PHIL 285/ENVST285 : Environmental Ethics for Future Generations

Anthropogenic climate change, increasing planetary destruction and the consequences for distributive justice for future generations have been defined as the most crucial problems of the 21st century. 60% of the world’s population live in cities that are impacted. How can students become aware of the knowledge of their agency in addressing these issues? How can SUA students develop knowledge and pragmatic application toward positively affecting the outcome of these issues. This is a seminal course in the pro-active, ethical relationships of human beings to the universe. It amplifies the SUA principle of ‘the creative co-existence of nature and humanity’. It analyzes the concept of how we relate to the natural environment is a foundational, philosophical, moral issue. Career minded students can choose from many M. A. and Ph. D. programs in environmental ethics. The uniqueness of SUA’s course is that it examines the ethical dimensions of human relationships to the natural world, cities and the cosmopolitan world from a variety of multi-cultural perspectives including East, West and South, Anthropocentrism, Humanism, Aristotelianism, Confucianism, Daoism, Buddhism, Transcendentalism, Indigenous perspectives, Marxism and Deep Ecology. Ethical topics discussed include the relationship between Normative Ethics and Environmental ethics, Ethical Reasoning, Ethical Issues, Urban Issues, Human nature, Bioethics, Medical Ethics, Public Health Ethics, Animal Rights, Reverence for Life, and the Ethical Relevance of Corporate Practices to Sentient and Non-Sentient Nature. The guiding thread of the course is human responsibility for being the caretaker of the universe. Cross-listed as ES 285.