Ecological Ethics

advanced

OB2_W09

OB2_W12

OB2_U01

OB2_U09

Lecture level: advanced.

Lecture goals: Gaining a fundamental knowledge of environmental ethics concerning its essential issues and main attitudes.

Learning outcomes:

Attitude – Perceiving human acts towards environment from a moral perspective.

Competence – Gaining a basic knowledge of environmental ethics issues and shaping the ability to express ecological problems in moral terms.

Prerequisites: Basic knowledge of the fundamental ethics and natural sciences. Intermediate knowledge of English language.

Assessment methods: Attending the courses and passing an oral examination, which includes issues discussed during a lecture.

Lecture essential issues:

1. Introduction: fundamental ethics and environmental ethics and ecophilosophy; environmental consciousness and education.

2. Origins of environmental ethics.

3. Main notions: anthropocentrism, biocentrism, ecocentrism, holism, common good, justice, responsibility, biodiversity, sustainable development.

4. Levels of concern for the environment.

5. Subject and object of morality.

6. Characteristics of an adequate environmental ethics.

7, 8. The issue of the value of nature: kinds of values, valuating nature, values in nature.

Review of main currents of environmental ethics:

9. Albert Schweitzer’s ethic of the reverence for life.

10. Biocentric ethics by Zdzisława Piątek.

11. Hypothesis of Gaia by James Lovelock.

12. Ethics of biosphere by Edward Goldsmith.

13. Ethics of human priority over nature by Tadeusz Ślipko.

Callicott J. Baird, The Land Ethic, in: Jamieson Dale (ed.), A Companion to Environmental Philosophy, Wiley-Blackwell 2003, pp. 201-217.

Hardin Garrett, Lifeboat Ethics, “Bioscience”, vol. 24, no. 10, pp. 561-568.

Lovelock James, Gaia. A New Look at Life one Earth, Oxford University Press 1979.

Naess Arne, The Shallow and the Deep, Long-Range Ecology Movement. A Summary, “Inquiry” 16: 1, pp. 95-100.

Passmore John, Attitudes to Nature, in: R. S. Peters (ed.), Nature and Conduct, Macmillan Press, London 1975, pp. 251 -264.

Rolston Holmes, Values in and Duties to the Natural World, in: F. Herbert Bormann and Stephen R. Kellert (eds.), Ecology, Economics, Ethics: The Broken Circle, Yale University Press, New Haven 1991, pp. 73-96.

Sandler Ronald, Introduction: Environmental Virtue Ethics, in: Ronald Sandler and Philip Cafaro (eds.), Environmental Virtue Ethics, Rowman and Littlefield, New York 2005, pp. 1-12.

Schweitzer Albert, The Ethic of Reverence for Life, in: Civilization and Ethics (Part II of The Philosophy of Civilization), translated by John Naish, Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd, 2013.

Stone Chistopher D., Should Trees Have Standing? - Toward Legal Rights for Natural Objects, “Southern California Law Review” vol. 45 (1972), pp. 450-501.

Taylor Paul W., The Ethics of Respect for Nature, “Environmental Ethics” vol. 3 (1981), pp. 197-218.

Assessment criteria:

Final credit consist of the following credits (proportionally):

1. final examination (70%)

2. preparing of the student to the lectures during the whole semester: reading obligatory literature, accomplishing homework (15%)

3. initiative of the student during lectures, attendance on lectures and manners (15%)

Assessment methods:

Oral examination consists of three open questions, on which student should answer shortly and including the essence of the issue. Each answer is assessed individually.

Questions concern the matter presented during lectures. Students receive the set of theses to the course out of which are taken questions asked during the examination.

Examination takes place during the examination session.