PHIL322/ENVR322: Environmental Ethics
Spring 2015
TTh: 11:40 – 12:55
Green (West) Quad Building D, Lounge
Instructor: Dr. Katherine Robinson
Email: kwrobin@mailbox.sc.edu
Office hours: Th. 1:30 –3:00pm and by appointment
Office: 410 Byrnes Bldg.
Office phone: 777-7418
Learning outcomes
Students develop a practical foundation in distinguishing and appraising
rational arguments in support of various viewpoints on contested issues
in many areas. In particular, students analyze traditional ethical theories in
philosophy and interpret how these theories affect current environmental issues.
Students interpret the major approaches to applying ethical viewpoints to nature
and the environment and apply those from both theoretical and practical standpoints
Students learn to recognize and explain how environmental ethics informs decisions
and policy making on environmental issues, and how to analyze and evaluate arguments
in support of or in opposition to those decisions.
Course Objectives
1. To provide students with a greater awareness of the connections between ethics and
the environment and a better ability to recognize how ethical considerations affect
decisions and policy on environmental issues.
2. To help students develop an increased ability to formulate and evaluate philosophical
arguments and the skill to evaluate and defend ethical positions using both traditional
ethical theories and contemporary environmental ethics literature.
3. To enable students to present and argue for a reasoned and ethically sound position
on important issues relating to environmental ethics in South Carolina, nationally, and
globally.
Required Text
Louis P. Pojman and Paul Pojman. Environmental Ethics: Readings in Theory and
Application. Wadsworth, Cengage Learning: Boston, 2012. (EE)
Other readings are posted on Blackboard (Bb).
Grade Percentages
Quizzes and Class Participation
Service Learning
Hot Topic Report
Tests
Final Exam
10%
10%
15%
20% each
25%
Grading Scale:
Letter grades are assigned on the following scale: 100-90% = A; 87-89% = B+; 80-86% =
B; 77-79% = C+; 70-76% = C; 67-69% = D+; 60-66% = D; 59% or below = F
Class Policies:
(1) Plagiarism and cheating of any sort will not be tolerated. (See the USC Student
Handbook & Policy Guide for a statement of the Rule of Academic Responsibility.)
(2) All work to be turned in should be printed in 12-point type with accurate spelling and
grammar. Be sure to include all the required parts of each assignment! Also be sure to
cite your sources correctly!
(3) Late assignments will be penalized 10% off the final grade for each 24-hour period
that they are late. The 10% penalty begins at the beginning of class on the day that the
assignments are due. Failure to be prepared to participate in your Hot Topic report on
the day specified will result in a zero grade. If you find that you can not present on the
day you have signed up for, you must arrange a swap with another student and tell the
instructor in advance of the class. To avoid penalties on these assignments, proper
documentation of illness, death of an immediate family member, or family crisis must
be provided; please obtain permission of the instructor under these circumstances.
Computer trouble is not an acceptable excuse!
(4) Scheduled tests must be taken on the day specified in the syllabus. If you foresee
that you will not be in class that day, you must make arrangements with the professor at
least two weeks prior to the test date, and provide documentation on the reason.
(5) Everyone must take the final exam at the scheduled date and time. This is
University policy.
(6) The instructor reserves the right to give unannounced quizzes on assigned readings
and other topics covered in class, and to revise the course schedule if the situation is
appropriate. Unannounced quizzes cannot be made up. If you miss an unannounced
quiz, you receive a zero grade. The lowest unannounced quiz grade will be dropped
from your final average.
(7) Attendance will not be formally recorded for every class, but is important for many
reasons. (See “unannounced quizzes” above.) Class participation is strongly
recommended. If it becomes apparent to the instructor that you are slacking in these
areas, your final grade will be affected.
(8) During class, the classroom will be an electronics-free zone. Please do not text, look
at messages, use your laptop or tablet for anything not directly related to the content
of the class. Your final grade can be affected by your disregard of this request.
Course Schedule
1/13 Introduction to course
15
Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring
20
What is Ethics? Ethics and Values
22
Traditional Ethics: Utilitarianism
27
Deontology
29
Virtue Ethics
2/3
Test #1
5
What is Environmental Ethics?
10
Environmental Ethics Theories
12
Biocentrism
17
Deep Ecology
19
Social Ecology
24
Anthropocentrism
26
Hot Topics Review and Stone
3/3
Test #2
5
Chasing Ice
Spring Break
17
Climate Change
19
Climate Change and Denial
24
Hot Topics Reports
26
Population and Consumption
31
Hot Topics Reports
4/2
Environmental Justice
7
The Island President
9
Hot Topics Reports
14
People or Penguins - Pollution
16
21
23
5/4
Hot Topics Reports
Hot Topics Reports
Final Exam Review
Final Exam, 12:30 pm
Assignment
Read syllabus on Bb
Reading on Bb
Mill, Reading on Bb
Kant, Reading on Bb
Aristotle, Reading on Bb
Test
Hardin on Bb
Leopold, p. 222
Taylor, p. 205
Devall and Sessions, p.143
Bookchin on Bb, Hot Topics
Subject Due
Norton on Bb
Stone, p. 246
Test
Gardiner on Bb
Monbiot, p.458
McKibben, p. 260
Dawson, p. 481
Baxter, p. 327,
Service Learning Due
Final Exam
Instructions for Hot Topics Report
Choose a current environmental issue, now being discussed in the media and/or other
sources. The topic can be about any issue on a state, national, or international scale, but
should not repeat the specific issues we will look at in class. As is usual with
environmental issues, it will be controversial, and there will be several points of view
about how to resolve the problem. Your project is to analyze this topic from an
environmental ethical perspective, and explain what ethical theories are at work among
the various positions on the issue. Your challenge is to develop a presentation to the
class that explains the topic and the ethical issues behind it. Also, you should determine
what you think the most ethical solution should be, and back up your argument with
ethical theory.
Your goal is to convince the class that your solution is the most ethically appropriate one
under the circumstances. You may use a PowerPoint presentation, if you wish; prepare
a class quiz; or use any other learning tools you choose. You will need to turn in to the
instructor your typed notes about the presentation as well as the presentation itself.
Both your notes and the presentation should include the following elements:
1. A short synopsis of your chosen issue, explaining why the issue is important from the
perspective of environmental ethics.
2.) Identification of the two or three major alternative courses of action that are either
being proposed or could plausibly be proposed for addressing the issue.
3. The main ethical reasoning behind the solutions that are proposed or could be
proposed in support of each course of action. Try to clarify how these ethical reasons
incorporate the traditional ethical theories discussed in the first part of the course and
the environmental ethical positions discussed in the second part of the course. For
example, you might claim that the proponents of one major course of action appear to
be following an anthropocentric utilitarian line of reasoning, whereas proponents of the
other course of action are appealing to ecocentric thinking. It is possible that
proponents of both actions are actually using the same basic theory, but their
disagreement is arising from differing factual beliefs or other aspects of their reasoning.
4. Choose one course of action and provide the most convincing ethical case that you
can develop in support of it. This will involve arguing that there are stronger ethical
reasons in favor of one course of action than there are in favor of the alternative course
of action. Your argument might involve addressing objections to the position that you
are taking.
You should plan to spend about 10 minutes presenting the elements listed above. The
remainder of the time, as much as 10 minutes, depending on how many other
presentations we have that day, should be devoted to class discussion of the issue. You
are encouraged to develop a few questions that you could ask the class to spur
discussion. You can also provide handouts if you like.
You may work with one other person in preparing and presenting this project. You can
either select someone or the instructor will assign a partner.
Criteria for Grading:
1. Clarity and creativity in fulfilling all elements of the written assignment
2. Accuracy and comprehensiveness in identifying ethical arguments that appropriately
support the major alternative courses of action.
3. Strength of the ethical case in favor of one course of action.
4. Clarity and coherence of the in-class presentation.
You should select your topic by February 26. There will be no repetition of presentation
topics, so if there is something you are particularly interested in you should sign up
soon.
Instructions for Service Learning
Because environmental ethics involves actions that connect with your daily life, it is
important that you use the ideas you learn in class by working directly with an
organization that is actively engaged in some environmental issue.
For this service learning project, identify a local environment-related organization you
wish to work with, spend a minimum of four hours doing some sort of volunteer work,
and turn in a one-page report on what you have done and what you learned from it.
Before you begin, please inform the professor which organization you have chosen and
give me a signed copy of the liability form posted on Blackboard. Turn in a signature
from someone at the organization to document your hours of service.
You can put in your four hours at any time during the semester. The deadline for this is
April 14.
If you have questions about this syllabus, or any other aspect of the class, please feel free
to contact the instructor. I encourage you to do this sooner, rather than later!
The instructor reserves the right to alter the syllabus at any time if the situation should
require.