BAEcon Economics

How can philosophy help us better understand our relationship with the natural world? How can philosophy help us address environmental problems? Students will explore various perspectives on these questions, such as those to be found in classic works in environmental philosophy, eco-feminism, non-western traditions, and those resulting from engagement with other disciplines such as conservation biology, environmental psychology, law, economics, and politics. Students will encounter both theoretical and applied debates such as: What is the nature and root cause of environmental problems? How best to conceptualise nature’s value? Do we need a new nonanthropocentric ethics? Do we have aesthetic reasons to protect nature? Do animals have rights? Is climate change a human rights issue? Who should shoulder the costs of responding to environmental problems? What are our obligations to future generations? Should we minimize our carbon footprint? Should we leave half the Earth for nature? Should we tax carbon? Is being vegan morally obligatory? What are the limits of ethical climate protest? Should we engineer the climate?

The unit aims to:

• To introduce students to central theoretical, normative and applied questions in environmental philosophy;
• To enable students to gain an in-depth understanding of established positions and contemporary debates within environmental philosophy;
• To enhance students' development of the skills of critical reasoning and independent thought through analysis of and reflection on key environmental philosophy texts.

One two-hour lecture and one one-hour tutorial per week.

Students should be able to:

• Identify and analyse a range of philosophical questions in environmental philosophy.

Students should be able to:

• Compare and clearly articulate the main established positions on these questions and the key texts associated with these positions;
• Critically engage with the examined positions and texts and to advance and justify independent views;
• Produce a substantial piece of philosophical writing on environmental philosophy;
• Critically engage with the examined positions and texts and to advance and justify independent views.

Students should be able to:

• Undertake independent research and apply theoretical knowledge to issues of practical significance.

Portfolio Assessment (4000 words) 100%

The School of Social Sciences (SoSS) is committed to providing timely and appropriate feedback to students on their academic progress and achievement, thereby enabling students to reflect on their progress and plan their academic and skills development effectively. Students are reminded that feedback is necessarily responsive: only when a student has done a certain amount of work and approaches us with it at the appropriate time is it possible for us to feed back on the student's work. The main forms of feedback on this course are written feedback responses to assessed essays and exam answers.

We also draw your attention to the variety of generic forms of feedback available to you on this as on all SoSS courses. These include: meeting the lecturer/tutor during their office hours; e-mailing questions to the lecturer/tutor; asking questions from the lecturer (before and after lecture); presenting a question on the discussion board on Canvas; and obtaining feedback from your peers during tutorials.

• Chislenko, E. (2022). The Role of Philosophers in Climate Change. Journal of the American Philosophical Association, 8(4), 780-798. doi:10.1017/apa.2021.32
• Jamieson, D. (Ed.). (2008). A Companion to Environmental Philosophy. John Wiley & Sons.
• Gardiner, Stephen, Simon Caney, Dale Jamieson and Henry Shue, eds. Climate Ethics: Essential Readings. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2010.
• Budolfson, Mark, Tristram McPherson, and David Plunkett (eds), Philosophy and Climate Change (Oxford, 2021; online edn, Oxford Academic, 22 Apr. 2021), https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198796282.001.0001

Notional hours of learning 200