Environmental Philosophy (INTD 425)
Manchester University, Spring 2017 Instructor: Steve Naragon
Reading and Assignment Schedule
Required Texts
• Pojman and Pojman, Environmental Ethics: Readings in Theory and Application, 5th ed. (Thomson/Wadsworth, 2008). [ISBN: 978-0-495-09503-3]
• Additional required readings (available with the links below) from John Locke, Robert Nozick, Chief Seattle, Amartya Sen, and others.
Print these few articles and bring to class!
Various assignment due dates are listed below. Your work should be submitted on Canvas, in the appropriate drop box or discussion forum. There are six Discussion Forums, and for each you will need to write one post and two comments; due dates for these are listed in the schedule below.
The other due dates are all related to the short research essay (indicated below as: Research Essay).
(The “Additional Material” listed with many of the topics, below, is offered for your continued exploration, as time allows. Some of these items are brief and easily assimilated; others are quite lengthy.)
Tue, Jan 31
Introduction to the class.
DF #1 is due at midnight (see Canvas)
Private Property and the Public Good
Thu, Feb 2
Is the Privatization of Common Resources the Best Way to Preserve Them?
Reading: Garrett Hardin, “The Tragedy of the Commons” (#45).
Additional Material
Powerpoint Slides: “The Tragedy of the Commons” [pdf].
Text: John Tierney, “The Non-Tragedy of the Commons” (The New York Times, 17 Dec 2011) [web].
Tue, Feb 7
Where Does Private Property Come From?
Reading: John Locke, “Of Property” [pdf]; Chief Seattle, “If we sell you our land…” [pdf].
Comments on DF #1 are due at midnight (see Canvas) [rubric]
Additional Material
Powerpoint Slides: “Locke on Property” [pdf].
Text: Jerry Clark, “Thus Spoke Chief Seattle: The Story of An Undocumented Speech” Prologue Magazine (Spring 1985) [pdf].
Thu, Feb 9
Overview of Distributive Justice
Reading: Robert Nozick, “Distributive Justice” (selection from Anarchy, State, and Utopia) [pdf].
Additional Material
Powerpoint Slides: “Distributive Justice” [pdf].
Text: Stephen Metcalf, “The Liberty Scam” (Slate, 20 Jun 2011) [web].
Population, Consumption, and
Food Ethics
Tue, Feb 14
Are we Living on a Lifeboat?
Reading: Garrett Hardin, “Lifeboat Ethics” (#49); William Murdoch and Allan Oaten, “Critique of Lifeboat Ethics” (#50).
Research Essay: Please write a brief paragraph that describes the research topic or topics that you are considering, and upload into the "Topic Selection" dropbox on Canvas.
Additional Material
Powerpoint Slides: “Living on a Lifeboat” [pdf].
Website: "World Population" worldometers [web].
Website: International Food Policy Research Institute [web].
Video: E. F. Schumacher on Buddhist Economics (3m 11s) [from a lecture on Appropriate Technology at the Great Circle Center, University of Illinois, Chicago, 19 Mar 1977] [video]
Text: Mark Sagoff, “Carrying Capacity and Ecological Economics” (Bioscience, 45 [2009]: 610-20) [pdf].
Graph: Population growth (annual %), prepared by the World Bank [web].
Passage: Malthus on People [text].
Thu, Feb 16
Patterns of Consumption
Reading: Bill McKibben, “A Special Moment in History: The Challenge of Overpopulation and Overconsumption” (#44).
DF #2 is due at midnight (see Canvas) [rubric]
Additional Material
Powerpoint Slides: “Population and Consumption” [pdf].
Article: Gary Gardner, Erik Assadourian, Radhika Sarin, “The State of Consumption Today” (State of the World 2004) [pdf].
Biographical Profile: Nick Paumgarten, “The Scold: Mr. Money Mustache's retirement (sort of) plan” (The New Yorker, 29 February 2016) [pdf]. And here is the official blogsite for Mr. Money Mustache [blog].
Population Clock: Maintained by the U.S. Census Bureau [web]
Wikipedia: World Human Population [web]
Video: Annie Leonard, The Story of Stuff (20m) [video]
Video: Andreas Malm, "The Anthropocene Myth" (Jacobin, 30 March 2015) [online]
Video: Annie Leonard interview with Stephen Colbert (The Colbert Report, 9 March 2010) [video]
Tue, Feb 21
Population and Vegetarianism
Reading: Michael Allen Fox, “Vegetarianism and Treading Lightly” (#55).
Comments on DF #2 are due at midnight (see Canvas) [rubric]
Additional Material
Website: “Sustainable Diets: What You Need to Know in 12 Charts” World Resources Institute [website].
Video: The Future of Food with Vandana Shiva (4m 47s) [video]
Brochure: Jude Capper, “Raising Sustainable Beef: a scientist’s point of view” explorebeef.com [web] — an exercise for critical reading
Video: Four Winds Farm: organic food from a family farm (5m 18s) [video]
Video: Britta Riley, “A Garden in My Apartment” (TED Talk; 7m 445s) [video]
News Item: ScienceDaily: “Honeybee Deaths Linked to Seed Insecticide Exposure” (12 Jan 2012) [web]
Blog: Naragon gets blogged! Reveals secrets in culinary tell-all!! [blogsite]
Thu, Feb 23
When our Neighbors Starve
Reading: Mylan Engel, Jr., “Hunger, Duty, and Ecology” (#51); Amartya Sen, “Property and Hunger” [pdf].
Additional Material
Powerpoint Slides: Amartya Sen, “Property and Hunger” [pdf].
Website: Charity Navigator: Your Guide to Intelligent Giving [website].
Film: The Girl in the Café (2005; Dir.: David Yates; 1h 34m) [trailer]
Website: Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, ODA (official development assistance) data [2010].
Website: Food First [web].
Website: Hungry for Change (watch the Food, Inc. trailer) [web].
Website: Millenium Development Goals Indicators [web].
Tue, Feb 28
First Exam [study guide]
On The Moral Standing of
Non-Human Animals
Thu, Mar 2
Animal Welfare
Reading: Peter Singer, “Animal Liberation” (#9).
Research Essay: Thesis paragraph and preliminary list of (at least four) sources (Canvas).
Additional Material
Powerpoint Slides: “Animal Rights and Animal Welfare” [pdf].
Website: "Farmed Animals and the Law" Animal Legal Defense Fund [web]
Website: Farm to Fridge — the transformation of animals into food [web]
Website: Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production [web]
Audio: Jeff McMahan on Vegetarianism (Philosophy Bites) (15m 58s) [audio]
Video: Jonathon Safran Foer on Eating Animals (1h 5m 45s) [FORA.tv]
Tue, Mar 7
Animal Rights
Reading: Tom Regan, “The Radical Egalitarian Case” (#10); Mary Ann Warren, “A Critique of Regan” (#11).
Additional Material
Videos: Meet the hens on a free-range facility in Yorkshire, England [YouTube]; meet more happy hens in Cumbria, England (providing eggs to McDonalds) [YouTube]; meet some sad hens in a normal battery-cage facility in Croton, Ohio [YouTube]. And for a useful report on what the labels on the egg cartons meen, see "The Checkout" ABC 1 (Australia) [YouTube].
Thu, Mar 9
How Wide is our Moral Community?
Reading: Kenneth Goodpaster, “On Being Morally Considerable” (#18) [pdf].
DF #3 is due at midnight (see Canvas) [rubric]
Species, Biodiversity, and
Valuing Nature
Tue, Mar 14
Valuing Species
Reading: Donella Meadow, “Biodiversity” (#30); Lilly-Marlene Russow, “Why Do Species Matter?” (#31).
Comments on DF #3 are due at midnight (see Canvas) [rubric]
Additional Material
Powerpoint Slides: Valuing Species” [pdf].
Web Resource: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Endangered Species Program [web].
Web Resource: CITES: Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora [web].
Web Resource: International Union for Conservation of Nature: Red List of Threatened Species [web].
TED talk: Pavan Sukhdev on putting an economic value on nature (16m 31s) [web video]
Thu, Mar 16
Extending Legal Rights
Reading: Christopher Stone, “Should Trees Have Standing?” (#34).
Research Essay: Upload to Canvas a bibliography with at least four sources, with annotations. [help]
Additional Material
Powerpoint Slides: “Valuing Nature” [pdf].
Video: Christopher Stone on the origin of his essay (3m 07s) [2013] [video]
News Item: “New Zealand declares a river a person” (The Economist, 22 March 2017) [web]
Spring Break
Economics and the Environment
Tue, Mar 28
Optimal Pollution
Reading: William Baxter, “People or Penguins” (#58).
Additional Material
Powerpoint Slides: “Economics and the Environment” [pdf].
Economics Summary Sheet: “Economics and the Environment (summary)” [pdf].
Text: Lisa Heinzerling and Frank Ackerman, Pricing the Priceless: Cost-Benefit Analysis of Environmental Protection (Georgetown Environmental Law and Policy Institute, 2002) [pdf].
Text: Mark Dowie, “Pinto Madness” (Mother Jones, Sep/Oct 1977) [web].
Text: E. S. Grush and C. S. Saunby, “Fatalities Associated with Crash Induced Fuel Leakage and Fires” (the Ford Pinto Memo) [pdf].
Thu, Mar 30
Citizens and Consumers
Reading: Mark Sagoff, “At the Shrine of Our Lady of Fatima (#68).
Additional Material
Powerpoint Slides: “Citizens and Consumers” [pdf].
Text: Mark Sagoff, “Carrying Capacity and Ecological Economics” (Bioscience, 45 [2009]: 610-20) [pdf].
Text: Brian Czech, “Ecological Economics” (Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems, 2009) [pdf].
Text: Herman Daly, “A Steady-State Economy” (Sustainable Development Commission, UK, 2008) [pdf].
Text: Tim Jackson, Prosperity Without Growth? The Transition to a Sustainable Economy (2009) [pdf].
Tue, Apr 4
Can We Value Anything?
Reading: Martin Krieger, “What’s Wrong with Plastic Trees?” [pdf].
Powerpoint Slides: “What’s Wrong with Plastic Trees?” [pdf].
Thu, Apr 6
Second Exam [study guide]
The Land Ethic and Beyond
Tue, Apr 11
Religion and Ecology
Reading: Lynn White, “The Historical Roots of Our Ecological Crisis” (#2).
Thu, Apr 13
Leopold’s Land Ethic
Reading: Aldo Leopold, “The Land Ethic” (#19); J. Baird Callicott, “Conceptual Foundations” (#20).
Additional Material
Powerpoint Slides: “The Land Ethic” [pdf].
Web Resource: The Land Institute [web]
Website: All about wilderness in the United States (Wilderness Connect). [web].
TED talks: George Monbiot, “For More Wonder, Rewild the World” (15m 06] [YouTube]. For the brief section on trophic cascade from wolves to rivers, with imagery from Yellowstone, see this [YouTube] clip.
Wikipedia: “Australian Dung Beetle Project” [web]
Tue, Apr 18
Deep Ecology
Reading: Arne Naess, “Shallow and Deep Ecology” (#24); Arne Naess, “Ecosophy T” (#25); Bill Devall and George Sessions (#26).
DF #4 is due at midnight (see Canvas) [rubric]
Additional Material
Powerpoint Slides: “Deep Ecology” [pdf].
Video: Arne Naess and Deep Ecology [9m 56s] [YouTube].
Article: Stephan Harding, “What is Deep Ecology?” Ecological Buddhism: A Buddhist Response to Global Warming [web]
Text: Interview with Michael Zimmerman (In Context, Summer 1989) [web]
Thu, Apr 20
Social Ecology
Reading: Murray Bookchin, “Social Ecology vs Deep Ecology” (#28).
Comments on DF #4 are due at midnight (see Canvas) [rubric]
Additional Material
Powerpoint Slides: “Social Ecology” [pdf].
Website: Murray Bookchin’s Collected Works (online) [web]
Environmental Justice
Tue, Apr 25
[classes cancelled for lack of electricity!]
Thu, Apr 27
Environmental Racism
Reading: Robert Bullard, “Overcoming Racism” (#70); Peter Wenz, “Just Garbage” (#72).
Research Essay: first draft of research essay (Canvas) [rubric]
Additional Material
Powerpoint Slides: “Environmental Racism” [pdf].
Report: “Toxic Wastes and Race” and “Toxic Wastes and Race at Twenty” — two reports from the Commission for Racial Justice, United Church of Christ [website].
Website: Environmental Justice/Environmental Racism [resources] [web].
Video: “Environmental Racism Explained” (29 Jan 2016; 2m 56s) AJ+ [trailer]
News Item: Chris Mooney, “It’s not just Flint: Poor communities across the country live with ‘extreme’ polluters” The Washington Post (January 27, 2016) [web].
Film: Erin Brokovich (2000; Dir.: Steve Soderbergh; 2h 11m) [trailer]
Tue, May 2
Third World Critiques
Reading: Ramachandra Guha, “Radical Environmentalism” (#39); Maria Mies, “Deceiving the Third World” (#73).
Additional Material
Powerpoint Slides: “Third World Critiques” [pdf].
Text: Maria Mies, “The Subsistence Perspective” (transcript of a 2005 interview) [pdf].
Website: Reconnecting Farmers, Society and the Earth (Vandana Shiva’s website) [web].
Getting There ...
Thu, May 4
Getting in the Way
Reading: Dave Foreman, “Strategic Monkeywrenching” (#81); Michael Martin, “Ecosabotage” (#80).
DF #5 is due at midnight (see Canvas) [rubric]
Additional Material
Powerpoint Slides: “Activism” [pdf].
Map: An interactive map of what's left of wilderness in the United States (Wilderness.net). [web].
News Item: Democracy Now!: “Honduran Indigenous Leader Berta Cáceres Assassinated, Won Goldman Environmental Prize” (3 March 2016) [web]
News Item: Nina Lakhani, “Berta Cáceres court papers show murder suspects’ links to US-trained elite troops” (The Guardian, 28 Feb 2017). [web].
Interview: Mother Earth News, 1985 interview of Dave Foreman [pdf].
Manual: Ecodefense: A Field Guide to Monkeywrenching, 3rd ed. (1993) [pdf].
Website: Earth First! [web].
Website: Greenpeace [web].
Website: Sea Shepherd [web].
Article: Tim DeChristopher, “I do not want mercy, I want you to join me,” Common Dreams [web].
Biographical Profile: Nick Paumgarten, “The Scold: Mr. Money Mustache's retirement (sort of) plan” (The New Yorker, 29 February 2016) [pdf]. And here is the official blogsite for Mr. Money Mustache [blog].
Report: “The First Bioenergy Village in Jühnde/Germany” [pdf].
Interview: Jaime Lerner on Green Cities in Brazil [pdf].
Website: Vertical Forests [web].
Website: The Vertical Farm Project [web].
Report: LED lighting for those Vertical Farms [web].
News Item: “Biodiversity in a Housing Project in Malmö” The Guardian [web].
Video: Las Gaviotas: How to Plant a Rainforest (15m 22s) [video]
Video: E. F. Schumacher on Buddhist Economics (3m 11s) [from a lecture on Appropriate Technology at the Great Circle Center, University of Illinois, Chicago, 19 Mar 1977] [video]
TED talk: William McDonough on cradle to cradle design (20m 3s) [web video]
TED talk: Alex Steffen sees a sustainable future (17m 31s) [web video] [www.worldchanging.com]
Video: Britta Riley, “A Garden in My Apartment” (TED Talk; 7m 445s) [video]
Mon, May 8
Research Essay: final draft of research essay (Canvas) [rubric] + summary sheet of research (Canvas) [rubric]
Tue, May 9 - Thu, May 11 [Presentation Sign-Up Sheets]
Comments on DF #5 are due at midnight (see Canvas) [rubric]
Student Research Presentations [rubric]
Finals Week
Third Exam [study guide]
Tuesday, May 16 (1:00-2:50 pm)
Manchester University // Registrar // Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies // Last updated: 25 Apr 2017