Philosophy 238 - ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS

The goal of this course is to prepare students to understand and critically evaluate various ethical perspectives on human beings' interactions with nature and these perspectives' applications to environmental issues. The principal ethical perspectives studied are: anthropocentrism, biocentric individualism, environmental holism and environmental pragmatism. We will study representative descriptions and defenses of these perspectives and will examine in particular whether they can validly and effectively help us resolve environmental problems. We will study controversies about biodiversity, wilderness protection, global climate change, and pollution. Enrollment limited to 40.