An overview of Environmental Ethics
Here are some web sites that will enhance your understanding of this week's reading:
Environmental Ethics & Ethics Overviews:
This Week's Authors:
Paul Taylor:
- An outline of Paul Taylor's Respect for Nature essay. This is a great resource for getting an overall feel for Taylor's argument.
- The contrast between Anthropocentric vs Non-Anthropocentric Environmental Ethics also does a great job of summarizing Taylor's views.
- Here is an interesting paper contrasting "The Anthropocentric Theory of John Passmore versus Biocentric Views of Paul Taylor."
Gary Varner:
- Gary Varner's Homepage: Dr. Varner is incredibly generous and allowed me to use his syllabus as a model for creating this class. His site contains many valuable material for understanding the philosophical approach to environmental ethics. I remain grateful to him for this resource.
- Here is an amazing link to a collection of available papers by Dr. Varner
Real TED Videos (TED.com)
- The photo director for National Geographic, David Griffin knows the power of photography to connect us to our world. In a talk filled with glorious images, he talks about how we all use photos to tell our stories.
- The legendary chimpanzee researcher Jane Goodall talks about TACARE and her other community projects, which help people in booming African towns live side-by-side with threatened animals.
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Guide Questions:
The following questions are designed to fine tune your understanding of the reading. The subject matter and answers to these questions form the basis of what you will be required to know for exams.
Objectives for this week: These are the learning objectives you should have mastered after attending the lectures and completing the questions below
- outline life centered theory and the ethical status of humans/animals
- explain the ethical premises behind the biocentric outlook on nature
- contextualize the role of sentience/reasoning and teleology in crafting an ethics respectful of animals
- summarize the tension between environmental ethics and animal rights
- describe the worse-off and miniride principles and their role in the animal rights debate
- think about the role of hunting in the quest for self preservation
The Ethics of Respect for Nature (Taylor)
Guide Questions:
- Briefly outline life centered theory and the ethical status of humans/animals.
- What are the three basic elements that constitute an ethics of respect for nature?
- List the four main components of the biocentric outlook on nature?
- Describe Taylor's idea that organisms are "teleological centers of life." Based on our discussions from the Palmer essay and this reading, what does it take to qualify as a teleological center of life?
- Explain why judgments of merit and morality are biased in favor of outcomes beneficial to humans.
- Taylor makes the claim that humans who live in modern democracies do not believe in hereditary social distinctions. Is this assumption accurate? Is there a schism between theory and practice? Do we live in a classless society?
- Explain why someone who accepts the first three tenants of the biocentric viewpoint is in a position to reject human superiority claims from tradition.
Can animal rights activists be environmentalists? (Varner)
Guide Questions:
- Summarize the tension between environmental ethics and animal rights. According to Varner can we live in both camps?
- Describe the difference between therapeutic, subsistence and sports hunting.
- What is Varner describing when he states that animal activists practice brinkmanship with regards to hunting issues?
- Describe the worse-off and miniride principles and their role in the animal rights debate.
- Is Schweitzer correct when he states" that even killing in self-preservation and incurs guilt?"(Varner, 109)
Smartboard Notes from Week 4 Lecture: