Environmental Ethics

Wednesday, March 28, 2007 from 6PM-9PM
Raval Wine Bar, 453 King Street (past Radcliffe Street)

-Networking over drinks
-Mixture of people with diverse environmental interests
-Share ideas—make connections—collaborate
-No structure
-Bring a friend or two!

Greendrinks is a once a month get together for anyone with environmental interests to chat in an informal setting over a few beers. It started in 1989 in London and is now active in 202 cities all over the world.

Cheers to the Earth

Register your email address and get more information at:
www.greendrinks.org
(Click USA at the top)

Today in class we discussed Lester Milbrath’s article “Redefining the Good Life in a sustainable Society”.
This article discussed the possiblity (more…)

During Thursday’s class we discussed Martin Krieger. Krieger wants us all to be out in nature, admiring its beauty and having deep experiences by being in its prescence. Kreiger states on page 165 that, (more…)

Attend if you can!
Saturday, March 24, 2007
Experiential Outdoor Workshop – on Campus – “ON THE WAY HOME: Ecosteries and Natural Systems Thinking Process” (more…)

One of Martin Krieger’s main themes is that people either enjoy nature when it is “sweetened up” or if they have a really intimate experience with nature.

We started this class off with a short quiz, and then discussed the answers: (more…)

Thesis: Kreiger’s thesis provides a solution for our environmental crises by offering substitutes to untouched wilderness in order to promote the notion of the wilderness’ value. (more…)

Taylor Thesis: I argue that finally it is the good (well-being, welfare) of individual organisms, considered as entities having inherent worth that determines our moral relations with the Earth’s wild communities of life. (p. 83).

The most important part of this article is on page 86. (more…)

David Selber – February 27, 2007
Summary of David Schmidtz, “Are All Species Equal?”: “NEW” IDEA THAT SCHMIDTZ BRINGS TO US:
Anthropocentrism is compatible with full respect for the environment.
-broad respect for living or beautiful well-functioning things but views humans as the superior species as well
-viewing apes as having moral standing is a form of self-respect, viewing viruses as having moral standing is not
-marvel at living things without thinking all living things have moral standing

Contrast to Taylor:
-goes against Taylor’s idea that all animals have equal intrinsic value
-Taylor against anthropocentrism/human superiority; Schmidtz is very anthropocentric and believes our morality makes us superior to all other creatures (more…)

Grant Cutler – February 21, 2007
In class we reviewed “Duties Concerning Islands” by Mary Midgley. She managed to focus on pointing out that other philosophers have a distorted and “awkward” view of how ethics and duties should be approached. She believes that the majority of well-known philosophers have interfered with how we talk and what we talk about.

Midgley argues that you have duties to everything. Not because the inanimate object is and should be personalized, but because that object has value to animate objects such as humans around it. The same could be said about a spider web.

Also, Midgely mentions a list that appears as non-contractual duties. This includes, but is not limited to:
- Human Sector
- Animal Sector
- Inanimate Sector
- Comprehensive
- Miscellaneous
(the full list can be seen on page 76) (more…)

marissa stern – February 18, 2007
In Feinberg’s The Rights of Animals, the author begins with two primary assumptions. The first is that there will still be a world 500 years from now that will contain human beings who are very much like us and the second is that it is psychologically possible for the current generations to care about our remote descendants. As his main goal, Feinberg wants to show that it makes sense to speak on the rights of unborn generations. In addition, he believes that we out to conserve our environmental inheritance for future generations and that future generations have rights correlative to our present duties toward them. Feinberg insists that protecting our environment is a matter of love. (more…)