M,W 4-5:15, ECTR 201
Ned Hettinger, Office: 16 Glebe, Rm. 301
Spring 97, Office Hrs: M, W 11-12
Office Phone: 953-5786, (Also, stop by my office or make an appointment)
Home Phone: 883-9201 (Not after 9 p.m.)
This course examines recent writings of several key figures in contemporary environmental thought: Holmes Rolston, William Cronon, and Anthony Weston. Holmes Rolston is the most prominent and insightful philosophical defender of a traditional, common-sense environmentalist perspective. His Conserving Natural Value is an issue-oriented and scientifically-grounded capsulation of the field of environmental philosophy. Environmental historian William Cronon is probably the most influential articulator of a growing, powerful, and multidimensional challenge to traditional environmentalism. His Uncommon Ground: Toward Reinventing Nature argues that the environmentalist's nature is a social construct (both conceptually and empirically) and that a proper historical understanding of nature requires reevaluating the traditional environmentalist paradigm with its focus on wilderness preservation and alleged human/nature separation. Anthony Weston is one of the more imaginative and practical environmental philosophers writing today. The course ends with a examination of Weston's Back to Earth: Tomorrow's Environmentalism, an exploration of modes of awareness and concrete practices that he thinks make possible an experiential rapprochement with the "more-than-human-world."
Holmes Rolston, Conserving Natural Value
Anthony Weston, Back to Earth: Tomorrow's Environmentalism
Packet of readings (will be at Sas-E Ink, 79 Wentworth)
Each student will give two oral presentations to the class. Their purpose is to encourage you to teach and learn from each other and to facilitate class discussion and paper writing. Each presentation should be about 3-4 minutes long. One of these presentations will address the reading for that class period. For this presentation, you should provide a brief synopsis of the reading and respond from your own perspective to what you consider to be significant points. Find the central points from the reading that you think are worth bringing to your fellow students' attention, explain what they are, and then present your own thinking about the issues involved. The second oral presentation should explain the issues and arguments in your paper. I will distribute a sign-up sheet for these presentations, allowing you some choice over the topic and date of your presentations. For your paper presentation, you should turn in a one page synopsis of the paper to me at the beginning of class before your presentation. Do not miss your oral presentations. If this becomes unavoidable, please contact me before the class.
Exam on Rolston's Conserving Natural Value (25%)
Exam (during the final exam period) on Weston's Back to Earth: Tomorrow's Environmentalism and on the readings about Cronon's "reinvention of nature" (25%)
Major Paper, including a description of the project (34%). A 6-8 page paper on some topic of your choice in the area of environmental philosophy.
Each student will give an oral presentations to the class about her or his paper. A written description of the paper is due on the date of this oral presentation. Papers are due two weeks after the oral presentation on them.
Class Participation and Attendance (16%)
This includes oral presentations to the class, general quality of class involvement, and attendance. Attendance is particularly important in this class. I want you to learn from each other. Also, developing the skill of thinking philosophically requires practice and following examples. These can't be adequately done on your own. Poor attendance will lower your grade; extremely poor attendance (missing five or six classes) is a sufficient ground for failing the course. I give assignments and distribute handouts and an attendance sheet at the beginning of class. Please come to class on time.
This course is not an introduction to environmental ethics. It assumes an interest in complex philosophical analysis about how to conceive of and value the natural world. Students should feel prepared to present some of the course material to their classmates. Although there are no prerequisites, a previous course in environmental ethics would be useful. If you do not have such a background, I recommend working through the following readings (available on reserve at the library). I also have handouts on some of these readings which I can share with you.
1. William Baxter, People or Penguins: The Case for Optimal Pollution, pp. 1-13.
2. Aldo Leopold, "The Land Ethic," in A Sand County Almanac pp. 217-240.
3. Peter Singer, "All Animals are Equal," in Regan/Singer eds., Animal Rights and Human Obligations 2nd ed., pp. 73-87.
4. Tom Regan, "The Case for Animal Rights," in Regan/Singer eds., Animal Rights and Human Obligations 2nd ed., pp. 105-115.
5. J. Baird Callicott, "Animal Liberation: A Triangular Affair," in Eugene Hargrove, ed. The Animal Rights, Environmental Ethics Debate : the Environmental Perspective pp. 37-70.
1. Introduction
Rolston's Conserving Natural Value
2. Chapter One: Natural and Cultural Values
i. Nature and Culture
ii. Nature Supporting Culture
iii. Residence and Resource: Community and Commodity
iv. Urban, Rural and Wild
v. Environmental Values and Human Rights
vi. Future Generations
vii. Environmental Policy
viii. Balancing Natural and Cultural Values
(1) Ten rules of thumb
3. Chapter Two: Diversity and Complexity Values
i. Diversity
ii. Complexity
iii. Evolution of Diversity and Complexity
iv. Rarity
v. Biodiversity and the Commons
vi. Richness
vii. Balancing Biodiversity Values and Cultural Values
(1) Ten rules of thumb
Oral Presentations (Jan 20)
4. Same as above
5. Chapter Three: Ecosystem Integrity and Health Values
i. Integrity and Health
ii. Stability and Historical Change
iii. Community
iv. Sustainability
v. Restoration
vi. Balancing Integrity and Health Values
(1) 9 rules of thumb
Oral Presentations (Jan 27)
6. Same as above
7. Chapter Four: Wildlife Values
i. Lower and higher animals
ii. Animal Rights?
iii. Animal Welfare and Managed Wildlife
iv. Feral and Exotic "Wildlife"
v. Aesthetic Appreciation of Wildlife
vi. Using Wildlife: Animal Sports
vii. Using Wildlife: Animal Commerce
viii. Wildlife in Culture
Oral Presentations (Feb 3)
8. Same as above
9. Chapter Five: Anthropocentric Values
i. Human Values Carried by Nature (lists 14)
ii. Winning or Losing in Environmental Ethics
iii. Rich and Poor, Population and Consumption
iv. Human Rights to Development
v. Democracy Economics and Environment
vi. Anthropogenic and Anthropocentric Values
vii. Human Excellences and Natural Values
Oral Presentations (Feb 10)
10. Same as above
11. Chapter Six: Intrinsic Natural Values
i. Life as Conservation
ii. Intrinsic, Instrumental and Systemic Values
iii. Storied Achievement
iv. Integrity of Place
v. Wilderness
vi. Objective and Subjective Natural Values
vii. The End of Nature?
12. Same as above
13. Chapter Seven: The Home Planet
i. Land Ethics and Earth Ethics
ii. Natural Resources and Common Natural Heritage
iii. International Law and Environmental Ethics
iv. Mother Earth?
v. Managing the Planet?
vi. Balancing Global Natural and Human Cultural Values
(1) 10 rules of thumb including "earth is more important than people"
vii. Inheriting the Earth
Spring Break
The Contested Meaning of Nature and the Preservationist Environmental Paradigm (articles are in the reading packet)
15. "Introduction" (23-56) from William Cronon, Uncommon Ground: Toward Reinventing Nature (1995) (=UC) "Toward a Conclusion" (447-459) UC
16. William Cronon, "The Trouble with Wilderness; or, Getting Back to the Wrong Nature" (69-90) UC
17. Paper Presentations (March 17)
18. Michael Soule, "The Social Siege of Nature," from Michael Soule and Gary Lease, eds., Reinventing Nature? Responses to Postmodern Deconstruction (34)
19. Stanley Kane, "Restoration or Preservation? Reflections on a Clash of Environmental Philosophies" (69-83) from Baldwin, et al., eds, Beyond
Preservation: Restoring and Inventing Landscapes 1994
20. Paper Presentations (March 26)
Weston's Back to Earth: Tomorrow's Environmentalism
21. Chapter One: Has Environmentalism Forgotten the Earth? (14) Chapter Two: Animals Next to Us (20)
22. Chapter Three: Animals on the Borderlines (24)
23. Paper Presentations (April 7)
24. Chapter Four: The Land Sings (25)
25. Chapter Five: Desolation (28)
26. Paper Presentations (April 16)
27. Chapter Six: Coming to Our Senses (32)
28. Chapter Seven: Transhuman Etiquettes (24) Chapter Eight: Is it Too Late? (9)
Final Exam, Monday, April 28 4-7pm