PHIL 2032 - Environmental Ethics

Credits: 3
Hours/Week: Lecture 3 Lab 0
Internship hours per week 0
Course Description: Is the environment valuable for itself, or is it valuable because it provides a habitat for humans and animals? What is our duty to the environment? Do animals have rights, and if so why? Do we have a duty to future humans to preserve and protect the environment? Do governments and/or corporations have a duty to preserve the planet?  The central idea of this course is the question of the moral relationship between humans and the natural world.  Ethical theory will be covered and used to evaluate the possible answers to this question.

 
MnTC Goals
MnTC 6 (Humanities), MnTC 10 (people and the enviornment).

Prerequisite(s): ENGL 1020  with a grade of C or higher OR ENGL 1021  with a grade of C or higher.
Corequisite(s): None
Recommendation: Completion of 12 college-level credits.

Major Content
1. Ethical Theory

1. Consequentialism
2. Deontology
3. Virtue Ethics
4.  Social Contract Theory
5.  Eco Feminism

2. Applied Ethics topics: the course will include some of the following:

1. Animal Rights
2. The impact of farming to raise animals for food
3. Access to natural places vs. preservation of wild places
4. Controversies concerning management of natural areas
5. Eco activism
6. Alternative energy development and production

3. Philosophy Skills

1. Reading original philosophy source material

2. explain ethical theories.

3. evaluate ethical theories.

4. critically evaluate applied ethics issues concerning the environment.

5. apply ethical theory to environmental ethics topics.
Minnesota Transfer Curriculum (MnTC): Goals and Competencies MnTC 6 (Humanities), MnTC 10 (people and the enviornment).
Competency Goals (MnTC Goals 1-6)
06. 02. Understand those works as expressions of individual and human values within an historical and social context.

06. 03. Respond critically to works in the arts and humanities.

06. 05. Articulate an informed personal reaction to works in the arts and humanities.
Theme Goals (MnTC Goals 7-10)
10. 03. Describe the basic institutional arrangements (social, legal, political, economic, religious) that are evolving to deal with environmental and natural resource challenges.

10. 04. Evaluate critically environmental and natural resource issues in light of understandings about interrelationships, ecosystems, and institutions.

10. 05. Propose and assess alternative solutions to environmental problems.

10. 06. Articulate and defend the actions they would take on various environmental issues.

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