ENVI 244
Environmental Ethics Spring 2021
Division II Writing Skills
Cross-listed PHIL 244
This is not the current course catalog

Class Details

What ethical standards should guide our individual and societal choices when those choices affect current and future environmental conditions? This course will introduce students to fundamental concepts, methods, and issues in environmental ethics. Initial tutorial meetings will focus on theoretical materials that will background later discussions and will include classic readings from the environmental ethics literature (e.g., Leopold, Taylor, Rolston). Subsequent sessions will pair readings about key concepts with specific cases that raise complex ethical issues, including the concept of moral standing and, e.g., people who do not yet exist, non-human individuals, species, and complex living systems; the concept of moral responsibility and complicity in environmentally damaging practices; the legitimacy of cost-benefit analysis as an environmental policy tool; and the valuation of human lives.
The Class: Format: tutorial; Remote format. Students will meet with the professor in pairs via Zoom for approximately 75 minutes per week, writing and presenting 5- to 7-page essays every other week, and commenting orally on partners' essays in alternate week
Limit: 10
Expected: 10
Class#: 4978
Grading: no pass/fail option, no fifth course option
Requirements/Evaluation: six essays (5-7 pages each) and six carefully prepared oral responses to partners' essays; evaluation will be based on essays, oral responses, and quality of discussion
Prerequisites: ENVI 101 or one course in PHIL
Enrollment Preferences: declared and prospective Environmental Studies majors and concentrators
Unit Notes: meets Value Theory requirement only if registration is under PHIL
Distributions: Division II Writing Skills
Notes: This course is cross-listed and the prefixes carry the following divisional credit:
PHIL 244 Division II ENVI 244 Division II
WS Notes: Students will write six tutorial papers of 5-7 pages in length, one of which they will revise and submit at the end of the term. In each of the tutorial papers students will describe and evaluate arguments that appear in the assigned readings, and will develop arguments in support of their own ethical positions. Students will receive written and oral feedback, concentrated particularly in the first half of the semester, to improve their ability to present clear and effective written arguments.
Attributes: ENVI Humanities, Arts + Social Science Electives
EVST Culture/Humanities
PHIL Contemporary Value Theory Courses

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