PHIL/ES 233: Environmental Ethics

Wellesley College, Fall 2023 (DRAFT: Subject to Change)

This course will train students to use philosophical methods to engage in rigorous investigation of ethical issues concerning the environment. Topics may include animal rights, the ethics of eating, climate justice, the rights of ecological refugees, obligations to future generations, and the ethics of environmental activism.

Readings:

1

Introduction: Some basic tools for the course.

• The Pink Guide to Philosophy

2

Moral Status 1:

• Christine Korsgaard, "On the Value of People and Animals"

3

Moral Status 2:

• Elizabeth Anderson, "Animal Rights and the Values of Nonhuman Life"

4

Moral Status 3:

• Anderson continued

5

Moral Status 4:

• Ronald Sandler, "Ecocentrism"

6

Individual Responsibility and Collective Action 1: Integrity

• Trevor Hedberg, "Climate Change, Moral Integrity, and Obligations to Reduce Individual Greenhouse Gas Emissions "

7

Individual Responsibility and Collective Action 2: Complicity

• Adrienne Martin, "Factory Farming and Consumer Complicity"

8

Individual Responsibility and Collective Action 3: Solidarity

• Robin Zheng, "Reconceptualizing Solidarity as Power from Below"

9

Individual Responsibility and Collective Action 4: Hope

• Cody C. Dout and Arthur R. Obst, "Individual Responsibility and the Ethics of Hoping for a More Just Climate Future"

10

Confronting Climate Grief 1:

• Katie McShane, "Loving an Unfamiliar World: Dementia, Metal Illness, and Climate Change"

11

Confronting Climate Grief 2:

• Celine Leboeuf, "Fearing the Future: Is Life Worth Living in the Anthropocene?"

12

Climate Justice 1: 

• Tim Hayward, “Human Rights Versus Emissions Rights: Climate Justice and the Equitable Distribution of Ecological Space”

13

Climate Justice 2

• Edwin Etieyibo "Ubuntu, Cosmopolitanism, and Distribution of Natural Resources"

14

Climate Justice 3

• Kyle Powys Whyte, “Indigenous Experience, Environmental Justice, and Settler Colonialism”

• Recommended Film: Angry Inuk, by Alethea Arnaquq-Baril

15

Climate Justice 4

• Shelbi Nahwilet Meissner, "Reclaiming Rainmaking from Damming Epistemologies: Indigenous Resistance to Settler Colonial Contributory Injustice"

16

Climate  Change Denial

• Catriona McKinnon, "Should We Tolerate Climate Change Denial?" 

17

Campus Walk with Practitioner-Fellow Waban Webquish

18

Climate Activism 1

• Ten-Herng Lai and Chong-Ming Lim, “Environmental Activism and the Fairness of Costs Argument for Uncivil Disobedience”

19

Climate Activism 2

• Listen: Barry Lam, HiPhi Nation, S3E8 "Uncivil Disobedience"

20

Peer Editing Workshop

21

Peer Editing Workshop

22

Environmental Ethics and Parenthood 1

• Elizabeth Cripps, "Do Parents Have a Special Duty to Mitigate Climate Change?"

23

Environmental Ethics and Parenthood 2

• Jeremy Fischer and Rachel Fredericks, "Creating Carnists"

24

Environmental Ethics and Parenthood 3

• Trevor Hedberg, “The Duty to Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions and the Limits of Permissible Procreation

25

Environmental Ethics and Parenthood 4

• Anca Gheaus, “More Co-Parents, Fewer Children: Multiparenting and Sustainable Population”

26

Conclusion