Philosophy and the Environment

PHL 3810 Karen Green

Course outline 1997

This course provides an overview of topics in environmental philosophy with the emphasis on environmental ethics. Assessment consists of two essays of 3000 words each. One essay can be replaced by a three hour exam. Students who are taking this course as part of the Masters in Environmental Science, or as contributing to a fourth year reading course should see the lecturer to discuss assessment.

Dates for essays; the first essay will be due on April 28, the second essay wil be due on June 9.

week 1; Introduction; defining terms; deep vs shallow ecology, anthropocentric vs non-anthropocentric values. Expanding the circle or adopting a new environmental ethic?

March 3 reading;

• Arne Naess, 'The Shallow and the Deep, long range ecology movement; a summary', Inquiry 16 (1973)
• J. Baird Callicot, 'The Search for an Environmental Ethic' in Tom Regan, ed., Matters of Life and Death
• Robert Goodin, 'Ethical Principles for Environmental Protection' in Robert Elliot and Arran Gare, eds. Environmental Philosophy

week 2; Extending concern to sentient beings. Do animals have a right to life?

March 10 reading;

• Peter Singer, Animal Liberation, Chs.1& 6, Random House, New York, 1973.
• Immanuel Kant, 'Duties towards Animals and Spirits', from Lectures on Ethics
• Joel Feinberg, 'The Rights of Animals and Unborn Generations' in William Blackstone (ed) Philosophy and Environmental Crisis University of Georgia Press, 1974, reprinted in Ernest Partridge (ed) Responsibilities to Future Generations Prometheus Books, Buffalo, 1980.
• Tom Regan, 'The Case for Animal Rights' in Tom Regan and Peter Singer, eds., Animal Rights and Human Obligations 2nd.edn. Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, N.J. 1989.
• H.J. McCloskey, 'Moral Rights and Animals' Inquiry 22, 1979.

week 3. Introduction to the deep ecology platform; the intrinsic value of nature and holism.

March 17 reading;

• Aldo Leopold, 'The Land Ethic' from A Sand Country Almanac_ Oxford, 1966.
• Paul Taylor, Respect for Nature, (from) Chs.2 & 3, Princeton University Press, 1986.
• Bill Devall and George Sessions, Deep Ecology, Ch.5, Peregrine Smith, Utah, 1985.

week 4; Are animal liberation and deep ecology compatible?

March 24 reading;

• J. Baird Callicot, 'Animal Liberation a Triangular Affair' in In Defense of the Land Ethic, State University of New York Press, Albany, 1989.
• Holmes Rolston III Environmental Ethics, Temple University Press, Philadelphia, 1988, Ch.2.
• Aldo Leopold, 'Means and Ends in Wildlife Management' Environmental Ethics 12, 1990.
• Mary Anne Warren, 'The Rights of the Nonhuman World' in Robert Elliot and Arran Gare, eds. Environmental Philosophy University of Queensland Press, 1983.

week 5. What do we mean by 'the intrinsic value of nature'? Does environmental ethics require a particular meta-ethic?

April 7 reading;

• John O'Neill, 'The Varieties of Intrinsic Value', Monist 75, 1992.
• Karen Green, 'Two Distinctions in Environmental Goodness, Environmental Values 5, 1996.

week 6 Environmental Ethics and Evolutionary Ethics

April 14 reading;

• Michael Ruse, 'Evolutionary Ethics: A Defense' in Holmes Rolston III ed. Biology, Ethics and the Origins of Life, 1995
• Immanuel Kant, extract from Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals

week 7 Buddhism, Spinoza and the critique of the 'western world view.

April 21 reading;

• Stephen Clark, 'Gaia and the Forms of Life' in Robert Elliot and Arran Gare, eds. Environmental Philosophy University of Queensland Press, 1983.
• Arne Naes, Ecology, Community and Lifestyle 1989 Ch 7
• Freya Mathews, The Ecological Self, Routledge, London, 1990, Ch.4.
• John O'Neill, Ecology, Policy and Politics Ch.9.

week 8. Ecofeminism

April 28 reading;

• Rosmary Reuther, New Woman, New Earth, Ch.8, Dove Communications, Melbourne, 1975.
• Elizabeth Dodson Grey, Green Paradise Lost, Roundtable Press, Massachusetts, 1981, Chs.1, 2 &4.
• Karen J. Warren, 'The Power and Promise of Ecological Feminism' Environmental Ethics 12, 1990, pp. 125-43.
• Karen Green, 'Freud, Wollstonecraft and Ecofeminism; a Defense of Liberal Feminism', Environmental Ethics 16, 1994, pp. 117-34
• Luce Irigaray, 'A Chance for Life' in Sexes and Genealogies, 1983

week 9. Overpopulation and the Tradgedy of the Commons.

May 5.reading;

• Garret Hardin, 'The Tragedy of the Commons' Science 162, 1968, and 'Living on a Lifeboat' Bioscience 24, 1974, reprinted in Garrett Hardin and John Baden, (eds) Managing the Commons, 1977 and in Michael Bayles ed. Ethics and Population.
• William Aiken, 'The "Carrying Capacity" Equivocation', Social Theory and Practice 6, 1980, reprinted in Donald VanDeVeer and Christine Pierce eds., Environmental Ethics and Policy Book 1993
• Amartya Sen, 'Food Economics and Entitlements' in Jean Dreze, Amartya Sen and Athar Hussain eds. The Political Economy of Hunger, 1995.
• Jean Dreze and Amartya Sen, Hunger and Public Action 1989, Ch. 8.

week 10 Overpopulation and the dictates of morality.

May 12 reading:

• Peter Singer, 'Famine, Affluence and Morality', Philosophy and Public Affairs 7, 1972.
• Onora O'Neill, 'The Moral Perplexities of Famine and World Hunger' in Tom Regan, ed., Matters of Life and Death

week 11 What are the prospects for global environmental justice?

May 19 reading:

• Dale Jamieson, 'Global Environmental Justice', in Robin Attfield and Andrew Belsey eds., Philosophy and the Natural Environment Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 36 to Philosophy, 1994
• Robert Goodin, 'International Ethics and Environmental Crisis,' Ethics and International Affairs 4, 1990, reprinted in Robert Goodin ed. The Politics of the Environment
• John Rawls, 'The Law of Peoples,' Critical Inquiry 20, 1993.

week 12-13 Population and the Repugnant Conclusion

May 26 & June 2 reading:

• Derek Parfit, 'Overpopulation and the Quality of Life' in Peter Singer ed., Applied Ethics
• Derek Parfit, Reasons and Persons Part IV, Oxford, 1984.

Philosophy and the Environment; PHL3810 Booklet Contents;

week 1 Arne Naess, 'The Shallow and the Deep, long range ecology movement; a summary', Inquiry 16, 1973.

week 2 Peter Singer, Animal Liberation, Ch.1, Random House, New York, 1973.Immanuel Kant, 'Duties towards Animals and Spirits', from Lectures on Ethics

Joel Feinberg, 'The Rights of Animals and Unborn Generations' reprinted from William Blackstone ed. Philosophy and Environmental Crisis 1974.

Tom Regan, 'The Case for Animal Rights' from Tom Regan and Peter Singer, eds., Animal Rights and Human Obligations, 2nd edn. Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, N.J. 1989.

week 3 Aldo Leopold, 'The Land Ethic', from A Sand Country Almanac, Oxford, 1966.

Paul Taylor, from Chs.2 & 3, Respect for Nature, Princeton University Press, 1986.

week 4 J. Baird Callicot, 'Animal Liberation a Triangular Affair', from In Defense of the Land Ethic, State University of New York Press, Albany, 1989.

week 5 Karen Green, 'Two Distinctions in Environmental Goodness', forthcoming in Environmental Values 5, 1996

week 6 Michael Ruse, 'Evolutionary Ethics: A Defense' in Holmes Rolston III ed. Biology, Ethics and the Origins of Life, 1995

Immanuel Kant, extract from Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals

week 7 Stephen Clark, 'Gaia and the Forms of Life', in Robert Elliot and Arran Gare, eds. Environmental Philosophy, University of Queensland Press, 1983.

week 8 Rosmary Reuther, New Woman, New Earth, Ch.8, Dove Communications, Melbourne, 1975.

Elizabeth Dodson Grey, Green Paradise Lost, Roundtable Press, Massachusetts, 1981, Chs.1-4.

week 9 Garret Hardin, 'The Tragedy of the Commons' Science 162, 1968 and 'Living on a Lifeboat' Bioscience 24, 1974,

week 10 Peter Singer, 'Famine, Affluence and Morality', Philosophy and Public Affairs 7, 1972.

week 12 Derek Parfit, 'Overpopulation and the Quality of Life' in Peter Singer ed., Applied Ethics

week 13 Dale Jamieson, 'Global Environmental Justice', in Robin Attfield and Andrew Belsey eds., Philosophy and the Natural Environment Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 36 to Philosophy, 1994

Further Reading on Topics;

This guide to further reading is intended to help you to research further into topics which you find of particular interest, and in particular to help with the production of essays. The selection is not comprehensive and the books and articles are not ordered by importance.

Animals

• Carol Adams, Feminism and the Defense of Animals 1994
• Tom Regan, The Case for Animal Rights, 1986
• Peter Singer, ed In Defence of Animals 1985
• Mary Midgley, Animals and Why They Matter, 1983
• Tom Regan, All That Dwell Therein 1982
• R.G. Frey, Interests and Rights; the case against animals, 1980.
• Peter Singer and Tom Regan eds. Animal Rights and Human Obligations 1979, 2nd edn. 1976.

Animal Liberation vs Environmental Ethics

• Baird Callicot, 'Moral Monism in Environmental Ethics Defended' Journal of Philosophical Research 19, 1994, pp. 51-60.
• Eugene Hargrove ed., The Animal Rights/Environmental Ethics Debate 1992
• Baird Callicott, 'The Case Against Moral Pluralism', 'Environmental Ethics 12, 1990, pp. 9-24.
• Baird Callicott, 'Animal Rights and Environmental Ethics: Back Together Again', in In Defense of the Land Ethic, 1989

Anthropocentrism

• Richard A. Watson, 'A Critique of anti-anthropocentric biocentrism', Environmental Ethics 5, 1983.
• Bernard Williams, 'Must Concern for the Environment be Centred on Human Beings?', in C.C.W. Taylor ed. Ethics and the Environment, 1992.
• Bryan Norton, 'Why I am not a Nonanthropocentrist: Callicott and the Failure of Monistic Inherentism', Environmental Ethics 17, 1995, pp. 341-58
• Deep Ecology Janna Thompson, 'A Refutation of Environmental Ethics' Environmental Ethics 12, 1990.
• Richard Sylvan, 'Critique of Deep Ecology' 1&2 Radical Philosophy 40 &41,
• Intrinsic Value: G.E. Moore, 'The Conception of Intrinsic Value' in Philosophical Studies.
• H.J. McCloskey, 'Ecological Ethics and its Justification' in Mannison, McRobbie, Routley, eds. Environmental Philosoph, 1980.
• R. and V. Routley, 'Human Chauvinism and Environmental Ethics', in Mannison, McRobbie, Routley, eds. Environmental Philosophy, 1980
• William Godfrey-Smith, 'The Rights of Non-humans and Intrinsic Values' in Mannison, McRobbie and Routley, (eds) Environmental Philosophy, 1980
• Christine M. Korsgaard, 'Two Distinctions in Goodness', The Philosophical Review 92, 1983.
• Robert Elliot, 'Meta-ethics and Environmental Ethics' Metaphilosophy, 16, 1985.
• Holmes Rolston III, 'Value in Nature and the Nature of Value' in Philosophy and the Natural Environment Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 36 to Philosophy, 1994

Evolutionary Ethics

• Holmes Rolston III ed, Biology, Ethics and the Origins of Life, 1995
• Peter Singer, The Expanding Circle: Ethics and Sociobiology 1983

Ecofeminism

• Carolyn Merchant, The Death of Nature, Chs.1, 4-8.
• Ariel Salleh, 'Deeper than Deep Ecology; the Ecofeminist Connection' Environmental Ethics 6, 1984.
• Irene Diamond and Gloria Orenstein, eds.Reweaving the World , 1990
• Val Plumwood, 'Nature Self and Gender: Feminism, Environmental Philosophy, and the Critique of Rationalism,' Hypatia 6, 1991, reprinted in Robert Goodin, ed. The Politics of the Environment, 1994.
• Nora Federici, Karen Mason and Solvi Sogner, Women's Position and Demographic Change, 1995.

Buddhism,Spinoza & holism

• Chatsumarn Kabilsingh, 'Buddhist Ethical Ecology', Icus 17 (photocopy in reserve)
• I.B. Horner, Early Buddhism and the Taking of Life (photocopy in library)
• L. Schmithausen, 'The Status of Plants in Earliest Buddhism' (photocopy in reserve)
• Walpola Rahula, What the Buddha Taught, 1959
• Arne Naess, 'Spinoza and Ecology' in Siegfried Hessing ed. Speculum Spinozanum 1977
• Arne Naess, 'Through Spinoza to Mahayana Buddhism or through Mahayana Buddhism to Spinoza' in Jon Wetlesen ed. Spinoza's Philosophy of Man 1978
• Jon Wetlesen, The Sage and the Way, 1979
• Genevieve Lloyd, 'Spinoza's Environmental Ethics', Inquiry 23, 1980.
• Arne Naess, 'Environmental Ethics and Spinasa's Ethics. Comments on Genevieve Lloyde's Article,' Inquiry 23, 1980.
• Stephen Clark, 'Gaia and the Forms of Life' in Robert Elliot and Arran Gare, eds. Environmental Philosophy University of Queensland Press, 1983.
• Padmasiri da Silva, 'Buddhist Ethics' in Peter Singer ed. A Companion to Ethics, 1991
• Stephen Batchelor, 'The Sands of the Ganges; towards a Buddhist ecological philosophy' in Batchelor and Brown eds., Buddhism and Ecology 1992
• Stephen R.L. Clark 'Global Religion' in Philosophy and the Natural Environment Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 36 to Philosophy, 1994

Heidegger and Deep Ecology

• Martin Heidegger, 'The Question Concerning Technology' in Martin Heidegger: basic writings, ed David Krell, 1977.
• Michael Zimmerman, 'Heidegger, Buddhism and Deep Ecology' in Charles Guignon ed The Cambridge Companion to Heidegger, 1993.
• Tom Rockmore, On Heidegger's Nazism and Philosophy,Ch 6 1992.
• John Caputo, 'Heidegger and Theology' in Charles Guignon ed The Cambridge Companion to Heidegger, 1993.

Overpopulation

• William Murdoch and Allen Oaten, 'Population and Food: a critique of lifeboat ethics' Bioscience 25, 1975
• Alan Gewirth, 'Starvation and Human Rights' in Goodpaster and Sayer, Ethics and Problems of the 21st Century, 1979.
• Michael Bayles, 'Famine or Food: Sacrificing for Future Generations' in Ernest Partridge (ed) Responsibilities to Future Generations Prometheus Books, Buffalo, 1980.
• Mary Anne Warren, 'Do Potential Persons Have Rights?' in Ernest Partridge (ed) Responsibilities to Future Generations Prometheus Books, Buffalo, 1980.
• Amartya Sen, Poverty and Famines 1981
• Derek Parfit, Reasons and Persons Part IV, Oxford, 1984.
• Derek Parfit, 'Overpopulation and the Quality of Life' in Peter Singer ed., Applied Ethics, 1986
• Amaryta Sen and Jean Dreze, Hunger and Public Action 1989
• Partha Dasgupta, OnWell-Being and Destitution 1993
• Environmental Justice: Robert Simon, 'Troubled Waters: Global Justice and Ocean Resources' in Tom Regan ed. Earthbound, 1984