Syllabus

Reading Schedule

Handouts & Assignments

Reading Form

Study Questions

Paper Topics

Internet Links

This is the Homepage for Philosophy 291: Environmental Ethics.  From this page, using the links to the left, you will be able to access all the on-line class materials, including a syllabus, the schedule of readings, study questions, paper topics, as well as copies of any handouts and class assignments.  Using the links above, you will be able to access Andrew Mills' Homepage, the Class Resources Homepage (containing links to all the courses Prof. Mills teaches) as well as the Department of Religion and Philosophy Homepage.  If you ever get lost, clicking on the picture of the Earth will bring you back to this page.

This course is an introduction to environmental ethics.  This is a relatively new, and wide-ranging, field of philosophy.  We shall look at various philosophical views on the value of nature, animal rights, obligations to preserve species and natural objects (like trees), and out obligations to future generations.  At the end of the quarter, we shall turn our attention to some more specific, and practical, environmental concerns; precisely which ones will be up to the class.  Among the possibilities are: population, world hunger, pollution, economics and the environment, and energy and global justice.

The primary goal of this course is to gain an appreciation of the ideas and arguments of the philosophers whose works we shall be reading.  A secondary, but no less important goal, is to develop the critical thinking and writing skills essential to success in any philosophy class.  It is my hope that you leave this class a better philosopher yourself, not just someone who knows something about what these other folks have said.  We shall spend a good deal of time interacting with the assigned texts, and doing so serves both goals: it is only by responding to what these philosophers have written that we will come to understand their positions, and by engaging in a philosophic conversation with them we will hone our critical skills.  The reading for this course is, at times, quite difficult, but with the help of the professor and the other students, and with a good deal of effort on your own part, you will come out of this class with a deeper appreciation not only of the subtle issues involved in environmental ethics, but with a deeper understanding of the philosophy and ethics in general.

Philosophical method requires a close critical reading of the texts, and this is a skill which will serve you in other disciplines as well as in other philosophy classes.