Environmental Ethics

A critical survey of classical and recent literature in the field of environmental history, philosophy, and ethics, with special emphasis on the American environment. Topics will include environmental historiography, theories of environmental history, and the relationships between environmental history, philosophy, ethics, ecology, and policy

A methods course in basic techniques of meeting management, negotiation, mediation, consensus building, and collaborative planning for controversial issues. It deals with process design, strategies for change and leadership, and ways of building civil society. This learn by doing course involves role play simulations on topics such as environmental management, community and ethnic conflict, transportation, housing development and environmental justice, along with videos and brief lectures.

Overview of the field of environmental justice, analyzing the implications of race, class, labor, and equity on environmental degradation and regulation. Environmental justice movements and struggles within poor communities and communities of color in the U.S., including African Americans, Latino Americans, and Native American Indians. Frameworks and methods for analyzing race, class, and labor. Cases of environmental injustice, community, and government responses, and future strategies for achieving environmental and labor justice.

Should nations intervene in other countries to prevent human rights abuses or famine? On what principles should immigration be based? Should wealthy states aid poorer states, and if so, how much? Who should pay for global environmental damage? Answers to these moral questions depend to a great degree on who we believe we have an obligation to: Ourselves? Nationals of our country? Residents of our country? Everyone in the world equally? We will examine different traditions of moral thought including skeptics, communitarians, cosmopolitans, and use these traditions as tools to make reasoned judgments about difficult moral problems in world politics

Overview of the field of environmental justice, analyzing the implications of race, class, labor, and equity on environmental degradation and regulation. Environmental justice movements and struggles within poor communities and communities of color in the U.S., including African Americans, Latino Americans, and Native American Indians. Frameworks and methods for analyzing race, class, and labor. Cases of environmental injustice, community, and government responses, and future strategies for achieving environmental and labor justice.

Exploration of the ethical dilemmas arising from recent advances in the biological sciences: genetic engineering, sociobiology, health care delivery, behavior modification, patients' rights, social or private control of research

A critical analysis of human environments as physical, social-economic, and technocultural ecosystems with emphasis on the role of ideologies, beliefs, attitudes, and behavior. An examination of contemporary environmental literature and the philosophies embodied therein.