Environmental Ethics
Environmental Ethics Concentration Adviser: Jane Costlow; students should also consult with Professor Tracy in the Department of Religious Studies/Philosophy.
Environmental Ethics is the academic discipline which studies and reflects upon the moral dimension in the human-nature relationships. This moral dimension in all human action with natural environments arises because of the impact of values on our perceptions and conceptions of nature. In doing environmental ethics, one steps back from the particular context of decision making, which may be influenced by personal choices and community values, to ask what really is the morally-fitting response to an environmental situation or issue. Because environmental ethics is rooted in a wide range of philosophical traditions and depends upon the clear and careful thinking of the philosophical mind, most courses in the concentration are in this discipline.
Courses that count for the fourth course (200- or 300-level) requirement within the core:
ENVR 240 Water and Watersheds
AN/ES 242 Environment, Human Rights, and Indigenous Peoples
ENVR 310 Soils
AN/ES 337 Social Movements, NGOs, and the Environment
Concentration Requirements:
- Philosophy 212: Contemporary Moral Disputes; OR Philosophy/Envr 360: Independent Study.
- Philosophy 214/Envr 214: Ethics and Environmental Issues
- Philosophy 256: Moral Principles
- Philosophy 258: Philosophy of Law; OR Political Science 227: Judicial Powers and Economic Policy; OR INDS 228. Caring for Creation: Physics, Religion, and the Environment.
- One of the following:
Philosophy 324 A, B, or C or E, or Philosophy 325 Seminar: Topics in Ethics