ENVS*2070 - Environmental Ethics and Perspectives

Course Description

This course provides an interdisciplinary approach to environmental issues that focus on normative questions of human perspective and choice. Students will investigate the ethical issues that arise from the impact of our actions on the natural world. The course will analyze and assess various influential approaches to developing a normative understanding, including those of philosophers, economists, indigenous communities, feminists, artists, and scientists. Students will develop the necessary intellectual skills to be able to understand and engage fruitfully in normative debates about the environment.

Note: This course can be taken individually or as a part of a certificate program

Learning Outcomes

By the end of the course, the learner should be able to:

1. Distinguish the fundamental approaches to moral reflection;
2. Explain the range of influential alternatives to addressing the environment as a moral problem;
3. Examine the fundamental assumptions of value and obligation found in environmental discourse;
4. Advance and develop more refined and persuasive normative positions to guide your personal contributions to environmental discourse; and
5. Read and evaluate research to express evidence-based opinions on environmental topics in written and verbal formats.

Course Topics

• Introduction, moral relativism, science and moral reflection
• The moral status of animals
• The moral status of life
• The moral status of ecological systems
• Markets, morality, and the environment
• Aesthetics and the environment
• First Nations
• Climate Change
• Population and Consumption
• Biodiversity
• The Precautionary Principle

Assessment

Applies Towards the Following Certificates

• Certificate in Environmental Citizenship : Required Courses