Admission requirements
Admission to this course is restricted to:
BA students in Philosophy: Global and Comparative Perspectives, who have successfully completed at least 70 ECTS credits of the mandatory components of the first and second year of their bachelor’s programme, including Philosophical Skills and Ethics.
BA students in Filosofie, who have successfully completed at least 70 ECTS credits of the mandatory components of the first and second year of their bachelor’s programme, including Filosofische vaardigheden and Ethiek.
Description
This is a course on some of the major themes in contemporary environmental ethics. We have five topics. First, we discuss foundational issues in environmental ethics. A centrally important distinction in this field is between anthropocentric and biocentric justifications for environmental ethics. According to the first, the moral value of nature is based exclusively on its utility to humans (or, if they exist, also to non-human moral agents). According to the second, the ecosystem is intrinsically valuable and commits us to a form of egalitarianism between species. We discuss writings of representative proponents of each of these two extreme positions as well as various proposals that aim to reconcile anthropocentrism and biocentrism. Second, we look at animal ethics as a case study. Third, we discuss ecologism as a political ideology and compare it to other ideologies, most notably liberalism, republicanism and feminism. Fourth, we discuss the various political institutions that may hamper or improve social change, and in this context, we also discuss bottom-up, individual social change. Fifth, we discuss the ethics of climate change and the idea of moral progress.
Course objectives
This course aims to:
give students mastery of central concepts and debates in environmental philosophy;
acquaint students with key writings and authors in environmental philosophy.
Students who successfully complete the course will be able to:
paraphrase, interpret, analyze, and criticize central concepts and arguments in environmental philosophy in philosophical writings;
research an important problem in the area of the course, identify an appropriate philosophical approach to framing and addressing it, systematically develop and justify an answer of their own
Timetable
The timetables are available through My Timetable.
Mode of instruction
- Seminar
Assessment method
Assessment
- Final paper
Weighing
- Final paper (100%)
Students without sufficient attendance will be excluded from the examinaton.
To pass the course, the grade must be 5.5 or higher.
Resit
- Student can resit the final paper (100%).
Attendance is required – without sufficient attendance students will be excluded from taking the resit.
Students without sufficient attendance or who have a passing grade for the first attempt will be excluded from the resit.
Inspection and feedback
How and when an exam review will take place will be disclosed together with the publication of the exam results at the latest. If a student requests a review within 30 days after publication of the exam results, an exam review will have to be organized.
Reading list
All texts are available free of charge through the university liberary e-prospectus.
Registration
Enrolment through MyStudyMap is mandatory.
General information about course and exam enrolment is available on the website.
Contact
For substantive questions, contact the lecturer listed in the right information bar.
For questions about enrolment, admission, etc, contact the Education Administration Office: Huizinga
Remarks
Not applicable.