught at Yale in summer 2014. For downloadable readings and announcements, please see our classesV2 page at Yale: you can find it by clicking here. The course seeks comprehensively to answer one question: What are the moral consequences of a growth-centered society and its inevitable environmental impacts?

This course was highly acclaimed by students; check out their anonymous teaching evaluations at bottom.

SYLLABUS

EPE399/PHIL331/PLSC335

Summer Session A 2014. June 2-July 4 (5 weeks)

MW 9-12:15

Office Hours: TBD (in Rosenkranz 215)

Classroom Location: Rosenkranz 02.

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? Should the US encourage Andean countries to spray pesticide on peasants' coca farms in order to reduce the supply of cocaine? 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, which were mentioned above. We then turn to considering whether the environmental crisis will result in catastrophe unless we make radical changes (the catastrophist response), or can be managed by markets and human ingenuity (the Promethean response). We then turn to considering 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 next turn to examining three political ideologies that respond to the environmental crisis: green politics, deep ecology, and ecofeminism. 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.

To better understand these problems, we will occasionally refer to personal narratives and film. So, for example, to better understand the ecofeminist critique of male-centered domination over nature, we will watch part of "Crocodile" Dundee (1986) and read Val Plumwood's memoir of being attacked by a crocodile. To better understood the moral corruption that many see as partly responsible for the climate crisis, we will watch part of Sense and Sensibility (1995).

Those problems, and proposed solutions to them, make up our agenda. The course might thus also be called, "Theoretical Foundations of Environmental Action," since it scrutinizes the presuppositions of current arguments in favor of this or that environmental policy or environmental attitude. Our questions concern the clashes of values, the differing interpretations of facts, and the clashing theories and attitudes that form the first level of presuppositions driving current political and policy debates about the environment. In particular, we will focus on how the ethical, political, and economic presuppositions at this level do and should inform each other.

What the Course Will Not Do, But Is Related

To fully understand what this course mainly will do, it helps to think about related things that it will not mainly do. You can read more about that here, in a survey of related fields in environmental philosophy, environmental thought, environmental policy, and environmental politics and society. The survey explains how the problems treated in those fields differ from the problems treated in this course. One major aim of this course is to give you concepts and techniques that will allow you to quickly familiarize yourself with any of the fields described in the survey.

Pre-requisites

Only a desire to understand how to use theories and arguments. However, to do a good job in this course, you need to have a handle on the key concepts and problems of at least one of ethics, political theory, or economics. If you haven't had a course in any of the three, then you should read a primer that will give you such a handle. Here are some good ones:

Simon Blackburn, Being Good: An Introduction to Ethics (Oxford UP, 2001), Parts II and III. You can skip Part I.

David Miller, Political Philosophy: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford UP 2003)

Partha Dasgupta, Economics: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford UP 2007)

Yoram Bauman and Grady Klein, The Cartoon Introduction to Economics: Volume One: Microeconomics (Hill & Wang, 2011)

" " " " , The Cartoon Introduction to Economics: Volume Two: Macroeconomics (Hill & Wang, 2011)

Course Mechanics and Learning Objectives

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 controversial thesis that that week’s reading has argued. The paper should argue for or against that thesis. For guidelines, click here. For full credit, you need only submit 6 such papers.

(3) Submit a paper proposal. You are required to submit, in Session 6, 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.

(4) Submit a final paper. You are required to submit, on the last day of class, 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: 30% (5 % each); Paper Proposal: 15%; Argumentative Paper: 35%

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 improved at specifying the structure of any theory presented to them--being able to specify its key concepts, its main claims, and the basic model it articulates.

(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;

(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.

Academic Dishonesty: Don’t do it! Yale College’s policy is to severely punish those who do commit it. So you want to know what is dishonesty and what isn’t. For definitions of things that count as academic dishonesty, see here: http://yalecollege.yale.edu/content/cheating-plagiarism-and-documentation. Further advice on how to avoid inadvertently doing it is here: http://writing.yalecollege.yale.edu/using-sources. I may, at any time, use tools like turnitin.com to detect plagiarism.

Writing response papers: Here are guidelines on what I’m looking for, and what I’m not looking for, but other teachers might be: https://sites.google.com/site/tjdonahu/home/writing-response-papers

How to understand and use theories: Puzzled? You're not alone! Even the professionals find this difficult. Click here for some tips on how to do it: https://sites.google.com/site/tjdonahu/home/using-theories

How to do political philosophy: The approach used in this course is political philosophy. For some tips on how to do it, click here:

https://sites.google.com/site/tjdonahu/home/political-philosophy-why-and-how

REQUIRED BOOKS (on sale at Yale Bookstore; also on reserve at Bass Library)

[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 (most on sale at Yale Bookstore; also on reserve at Bass Library)

[1] Kristin Shrader-Frechette, Environmental Justice: Creating Equality, Reclaiming Democracy (Oxford University Press, 2002)

[2] Bryan G. Norton, Toward Unity among Environmentalists (Oxford University Press, 1991) I recommend buying this used through online booksellers.

[3] Debating the Earth: The Environmental Politics Reader, 2^nd Edition. Edited by John Dryzek and David Schlosberg (Oxford UP, 2005)

[4] Environmental Ethics: An Anthology, ed. Andrew Light and Holmes Rolston III (Oxford: Blackwell, 2003)

[5] Bryan G. Norton, Why Preserve Natural Variety? (Princeton University Press, 1987)

[6] Wayne C. Booth, Gregory G. Colomb, and Joseph M. Williams, The Craft of Research (University of Chicago Press, 2008).

[7] Anthony Weston, A Rulebook for Arguments (Hackett, 2008)

GUIDES TO WRITING GOOD PAPERS: THE PROSE, THE PROBLEM, AND THE ARGUMENT

[1] Richard Lanham's Paramedic Method.

It transforms slow-starting sentences with obscure subjects into sentences with clear actors and actions.

[2] The Bennett rules for writing decent prose in theoretical papers.

Jonathan Bennett says: Prefer verbs to nouns. Prefer adverbs to adjectives. Avoid intensifiers ( like "very" or

"extremely"). Use sparingly the abstract nouns--big words from Latin and Greek ending with "--ation," "--ity," "-ism,"

"-ology," "-nomy," etc.--; don't cram a sentence full of them.

[3] Joseph M. Williams and Gregory G. Colomb, Style: Lessons in Clarity and Grace (Longman, 2010).

Explains why and when to use Lanham's Method and Strunk and White's rules; and when to break them. Explains

how to organize information in a sentence: put the familiar at the front, and the new at the end. Also explains how to

make paragraphs coherent: each paragraph should have a point sentence articulating its main point, and this should

come either at the end of the paragraph's introductory sentence, or at the paragraph's end.

[4] "From Questions to Problems," Section x.x. of Wayne Booth et al., The Craft of Research.

Crucial for writing research papers. You need more than a topic. You need more than a research question. You need

more than a thesis. You need a research problem, which tells a definite audience what is the bigger question they

can't fully answer until they've followed your answering of your research question.

[5] Anthony Weston, A Rulebook for Arguments (Hackett, 2008).

RECOMMENDED REFERENCES AND BACKGROUND READING

[1] The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. Edward N. Zalta [plato.stanford.edu] A free resource which is probably the most comprehensive encyclopedia of philosophy ever compiled. Authoritative articles by scholars.

[2] The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics, 2nd edn (2008) [dictionaryofeconomics.com] A non-free resource accessible online through the Yale Libraries. One of the most comprehensive dictionaries of economics ever. Authoritative articles by scholars.

[3] The International Encyclopedia of Ethics, ed. Hugh LaFollette (Wiley, 2013)

[4] The Blackwell Encyclopaedia of Political Thought, ed. David Miller (Blackwell, 1987)

[5] A Companion to Environmental Philosophy, ed. Dale Jamieson (Blackwell, 2001)

[6] Stephen Smith, Environmental Economics: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford UP, 2011)

[7] Donella Meadows, Jorgen Randers, and Dennis Meadows, Limits to Growth: The 30-Year Update (Chelsea Green, 2004)

[8] Julian L. Simon, The Ultimate Resource 2 (Princeton UP, 1998)

[9] Al Gore, An Inconvenient Truth: The Planetary Crisis of Global Warming and What We Can Do About It (Rodale, 2006)

[10] Bjorn Lomborg, Cool It: The Skeptical Environmentalist's Guide to Global Warming (Vintage, 2007)

[11] David Archer and Stefan Ramsdorf, The Climate Crisis: An Introductory Guide to Climate Change (Cambridge UP, 2010)

[12] Bjorn Lomborg, The Skeptical Environmentalist: Measuring the Real State of the World (Oxford UP 2001)

[13] Nicholas Stern, The Economics of Climate Change: The Stern Review (Oxford UP 2007)

[14] The Oxford Handbook of Climate Change and Society, ed. J. Dryzek, R. Norgaard, D. Schlosberg (Oxford UP, 2011)

[15] The Ethics of Consumption: The Good Life, Justice, and Global Stewardship, ed. D. Crocker and T. Linden (Rowman & Littlefield, 1998)

[16] Roger Scruton, Green Philosophy: How to Think Seriously about the Planet (London: Atlantic Books, 2012). US Edition: How to Think Seriously about the Planet: The Case for an Environmental Conservatism (Oxford UP, 2012)

SCHEDULE

Session 1. Introduction to the Course. (1) The Problems of Environmental Justice. Three Such Problems: (i) What Does Environmental Justice Require? (ii) Poisoning Colombian Peasants’ Coca Crops to Prevent Americans from Consuming Cocaine. (iii) Another 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) What Are the Ethical Dimensions of the Climate Crisis, and Why Do Economists Disagree So Sharply on the Costs of Climate Change? (3) 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."

Come prepared to discuss:

Kristin Shrader-Frechette, “Introduction,” in Shrader-Frechette, Environmental Justice, pp. 3-21, READ pp. 3-18 ONLY Available on classesV2.

Grace Livingstone, “Why US Drugs Policy Doesn’t Work,” America’s Backyard: The United States and Latin America from the Monroe Doctrine to the War on Terror (London: Latin American Bureau, 2009): 167-187. Available on classesV2.

Kristin Shrader-Frechette, “Developing Nations, Equal Protection, and the Limits of Moral Heroism,” Environmental Justice, pp. 163-183. Available on classesV2.

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

Bjorn Lomborg, “The Truth about the Environment,” Debating the Earth: An Environmental Politics Reader, ed. Dryzek and Schlosberg (Oxford UP, 2005): 74-79. Available on classesV2.

Suggested movie to watch on native peoples & paternalism: Silkwood, directed by Mike Nichols (1983).

So you'd like to know more...

Shrader-Frechette, "Native Peoples and the Problem of Paternalism," in Environmental Justice, pp. 117-133. Available on classesV2.

Considers what to do about contracts in which poor and marginalized indigenous communities take money from corporations in exchange for receiving their hazardous waste products.

Kimberly K. Smith, African American Environmental Thought: Foundations (University of Kansas Press, 2007)

Roger Scruton, "Global Alarming," Green Philosophy: How to Think Seriously about the Planet (London: Atlantic Books, 2012), pp. 38-71. Available on classesV2. Gives an overview of the debate between climate-change catastrophists and climate-change skeptics. Argues from conservative principles that the climate crisis is real, and is best understood as a challenge to responsible stewardship by us, understood as nations.

Avner de-Shalit, "Where Philosophy Meets Politics: The Concept of the Environment," The Environment: Between Theory and Practice (Oxford UP, 2000), pp. 37-45. Available on classesV2.

Asks whether the concept the environment is an essentially contested concept, like freedom or justice.

Session 2. (1) Preservation or Conservation? The Debate between Gifford Pinchot and John Muir: Should We See Animals and Natural Objects as Economic Units, or as Bearers of Rights? A Whirlwind History of Conservationist Environmentalism and Preservationist Environmentalism in the United States. (2) How Aldo Leopold Tried to Reconcile Preservation and Conservation with an Ecologically-Grounded Conservation. (3) Are There Ecological Limits to Economic Growth? (4) 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?

Come prepared to discuss:

Bryan G. Norton, “The Environmentalists’ Dilemma,” Toward Unity among Environmentalists, pp. 3-13. Available on classesV2.

Norton, “Moralists and Aggregators: The Case of [John] Muir and [Gifford] Pinchot,” Toward Unity among Environmentalists, pp. 17-38. Available on classesV2.

Aldo Leopold, “The Land Ethic,” Environmental Ethics, ed. Light and Rolston, pp. 38-46. Available on classesV2.

Kenneth Arrow et al, “Economic Growth, Carrying Capacity, and the Environment,” Science 268 (April 1995): 520-521. Available on classesV2.

Stephen M. Meyer, “The End of the Wild,” Boston Review 29 (Summer 2004): 1-17, READ to top of p. 14 ONLY. Available on classesV2.

So you'd like to know more...

Bryan G. Norton, “Conservationists and Preservationists Today,” Toward Unity among Environmentalists, pp. 61-73. Available on classesV2.

Asks what are the paradigms or world-views to which different camps of environmentalists subscribe? What empirical evidence is there for a dichotomy among the world-views of current environmentalists?

Mark Sagoff, "Environmentalism: Death and Resurrection," The Economy of the Earth: Philosophy, Law, and the Environment, 2nd ed. (Cambridge UP, 2008): 194-208. Available on classesV2.

Tells a history of the U. S. environmentalist movement, according to which the ecological wing and the nature-as-divine wing more or less agreed until 1970, and so environmentalism had a large popular base. After 1970, the two began to disagree, and new environmental NGOs emphasized Washington lobbying and the creation of a class of environmental lobbyists, while cutting their ties with the grassroots. But sees signs that sections of the environmental movement are re-engaging with the nature-as-divine impulse, and reconnecting with the grassroots.

Kenneth E. Boulding, "The Economics of the Coming Spaceship Earth," in Economics, Ecology, Ethics: Essays toward a Steady-State Economy, ed. Herman E. Daly (WH Freeman, 1980): 253-263. Available on classesV2. Famously argues that we must realize that we are converting the Earth, through economic growth, into a closed system, in which resources are finite and in which increasing production and consumption may on balance do more harm than good.

Session 3. Are We Headed for Environmental Catastrophe? What Are the World-Views Concerning How to Understand It and Deal with It? (1) The Survivalist Response: “We’re Headed for Catastrophe If We Don’t Make Radical Changes.” (2) The Promethean Response: “Markets and Human Ingenuity will Take Care of It, So There’s No Genuine Crisis!” (3) 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. (4) The Precautionary Principle of Risk Management: "Better Safe than Sorry!" Can the Principle Be Used to Salvage Survivalism? Should We Think That Where an Activity Poses Some Risk of Serious Harm to Society, However Slight, then the Burden of Proving that We Should Continue as Usual Rests with the Risk-Skeptic?

Read in this order:

John S. 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

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. Available on classesV2. 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.

Cass R. Sunstein, “Beyond the Precautionary Principle,” University of Pennsylvania Law Review 151 (2003): 1003-1058, READ pp. 1003-1035 ONLY. Available on classesV2.

Kristin Shrader-Frechette, “Review of Cass R. Sunstein, Laws of Fear: Beyond the Precautionary Principle (Cambridge UP, 2005),” Ethics & International Affairs 20 (2006): 123-125. Available on classesV2.

So you'd like to know more...Click here for further readings and context

Session 4. (1) The Market-Solutions Response to the Environmental Crisis. (2) The Sustainable-Development Response to the Environmental Crisis. (3) How Does the Current Global Economic Fail to Be Sustainable? Do the Environmental and Equity Costs of a Commitment to Rapid Economic Growth Outweigh the Benefits? What Would a Sustainable Global Economic Order Look Like? (4) Biodiversity: What Is It? What’s So Good about It? How Should We Allocate Our Resources among Alternative Means of Preserving or Conserving Species?

Come prepared to discuss:

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

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

John B. Cobb, Jr., "Toward a Just and Sustainable [Global] Economic Order,” in Environmental Ethics, ed. Light and Rolston, pp. 359-370. Available on classesV2.

Bryan G. Norton, “A Rationale for Preserving Species: An Apology and a Taxonomy,” Why Preserve Natural Variety (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988): 3-22. Available on classesV2.

Norton, “Avoiding Triage: An Alternative Approach to the Priorities Problem,” Why Preserve Natural Variety, pp. 258-269. Available on classesV2.

So you'd like to know more...Click here for further readings and context

Session 5. (1) Consumption: What Sorts of Constraints on It Should We Accept for the Environment’s Sake? (2) Should Rich Countries Close their Doors to Would-be Immigrants from Poor Countries for Fear of the Possibility that Devastating Environmental Consequences and Resource Over-use Would Follow? (3) Can Economics Help Solve Environmental Problems? Why Cost-Benefit Analysis and Discounting the Future Can’t Give Proper Weight to the Interests of Future Generations and Non-Humans. (4) Saving Nature and Feeding People: How to Balance Them?

Come prepared to discuss:

Mark Sagoff, “Do We Consume Too Much?” The Economy of the Earth, 2nd edition (Cambridge University Press, 2008): 110-136. Available on classesV2.

Garrett Hardin, “Living on a Lifeboat,” BioScience (1974). Available on classesV2.

John O’Neill, “The Constituency of Environmental Policy,” Ecology, Policy, and Politics: Human Well-being and the Natural World (London: Routledge, 1993): 44-61. Available on classesV2.

Alan Carter, “Saving Nature and Feeding People,” Environmental Ethics 26 (2004): 339-360, READ pp. 339-358 ONLY. Available on classesV2.

See also...First and second cartoons by Ken Avidor illustrating the tragedy of the commons.

So you'd like to know more...Click here for further readings and context

Session 6. (1) In What Ways Are the Poor and the Food-Challenged Environmentalists? (2) What Do Greens Want? (3) What Are the Greens’ Values?

Come prepared to discuss:

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. Available on classesV2.

Robert E. Goodin, “Green Corollaries,” Green Political Theory, pp. 54-78.

Robert E. Goodin, “A Green Theory of Value,” in Green Political Theory, pp. 19-54.

PAPER PROPOSAL DUE IN CLASS!

So you'd like to know more...

Joan Martinez-Alier, "The environmentalism of the poor: Gold, oil, forests, rivers, biopiracy," The Environmentalism of the Poor: A Study of Ecological Conflicts and Valuation (Edward Elgar, 2002): 100-152. Available on classesV2. An extraordinary survey of a wealth of cases of the world's poor working to defend their environment from degradation.

Session 7. Indigenous Perspectives on Environmental Ethics, Deep Ecology, and Ecological Feminism.

Come prepared to discuss:

Fabienne Bayet, “Overturning the Doctrine: Indigenous People and Wilderness—Being Aboriginal in the Environmental Movement,” in Debating the Earth, pp. 496-504. Available on classesV2.

Arne Naess, “The Deep Ecological Movement: Some Philosophical Aspects,” in Environmental Ethics, ed. Light and Rolston, pp. 262-274, READ pp. 264-273 ONLY. Available on classesV2.

Karen J. Warren, “The Power and the Promise of Ecological Feminism,” Environmental Ethics 12 (1990): 125-146, READ pp. 125-138 ONLY. Available on classesV2.

Val Plumwood, “Being Prey [Surviving A Crocodile Attack],” Utne Reader, July-August 2000. Link on classesV2.

We’ll watch in class the first part of “Crocodile” Dundee, directed by Peter Faiman (1986). We’ll then hold a discussion of Plumwood’s ecofeminist critique of the film.

Suggested movie to watch on indigenous environmental activism...Homeland: Four Portraits of Native Action, directed by Roberta Grossman (2005)

So you'd like to know more about indigenous perspectives...

Click here for images and discussion of terra nullius and justifications of rights to colonial territory.

Winona LaDuke, “All Our Relations,” in Debating the Earth, pp. 489-496. Available on classesV2.

So you'd like to know more about deep ecology and ecofeminism...

V. Rukmini Rao, "Women Farmers of India's Deccan Plateau: Ecofeminists Challenge World Elites," in Environmental Ethics: What Really Matters, What Really Works, ed. David Schmidtz and Elizabeth Willott (Oxford UP, 2002), pp. 255-263. Available on classesV2.

Deborah Slicer, "Is There an Ecofeminism-Deep Ecology Debate?" Environmental Ethics 17 (1995): 151-169.

Karen J. Warren and Jim Cheney, "Ecological Feminism and Ecosystem Ecology," Hypatia 6 (1991): 179-197. Examines 10 similarities between ecofeminism and the science of ecology.

Val Plumwood, Feminism and the Mastery of Nature (London: Routledge, 1993)

Session 8. Climate Change as Perfect Moral Storm 1: The Global Storm.

Come prepared to discuss:

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

Gardiner, “Somebody Else’s Problem?” A Perfect Moral Storm, pp. 75-102.

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

So you'd like to know more...

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.

Avner de-Shalit, "Climate Change Refugees, Compensation, and Rectification," The Monist 94 (2011): 310-328.

Session 9. Climate Change as Perfect Moral Storm 2: The Intergenerational Storm.

Come prepared to discuss:

Brian Barry, “Sustainability and Intergenerational Justice,” in Environmental Ethics: An Anthology, ed. Light and Rolston, pp. 487-499, READ pp. 487-497 ONLY. Available on classesV2.

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

Gardiner, “An Intergenerational Arms Race?” A Perfect Moral Storm, pp. 185-209.

So you'd like to know more...Karl Mannheim, “The Sociological Problem of Generations,” [1923] in Younger than Jesus: The Generation Book, ed. Lauren Cornell (New Museum/Steidl, 2009): 163-195. Available through the hyperlink.

Wilfred Beckerman and Joanna Pasek, "Brian Barry's Approach [to Justice between Generations]," Justice, Posterity, and the Environment (Oxford UP, 2001): 40-44. Available on classesV2.

Session 10. (1) Climate Change as Perfect Moral Storm 3: Moral Corruption. (2) Does the Current Free Trade Regime Unacceptably Accelerate Climate Change and Harm the Poor? Are There Free Trade Policies That Would Be Good Both for the Climate and the Poor?

Come prepared to discuss:

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

Nicole Hassoun, “Free Trade, Poverty, and the Environment,” Public Affairs Quarterly 22 (2008): 353-380, READ pp. 353-369 ONLY. Available on classesV2.

We will watch in class the opening scenes of Sense and Sensibility, directed by Ang Lee (1995), since they are discussed in Gardiner’s chapter.

FINAL PAPER DUE IN CLASS!

So you'd like to know more...

Herman E. Daly, "Against free trade: neoclassical and steady-state perspectives," Journal of Evolutionary Economics 5(1995): 313-326. Available on classesV2.

Jagdish Bhagwati, "The Case for Free Trade," Scientific American, November 1993, pp. 42-49. Available on classesV2.

Herman E. Daly, "The Perils of Free Trade," Scientific American, November 1993, pp. 50-57. Available on classesV2.

Dani Rodrik, "The Global Governance of Trade As If Development Really Mattered," One Economics, Many Recipes: Globalization, Institutions, and Economic Growth (Princeton UP, 2007): 213-236. Available on classesV2.

Argues that world trade should be governed so that development-as-rising-living-standards is the end of such trade, and also a constraint on the means. Trade should not be governed as it now is--with the sole aims of maximizing trade and promoting more of it. For to govern it that way is to invite the skeptical challenge that development is neo-colonialism.