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Donald VanDeVeer and Christine Pierce, eds., The Environmental Ethics and Policy Book
(Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 1994)--listed as (EEPB) below.
Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac: With Essays on Conservation from
Round River (New York: Ballantine, 1966)--listed as (ASCA) below.
Philosophy 380 Supplemental Readings--listed as (SR) below.
1. A 5 min./short-answer type reading quiz will be announced for each reading assignment. No late reading quizzes will be accepted (don't even ask), but the two worst grades will be dropped. The average of the remaining grades will equal 1/4 of the course grade.
2. Students will choose one of the following three options to determine the remaining 3/4 of their course grade.
a. Three multiple-choice examinations as scheduled below, each equal 1/4 of the course grade.
b. Three medium-length (7 page) papers on a specific topic (which must be approved by the instructor) within each section, to be turned in at the end of that section (on the date of the exam for each section), each will equal 1/4 of the course grade.
c. One full-length (20 page) paper on some topic in environmental ethics (subject to approval of the instructor). This will be turned in no later than the final exam period and will count for 3/4 of the course grade.
Reading Assignment Topic
1. Introduction
Reading: Donella Meadows "Biodiversity: The Key to Saving Life on Earth"
(SR), Ann Causey "Environmental Ethics: What's the Point?" (SR).
2. Mill and Muir: 19th Century Precursors
Reading: John Stuart Mill "Nature" (SR), John Muir "The Wild Parks and
Forest Reservations of the West," "American Forests," "Hetch Hetchy"
(SR).
3. The Environmental Crisis?: Whose Fault?
Reading: "Genesis" chapts.1-3 (SR), Lynn White Jr. "The Historical Roots
of Our Ecologic Crisis" (EEPB:45-51), Fritjof Capra "The Newtonian World
Machine" (SR).
4. Environmental Economics: An Overview
Reading: William Baxter "People or Penguins" (EEPB:303-07), Garrett
Hardin "The Tragedy of the Commons" (EEPB:422-30), Michael Kinsley and
L. Hunter Lovins "Paying for Growth, Prospering from Development" (SR).
FIRST EXAMINATION
5. Evolutionary Thought: Animal Welfare Ethics or First-Phase Extensionism
Reading: Charles Darwin "Mental Powers" chapt.II[of The Descent of Man]
(SR), Aldo Leopold (ASCA:xvii-36, 101-08, 116-19), Peter Singer "Animal
Liberation" (EEPB:66-73), Tom Regan "The Case for Animal Rights"
(EEPB:77-84).
6. Evolutionary Thought Cont.: Biocentrism or Second-Phase Extensionism
Reading: Kenneth Goodpaster "On Being Morally Considerable"
(EEPB:105-12), Paul W. Taylor "The Ethics of Respect for Nature"
(EEPB:124-38).
7. A Critique of Extensionism
Reading: Donald VanDeVeer "Interspecific Justice" (EEPB:179-93), Mark
Sagoff "Animal Liberation and Environmental Ethics: Bad Marriage, Quick
Divorce" (SR), J. Baird Callicott "Review of Tom Regan, The Case for
Animal Rights" (SR).
8. The Gaia Hypothesis and Gaian Ethics
Reading: James Lovelock and Sidney Epton "In Quest for Gaia" (SR), Aldo
Leopold "Some Fundamentals of Conservation in the Southwest" (SR),
Lawrence E. Johnson "Toward the Moral Considerability of Species and
Ecosystems" (EEPB:493-501).
SECOND EXAMINATION
9. Ecological Thought
Reading: Aldo Leopold (ASCA:111-16, 137-41, 158-63, 188-210), Paul
Shepard "Ecology and Man: A Viewpoint" (SR).
10. Deep Ecology and Radical Environmental Activism
Reading: Bill Devall and George Sessions "Deep Ecology" (EEPB:215-20),
Dave Foreman "Strategic Monkeywrenching" (EEPB:603-06), Reed Noss
"Biologists, Biophiles, and Warriors" (SR).
11. The Ethical Foundations of the Land Ethic
Reading: David Hume "Of Virtue and Vice in General" volume III, book
III, part I[of A Treatise of Human Nature] (SR), Adam Smith "Of
Sympathy" part I, section I, chapt. 1[of The Theory of Moral Sentiments]
(SR).
12. The Land Ethic
Reading: Charles Darwin "Mental Powers" chapt.III[of The Descent of Man]
(SR), Aldo Leopold "The Land Ethic" (ASCA:237-64).
13.The Land Ethic Criticized and Defended
Reading: J. Baird Callicott "The Conceptual Foundations of the Land
Ethic" (EEPB: 147-61), Michael Nelson "Holists and Fascists and Paper
Tigers...Oh My!" (SR).
14. The Great New Wilderness Debate
Reading: Aldo Leopold "Wilderness" (ASCA:264-79), Michael Nelson
"Rethinking Wilderness: The Need for a New Idea of Wilderness" (SR).
FINAL EXAMINATION
Since material on the exams will draw from information and
interpretation developed only in class, absenteeism will affect your
grade.
Please note that, although this is largely a lecture style course,
in-class participation is welcomed.
Conversion from numerical to letter grade: 94-100=A; 90-93=A-; 87-89=B+;
84-86=B; 80-83=B-; 77-79=C+; 74-76=C; 70-73=C-; 67-69=D+; 62-66=D;
60-61=D-; 0-59=F.