Environmental Ethics

In this class there is a paper due at the end of the semester.
Here are some possible topics:
What are some objections you have to Rolston?
Is White right about the cause of anthropocentrism?
Is it sound to focus on anthropocentrism in environmental ethics?
What would a Midgley-based environmental ethics look like?
Who is right, Schmidtz or Taylor, when it comes to species equality?
Who is right, Schmidtz or Singer?
Who is right, Leopold or Singer?
Criticize the Deep Ecological principles.
Describe the sense of self that Deep Ecology recommends, and consider some challenges to the proposal.
Contrast Mathews recommendations to those of Deep Ecology.
Write a paper where you explain Krieger’s views, give an example of them, and raise three criticisms.

Some general tips concerning the papers
1. Spend time thinking about what you want to say. If you write too early, before you understand your topic, you will be stuck with a few pages of writing that will not be clear. Talk, and talk, and talk about your thesis. Try it out. Explain it to me. Tell your roommate what you are going to try to prove.
2. When you do begin to write, do so in parts. You are making an argument, and arguments come in parts. Your thesis will not be a good one if it is just “Author X is wrong about Q.” Your thesis needs to represent the parts of your argument. An example is “I am going to show that Author X’s argument depends on W. W itself depends on Y. Y, I will argue, is unjustified. As a result, X’s dependence on W is questionable.” There is architecture to a good argument, and you want to make it clear what yours is.
3. You are not getting credit for writing a report. I merely expect that you will get the author’s view right, and that you will discuss the author’s view in all of its detail. Look to the articles we have read to see how authors can summarize a complex view (in order to move on to attacking it.)
4. You are not just giving your opinion, even though this paper is all about what you think. An opinion is something that does not have to be supported by reasons. Your view is going to be supported by many reasons. Reasons you can count (and might even list.)
5. Professional writers need countless drafts in order to express themselves well. There is no reason why students would be better writers than professionals. It is kind of arrogant to think you will not need to re-write this paper a few times before turning it in.
6. One nice thing about philosophy is that you get to be very honest. A good paper could be about something that, you admit, confuses you. You also do not have to come to some tidy conclusion—a good philosophy paper can just be a careful investigation of a problem you don’t pretend to solve. If you stick to writing only what you understand clearly (even if that is your confusion), your paper will be more philosophical than all sorts of overly confident “reports” on ideas are.

A few more tips.
7. A mark of a good paper is often the need to define a term for the purposes of the paper. This means that you are being more careful with concepts than we are in our everyday speech. For example, “In this paper, when I refer to “loyalty” I mean…”
8. Pay attention to the difference between argument and explanation. We honor arguments in philosophy, and explanations are more common. Peter Singer’s argument for the equality of animals is one thing, you could number this and present it in brief. An explanation of his view could be any number of things (his upbringing, his social milieu, his feelings.) Skip the book report like explanations, and focus on arguments in your paper.
9. It is tempting to feel like you sound smart in a paper. In college a friend would always use a thesaurus. In a philosophy class, you just want to be clear. You are smart enough for being able to read and understand these ideas. Unfortunately, perhaps, philosophy papers are not the place to use pretty prose or elaborate descriptions. Be boring so that you can be clear. You don’t need to entice your audience in a philosophy paper. If they’ve picked your paper up, they already care about your ideas and want to learn what it is you have to say. So teach them! Be sensitive to everything a teacher would need to be sensitive to, when dealing with complicated views that are neither obvious nor simple. I love the use of charts or lists to assist the points being made in these papers.