Fall 2024 Environmental Ethics (UC Riverside)

Overview

This course addresses ethical issues raised by the environment and our interaction with it. Just about all our readings and discussion will touch on at least one of these four big questions:

Do we evaluate environmental policies and actions mainly in terms of cost-benefit analyses or, more generally, maximizing the net value in the world; if not, what other standards should we use?

Do non-human entities in nature have value solely because of how they affect humans and their interests; if not, what is the source of their value?

How do we conceptualize the injustices inflicted upon oppressed and marginalized groups due to environmental crises such as climate change and pollution, and what do those conceptualizations tell us about the responses we should make to those injustices and crises?

What moral obligations, if any, do individuals have to reduce their personal greenhouse gas emissions or combat climate change, even though our individual contributions to climate change are miniscule in comparison to what whole industries or countries contribute?

Our readings throughout the quarter address these questions along with more specific topics, such as: green energy and lithium mining, the value of species and endangered species in particular, geoengineering to combat climate change, the relationship between our aesthetic judgments and our environmental impact, and environmental civil disobedience. We will also apply the concepts and arguments of the class to environmental issues in California: ethical issues raised by the Salton Sea and the possible pros and cons of the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) and ideas on how to improve it.

Schedule with Readings (as of 9/25/24)

Details subject to change. All readings will be uploaded to Canvas, either in the Files section or via an announcement.

Weeks 0-1 (R Sept 26, T Oct 1, R Oct 3): Why environmental ethics?

R Sept 26: Class introduction. Analysis in the Washington Post, “Should You Not Have Kids Because of Climate Change? It’s Complicated.” Interview in Yale Climate Connections, “Should Climate Change Keep You from Having Kids?”

T Oct 1: Garrett Hardin, “The Tragedy of the Commons” (skip the section “How to Legislate Temperance?” and the three sections after it; start reading again at “Mutual Coercion Mutually Agreed upon.”) Elinor Ostrom et al., “Revisiting the Commons: Local Lessons, Global Challenges.”

R Oct 3: “Our Common Future”/The Brundtland Report on Sustainability, Chapter 2 (here) and Annexe 1 (here).

Week 2: Consequences and rights

T: Dale Jamieson, “Consequentialism” (excerpt from Ethics and the Environment).

R: Simon Caney, “Climate Change, Human Rights, and Moral Thresholds.”

Week 3: Justice and capability

T: Manuel Rodeiro: “Mining Thacker Pass: Environmental Justice and the Demands of Green Energy,” up to the section “Adjudicated Cases in Which…” Document on John Rawls’ theory of justice, written by me (Prof. Smith), along with news releases about the litigation surrounding Thacker Pass.

R: Rodeiro, rest of the paper. Martha Nussbaum, excerpt from “In Defense of Universal Values,” Chapter 1 of Women and Human Development.

Week 4: Nature’s value and intrinsic value

T: Krushil Watene, “Valuing nature: Māori philosophy and the capability approach.” [Optional: Sen, “Why Save the Spotted Owl? Sustainability”]

R: J. Baird Callicott: “The Convergence Hypothesis Falsified: Implicit Intrinsic Value, Operational Rights, and De Facto Standing in the Endangered Species Act.”

Week 5: Additional dimensions of (in)justice

T: Kyle Powys White: “Is it Colonial Déjà Vu? Indigenous Peoples and Climate Injustice.” Clare Heyward: “Climate Change as Cultural Injustice.” [Optional: skim the sixth IPCC report summary for policymakers]

R: Marion Hourdequin: “Climate Change, Climate Engineering, and the ‘Global Poor’: What Does Justice Require?”. Internet resources on solar engineering, including here (“An Indigenous Group’s Objection to Geoengineering Spurs a Debate About Social Justice in Climate Science”)

Week 6: Applying our tools to ethical issues in California

T: News release: “New Study Suggests California’s Environmental Policies Preferentially Protect Whites.” (here). Robert Brulle and David Pellow: “Environmental Justice: Human Health and Environmental Inequalities.” Story Maps “Exposing the Desert” on the Salton Sea by the UCR Center for Health Disparities Research (Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3). UCR Story Map, “Environmental Health and Justice in Southern California” (final project from Environmental Health and Social Justice course at UCR in 2020) (here).

R: Rigel Robinson, “When a Statute Loses Its Way: Fulfilling the Original Intent of the California Environmental Quality Act.” General resources and articles on CEQA (e.g. here, here, here, here). Resources and articles on legal challenges to World Logistics Center in Moreno Valley under CEQA (e.g. here, here (pdf, see p. 16/p. 23 of file)).

[Alternative for R, contingent up student input: Material on recent Supreme Court cases with significant environmental impact (e.g. West Virginia vs. EPA and Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo), relating them to issues of participatory justice discussed by Hourdequin]

Week 7: Climate change and each individual’s impact

T: John Broome, Climate Matters, Chapter 4, “Justice and Fairness,” pp. 49-59 and Chapter 5, “Private Morality” (skipping pp. 81-85). [Optional: Broome, “How Much Harm Does Each of Us Do?”]

R: Sarah Conly, One Child: Do We Have a Right to More?, Chapter 2: “The Right to a Family,” Chapter 4, “Sanctions.”

Week 8: Climate change and each individual’s impact, continued

T: Continue discussion of material from Week 7. R: No class, Thanksgiving

Week 9: Aesthetics and the environment

T: Lilly-Marlene Russow: “Why do Species Matter?”. Resources on Tennessee Valley Authority v. Hill (e.g. here, here).

R: Yuriko Saito, “Everyday Aesthetics.”

Week 10: Environmental civil disobedience, review

T: Jennifer Welchman: “Environmental Civil Disobedience.”

R: Review and discussion to prepare for final exam.

Week 11/Exam Week. Final exam: Saturday December 7th 8am-11am in our usual classroom.