Environmental Ethics-Fall 2013
ENVSC 11- #4375 - MW 11:40 – 1:05 HU 112
Instructor: Dr. Peter Blakemore
Phone: 476-4314
peter-blakemore@redwoods.edu
Office: CA 134
Office: Mon., Tues., & Wed. 10-11 & by appointment
www.redwoods.edu/instruct/pblakemore/envsc11fall13.html
Course Texts:
 Leopold, Aldo / A Sand County Almanac / Ballantine
 Wilson, Edward O. / The Future of Life / Knopf
 Zimmerman, Callicott, et. al., / Environmental Philosophy: from Animal Rights to
Radical Ecology / Pearson
 PDF documents available through download on course website
(all hard copy texts are available at the CR Bookstore)
Course Description:
Environmental Ethics will focus on the issues and problems arising out of ethical considerations
related to the general environment and specific ecosystems and individual species, animals, plants
and places. During the term we will explore the foundations for beliefs and worldviews regarding
nature and the human relationship to it, and examine the questions people ask and the judgments
people have made historically, are making currently, and might make in the future. We will also
examine the variety of philosophical perspectives and pragmatic choices and actions people take
related to their collective and individual environmental ethics.
Course Learning Outcomes:
Students who successfully complete the course should be able to:
Define key terms and apply them in critical, analytical writing.
Apply methods of inquiry to shape useful questions regarding current environmental
problems, claims, and arguments.
Analyze questions of ethics to arrive at individual reasoned responses to environmental
issues.
Course Work:
The Reading, Critical Thinking, Questions & Writing
In this course we will be reading from a wide variety of texts. Because we will be reading tales
and legends, early modern natural history, journalism, a work of short fiction, two works of
ecological science, radical environmentalist manifestos, and numerous philosophical and
belletristic essays, you will need to adapt your expectations to shifting patterns of subtlety,
complexity, and even, on occasion, jargon (sorry, but we can never escape it and sometimes we
really, really need it). At times I suspect the reading load will seem easy, but most of the time I
think you will feel challenged. If you approach the complexity of our reading with the notion that
you are gaining something rather than suffering, you will benefit most greatly. Education should
be about intellectual engagement (in my humble opinion), and I cannot think of a more important
or complex topic than our current need for ethical responses to environmental issues. Anyone
who even glances at serious newspapers sees this daily. However you pursue the reading, please
be aware that you need to come to our classroom prepared to discuss the readings assigned for
that day—in other words, readings listed in the course schedule should be done before coming to
class. My advice is that you complete all of the reading for the week before Monday’s class and
keep notes on everything we read (a reading journal will be especially useful for coming up with
the 2 questions about the reading I will ask you to bring to each class). On most days, as I call
the role, I will select people at random and hand them slips of paper on which they will then write
Blakemore – ENVSC 11
2
their two questions for that day. On other days, everyone will get a slip of paper. Sometimes I
will ask you to share them first with one another, then the rest of us, and other times I will just
collect all of them. The questions must be based on that day’s reading. We will discuss what I
think you should strive for in composing your questions—suffice it to say here that a good
question is one that leads us deeper into the heart of an issue; a good question should both help to
define the matter at hand and lead us into a more productive inquiry into our topic. Since we will
be taking on some of the most complex questions of our time – or any time, for that matter—you
should be prepared to burn a lot of brain cells wrestling with these issues. For a taste of the sorts
of ideas and problems we’ll be dealing with during the semester, you might want to take a quick
look at the group of “Terms” listed below.
Journal Entries
Apart from the daily questions and the two take-home exams you will write in the middle and end
of the term, I also require three assigned journal entries. I am not going to require you to keep a
single bound journal (but I do recommend this as the best way to work through a class like ours; a
reading and course observation journal is an excellent way to keep it all together and prepare for
the take-home exams). The assigned journal entries will be typed responses that are not essays but
more than just woolgathering or rambling. The due dates for the entries are listed in the Course
Schedule. I am providing specific instructions here for the Assigned Entries—please read these
instructions carefully and make sure you understand them. (If you need clarification, we should
discuss them during class—don’t be shy. Ask!) Although I prefer that you post the entries
electronically to our myCR site—primarily, so that we can share them and look at them
during class time, but also to save paper—I will accept hard copies of them earlier in the
week. NOTE: You should plan to post the entry to our myCR page and DO NOT need to
turn in a hard copy if you post it online. I will also accept one late journal entry but no more; a
late entry will lower your participation grade by a third of a grade level. For instance, if your total
participation level is at a B-, the late entry will drop you down to a C+. I will not accept any
journal entries more than a week late. (Note: if you have already posted or handed me a late entry,
please don’t ask me if you can do another; better to bear in mind why the first one was late and
plan or structure your life so that it doesn’t happen again—or better yet, get all of them done on
time). Here are my criteria for grading these entries: If you fulfill the assignment by putting a
minimum of necessary time into it, I will give you a C; if you clearly put some effort and careful
thought into the entry and craft the sentences and ideas in such a way that you obviously
considered the value of your work to yourself and the rest of us, I will give you a B- or B; if you
use the entry to move yourself and the rest of us to something valuable and meaningful, and if
you put it together in such a way that your ideas and thoughts have a powerful, meaningful effect,
I will give you a B+, A-, or A.
Format: If you choose to hand in a hard copy of the journal entry, it must be typed in size 12 font
and be double-spaced with a standard one inch margin; your name, the Journal Entry number, the
entry name, the date and our course number should appear in the upper left corner of each entry,
with your creative, descriptive title centered over the text.
Journal Entry #1 – Mapping My Environment
Your first Journal Entry should describe what you see as “My Environment”–by which I mean
Your Environment. It is up to you to decide what the term “environment” means as it relates to
you and your life. And to map this concept means that you’ll need to offer some level of detail
and clarity. Obviously, the simplest way to do this would be to just write out the longitudinal and
latitudinal coordinates and describe where you live on a regular map (e.g., “I live 15 miles east of
Blue Lake,” or “My house is 2000 yards from the Pacific Ocean in the Manila Dunes”), but the
point of this entry is for you to try your best to conceptualize what exists in the place you would
Blakemore – ENVSC 11
3
identify as your “environment.” I am not requiring that you draw an image of your personal
place, but I am asking you to describe what matters to you about your place. What stands out?
What do you notice? What animals, plants, weather patterns, objects, built structures have
significance for you and why? These first entries should be interesting, enlightening and fun to
read and consider, and these written maps should also helps us see more deeply into our larger
society and culture and how we relate these things to our physical, natural, topographical, oceanic
day-to-day existence. It is important that you spend enough time noticing and explaining your
world that the rest of us who will read these online get a sense of how the physical world appears
to you. Posting due on MyCR by Sunday 9/22 at 2 pm (hardcopy submissions due
Wednesday 9/18 in class).
Journal Entry #2 – Perceptions of Natural and Artificial Environments
For this entry you should choose two places and compare them. One place should be somewhere
that you think of as “natural” and the other should be a place that you would define as “artificial.”
Obviously, in this area there are plenty of places you might choose to focus on for your
descriptions of environments, but I want you to decide for yourself what constitutes either a
Natural or an Artificial Environment. The most important thing I want you to get out of this entry
is a sense of what these two terms mean to you, so, in an important way, this assignment is one of
definitions. Since this entry is not due until after the middle of the term, you should take the time
to work things out fairly clearly—take notes, jot down ideas over the next several weeks, consider
a variety of places before you make your two choices, and visit them more than once, if possible,
in order to get strong, accurate details that will help you make your comparison. If you think
carefully about these two labels, you will see that each functions to define the other—they are in
dialectical opposition. As you take notes and write up this entry, be sure that you offer plenty of
the kinds of physical, concrete sensory details and enough description of your mental and
intellectual response to the places so that the rest of us who will read your Perceptions will
understand why you chose these places to compare. And pay special attention to how you came to
distinguish the natural from the artificial and tell us all something about the significance of the
comparison. Finally, please do not put yourself in danger in order to write this (e.g., please don’t
stalk a mountain lion through a blizzard in the Marbles or climb a crumbly outcrop at Patrick’s
Point to “get away from the crowds”). We are blessed to live in an area rich with beautiful and
interesting natural and artificial settings of all kinds—experience and explore them safely!
Posting due on myCR by Sunday 11/3 at 2 pm (hardcopy submission due in class
Wednesday 10/30).
Journal Entry #3 – A Case for Environmental Ethics
Select some issue from the news or something you’ve viewed or read or otherwise know about
that you believe makes a good subject for exploring the ethical concerns in ways we’ve worked
on during the semester. There are plenty of local, regional, or state issues to focus on, but you
might want to look further in your search. Whatever you do, make sure that you use some of the
aspects of our course and the terms we have worked with during the semester to examine the
ethics of the situation. What attracted you to this specific case? What are the best questions
regarding your chosen case? What do we need to know in order to answer these questions? How
might different people view the case differently? What are the specifics? What are the
ramifications? What has examining this case done for you? How has your personal perspective
affected your thinking? Will you alter your actions because of your examination of this case?
What should the rest of us know about it? What should the rest of us do about it? We will be
looking at all of these together so please bear that in mind as you think about your specific case.
Posting due to MyCR by Friday 11/30 at 8 pm (hardcopy submission due in class Monday
11/25).
Participation & Attendance
4
Blakemore – ENVSC 11
In a class like this, focusing as we will on so many complex, important social issues, beliefs, and
conundrums, being prepared in the classroom and participating in the discussion is the most
important thing you can do. Toward that end, at the beginning of each class, I will pass around an
attendance sign-in sheet. Being in class is important, but just showing up is not enough—you
need to come to class ready to ask and answer the big questions. At the end of each week, I will
consider the depth and value of our class discussions and write a brief post to our MyCR site
describing my observations. I will make notes to myself of individual people’s responses that
demonstrate deep thinking and honest attempts to explore the ideas from our reading. Frequently
during class, I will write your questions on the board and some of your questions, the best ones
we hear during class or that appear on our myCR discussion site, I will use on the two take-home
exams. I hope you can tell from the description above that I see this as a class in which your
participation is more than half of what will happen. This will be your class. Please take
responsibility for it and come ready to engage. NOTE: Do not expect to pass this class with
poor attendance. In accord with Redwoods Community College District Board policy,
students who do not consistently attend class discussions will be dropped from the
course. Please contact me regarding absences beyond a single consecutive class period.
Grades will be determined on this basis:
Journal Entries (3 x 10%)
Take-home Exams (2 x 25%)
Participation (questions, attendance, electronic & class discussion)
Total
30%
50%
20%
100%
Grades will be assigned on this scale: 93-100=A / 90-92=A- / 88-89=B+ / 83-87=B / 80-82=B- /
78-79=C+ / 70 – 77=C / 60 – 69=D / 59 and below=F.
Terms: The following is a partial list of some of the terms we will encounter during the semester.
Some of these ideas will already make sense to you while others may be cryptic or meaningless at
this point. By the end of the semester I expect you to have a fairly thorough idea of what each of
these terms means and its relevance to environmental ethics and our society. Note—this is only a
partial list of some of the most common terms:
Aesthetic value
Anthropocentrism
Biocentrism
Biodiversity
Biophilia
Biosphere
Conservation
Creation narrative
Deep ecology
Dominant worldview
Ecofeminism
Ecosystem
Environmental justice
Epistemology
Evolution
Extinction
Gaia hypothesis
Global climate change
Geologic time
Intrinsic worth
Instrumental value
Land ethic
Nonhuman
Ontology
Preservation
Phenomenology
Resource use
Social ecology
Sustainability
Teleology
SPECIAL NOTE: This class includes a good deal of writing. You should not expect to pass
it unless you turn in all of the assigned writing. And bear in mind, plagiarism, which is the
act of claiming another writer’s words or ideas as your own without citing them as a source,
is a serious breech of academic conduct and will result in failure of the assignment and
possible failure for the course. If you aren’t sure whether you’re about to plagiarize or not,
ask me for clarification.
Blakemore – ENVSC 11
5
P. Blakemore’s Environmental Ethics Fall 2013 Reading Schedule
(Note: if changes are required, you will receive sufficient notice)
Part I. A Foundation in Questions & Relationships
Week 1 / August 26 & 28
M - Introduction, syllabus, course guidelines. What are Ethics? What is Environment? What is inquiry?
W - Current topics in the news: Read Week1.pdf; questions and issues of ethics and environment; be
prepared to explain which one of the news stories most interested you.
Week 2 / September 4
M - No class - Labor Day.
W- E.O. Wilson's The Future of Life pp. xi-41 ("Prologue" and Chapters 1 & 2).
Week 3 / September 9 & 11
M - Ethics of poetry & creation narratives: Read Week 3.pdf pp . 1-47. How did we get here? Why is there
something rather than nothing?
W - Creation narratives continued: Read Week 3.pdf pp 48-77. How is our sense of origination related to
our relationship to otherness?
Week 4 / September 16 & 18
M - American ideas of the environment and value: Read Emerson's "Nature" & Thoreau's "Walking” in
Week 4.pdf. pages 1-8, & 18-32 (supplemental reading: for those who want to experience all of Emerson's
argument in "Nature" pp. 9-17).
W - American environmental thought continued: Read in Week 4.pdf pp. 33-61 & Aldo Leopold's A Sand
County Almanac (SCA) pp. xvii-xix (Foreword) & pp 3-43. What is the meaning or value of a landscape?
What can The Land tell us?
[Journal Entry #1-"Mapping My Environment" due on MyCR by Sunday 9/22 at 2 pm (hardcopy
submissions due Wednesday 9/18 in class).]
Week 5 / September 23 & 25
M - Animals in human stories (European Early Modern, Hopi Coyote stories, Nunamiut events): Read
Week 5.pdf pp. 1-30.
W - Animal stories continued: Read Sarah Orne Jewett's "A White Heron," in Week 5.pdf pp. 31-37 &
Aldo Leopold's SCA pp. 130-163.
Part II. Philosophies of the Environment
Week 6 / September 30 & October 2
M - A new conception of land and environment: Leopold SCA 177-264.
W - Modern ideas: Read Holmes Rolston III’s "Challenges in Environmental Ethics” in Environmental
Philosophy pp. 82-101. How do we build an ethic? Where do ethics come from?
Week 7 / October 7 & 9
M - Deep Ecology, Gaians, and Gestalt: Read Arne Naess, Bill Devall and George Sessions on the Deep
Ecology Movement, and John Seed and Joanna Macy on Gaian theory in Week 7.pdf pp 1-28. Are you
shallow or deep?
W - The human self as part of the world or center? What is the difference? Read Alan Watts’ “The World
is Your Body” in Week 7.pdf pp 22-28 and Paul Taylor’s “The Ethics of Respect for Nature” in
Environmental Philosophy pp 67-81. Can humans be non-anthropocentric or biocentric? How would/does
this affect our search for environmental ethic?
Week 8 / October 14 & 16
M - Take-home mid-term Exam due: be prepared to read from and discuss these in class
W - Biocentrism: Read E.O. Wilson’s The Future of Life, Chapters 3 & 4. How bad is it? What do we stand
to lose?
6
Blakemore – ENVSC 11
Part III. Finding a Way: Varieties of Environmental Ethics
Week 9 / October 21 & 22
M - Valuing life and the more-than-human beings: Read Stephen Kellert’s “The Biological Basis for
Human Values of Nature” in Week 9.pdf and Peter Singer’s “All Animals are Equal” in Environmental
Philosophy pp. 25-38.
W - Animal rights versus the environment? Read Gary Varner’s “Can Animal Rights Activists be
Environmentalists?” in Week 9.pdf pp. 11-29. How do animals fit into our ethics? Are all animals equal?
How do we decide?
Week 10 / October 28 & 30
M - Wilderness, wildness and preservation: Read Jack Turner’s “The Abstract Wild: A Rant” and Wendell
Berry’s “Preserving Wildness” in Week 10.pdf pp. 1-10 and 31-38, and read Aldo Leopold’s SCA pp. 264279. What is The Wild? Was Thoreau right? What is the value of wilderness?
W - Radical preservation and the figure of wilderness: Read Edward Abbey’s “Freedom and Wilderness,
Wilderness and Freedom,” and Dave Foreman’s Ecodefense: A Field Guide to Monkeywrenching passages
in Week 10.pdf pp 39-56.
[Journal Entry #2- "Perceptions of Natural & Artificial Environments" due on MyCR by Sunday
11/3 at 2 pm (hardcopy submission due in class Wednesday 10/30)].
Week 11 / November 4 & 6
M - Responses to early arguments: Read Ramachandra Guha’s “Radical American Environmentalism and
‘Wilderness’ Preservation: A Third World Critique” in Week 11.pdf and J. Baird Callicott’s “Holistic
Environmental Ethics and the Problem of Ecofascism” and Michael Zimmerman’s “Ecofascism: An
Enduring Temptation” Environmental Philosophy pp. 116-129 and 390-408.
W - The social basis for ecological thought and ethics: Read Murray Bookchin's "What is Social Ecology"
and David Watson’s “Against the Megamachine: Empire and the Earth” in Environmental Philosophy pp.
462-493.
Week 12 / November 11 & 13
M - The "material" value of life: Read E.O. Wilson’s The Future of Life, Chapter 5, & Aldo Leopold’s SCA
pp. 280-95.
W - Other social aspects – Ecofeminism: Read Greta Gaard & Lori Gruen’s “Ecofeminism: Toward Global
Justice and Planetary Health” and Vandana Shiva’s “The Impoverishment of the Environment” in
Environmental Philosophy pp. 155-194. What role does gender play in questions of environmental ethics?
How do we bring gender into the larger questions?
Week 13 / November 18 & 20
M - New philosophical perspectives: phenomenology of the environment: Robert Frodeman’s “A Sense of
the Whole: Toward an Understanding of Acid Mine Drainage in the West” in Environmental Philosophy
pp. 335-346.
W - Other ways of being in place: Keith Basso’s “Wisdom Sits in Places” in Week 13.pdf. What does a
place mean? How does a place mean?
Week 14 / November 25 & 27
M - Problem and solutions: E.O. Wilson, The Future of Life Chapters 6 & 7.
[Journal Entry #3 - "A Case for Environmental Ethics" due to MyCR by Saturday 11/30 at 8 pm
(hardcopy submission due in class Monday 11/25).]
W - No class / LRC Research & writing day.
Week 15 / December 2 & 4
M - Case discussions for future ethics.
W - Case discussions for future ethics.
Finals Week / December 9-13 / Take-home final due by 1 pm Friday, December 13th
Required Syllabus Insert
Blakemore – ENVSC 11
7
Syllabus for: ENVSC 11 – Environmental Ethics
Semester & Year: Fall 2013
Course ID and Section E4375
Number:
Number of Credits/Units: 3
Day/Time: MW 11:40-1:05 / HU 112
Location:
Instructor’s Name: P. Blakemore
Contact Information: Office location and hours: CA 134 / Mon., Tues., Wed. 10-11
Phone: 476-4314
Email: peter-blakemore@redwoods.edu
Course Description: An examination of issues arising out of ethical considerations
related to the general environment and specific ecosystems, life forms, and places.
Students will engage scientific, philosophical, and cultural concepts of nature and
explore the social and personal ramifications for current ethical choices regarding
local, regional, national, and global issues.
1. Define key terms and apply them in critical, analytical writing.
2. Apply methods of inquiry to shape useful questions regarding current environmental
problems, claims, and arguments.
3. Analyze questions of ethics to arrive at individual reasoned responses to
environmental issues.
Special accommodations: College of the Redwoods complies with the Americans with
Disabilities Act in making reasonable accommodations for qualified students with disabilities.
Please present your written accommodation request at least one week before the first test so that
necessary arrangements can be made. No last-minute arrangements or post-test adjustments will
be made. If you have a disability or believe you might benefit from disability related services and
may need accommodations, please see me or contact Disabled Students Programs and Services.
Students may make requests for alternative media by contacting DSPS.
Academic Misconduct: Cheating, plagiarism, collusion, abuse of resource materials, computer
misuse, fabrication or falsification, multiple submissions, complicity in academic misconduct,
and/ or bearing false witness will not be tolerated. Violations will be dealt with according to the
procedures and sanctions proscribed by the College of the Redwoods. The student code of
conduct is available on the College of the Redwoods website at:
http://www.redwoods.edu/District/Board/New/Chapter5/Ap5500.pdf
College of the Redwoods is committed to equal opportunity in employment, admission to the
college, and in the conduct of all of its programs and activities.