ENVS 110 EPU - Environmental Ethics

3 Credit(s)

What ways of thinking help us participate responsibly in the web of life on Earth? This course will help us recognize the interdependence of human society and the natural environment and the ways in which principles of ecological sustainability are essential to building a just and compassionate world. Our course will be built around case studies, other readings, and the chapters of the text. Through the case studies, we will apply critical thinking theory to real life examples and develop an understanding of how these situations affect individuals, the local and larger communities, and the Earth. We will analyze these situations from the core ethical arguments of utilitarian ethics, virtue ethics, and Kantian ethics as well as the ecological ethical frameworks of light green ethics, dark green ethics, biocentrism, and ecocentrism. We will then identify and argue our personal environmental ethic. This course will develop your ability to think philosophically; to think critically about several philosophical traditions in ethics and to apply your abilities and understandings to environmental issues. Cross-listed PHIL 110.

Prerequisite(s): T tag course.