PHIL 244
Environmental Ethics Spring 2025
Division II W Writing Skills
Cross-listed ENVI 244

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, among others. Most 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
Limit: 10
Expected: 10
Class#: 3281
Grading: no pass/fail option, no fifth course option
Requirements/Evaluation: five essays (5-7 pages each) and five 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: Divison II Writing Skills
Notes: This course is cross-listed and the prefixes carry the following divisional credit:
ENVI 244 Division II PHIL 244 Division II
WS Notes: Students will write five 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

Class Grid

Updated 11:12 am

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