Environmental Ethics: Syllabus 2022

Monday, August 15, 2022

Syllabus 2022

PHIL 3340 - ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS - TTh 4:20-5:45 pm, James Union Building (JUB) 202

Fall 2022-under construction

Life Under Construction – A Devotion – Pure Devotion

The online syllabus is a perpetual work-in-progress, always check under "NEXT" in the top right on our main page for late revisions and updates. It's best not to rely on a version printed early in the semester, changes are inevitable.

Phil.Oliver@mtsu.edu. 300 James Union Building (JUB).

Office hours 2022: T/Th 11-1 & by appointment & via Zoom (link available on request)... (615) 898-2050, (615) 525-7865 only during office hours please

We'll use this site, NOT D2L, for online discussion and support.

Eventually we'll all become "authors" on this site, to post reports etc. Meanwhile, post your thoughts, research discoveries, and questions in the "comments" spaces (which appear below each post).

Philosophy, whatever else it is, is an open-ended conversation among ourselves and with philosophers of the past, and anticipating those of the future. Participate in the conversation.

TEXTS

REQUIRED for Fall 2022:

Wendell Berry, The World-Ending Fire (WB)
Paul Hawken, Regeneration (PH)
Kim Stanley Robinson, Ministry for the Future (KSR)
Bill McKibben, tba (McK)
Sunrise Movement, tba (S)

RECOMMENDED (good source for report topics):

Bill McKibben, ed. American Earth: Environmental Writing Since Thoreau
Bill McKibben, The Flag, the Cross, and the Station Wagon: A Graying American Looks Back at His Suburban Boyhood and Wonders What the Hell Happened
William MacAskill, What We Owe the Future

William James (WJ)

Feel free to use etexts and audiobooks, when available.

IMPORTANT DATES Fall 2022

August 22 – Classes Begin
September 5 – Labor Day Holiday - No Classes/University Closed
Sep 20 - assign midterm report topics
Sep 27 - midterm report presentations begin
Oct 6 - Exam 1
October 8-11 – Fall Break - No Classes
Oct 20 - assign final report topics
Nov 1 - final report presentations begin
November 23-26 – Thanksgiving Holidays - No Classes/University Closed November 24-26
Nov 29 - Last class, Exam 2
Dec 2 - Final blogpost due (post earlier for constructive feedback). See note below on * Deadlines.
November 30 – Last Day of Classes
December 1 – Study Day, No Classes/Exams/Mandatory Meetings
December 2-8 – Final Exams as Determined by University Approved Exam Schedule
December 8 – Last Day of Term
December 10 – Commencement (Time(s) TBD), Official Fall Graduation Date
December 11 – 11:59 p.m. Deadline for Submission of Final Grades

* Deadlines. Due dates are firm. Extensions are possible in the event of illness or some other unavoidable or extraordinary circumstance, but must first be authorized by me. jpo

AUG

23. Introductions. Post your response to these questions, interpreted any way you like: Who are you? Why are you here? What do you consider to be your environment? How does that relate to nature, the climate, and society? Do you think most college-age students are concerned about the present and future condition of the environment? Are you optimistic about the future?

25 WB -37 (Intro, A Native Hill)

30 WB -80 (The Making of a Marginal Farm... Total Economy)

SEP

1 WB -131 (Writer and Region... The Unsettling of America)

6 WB -176 (The Agrarian Standard... A Few Words for Motherhood)

8 WB -218 (Two Minds... Faustian Economics)

13 WB -259 (Quantity v. Form... Feminism, the Body, and the Machine)

15 WB -295 (Family Work... In Defense of Literacy)

20 WB -347 (Citizenship and Conscience… The Rise); Assign midterm report topics

22 PH -33 Foreword... Oceans

27 PH -61 Forests; Midterm report Presentations begin: tba

29 PH -93 Wilding; Presentations continue: tba

OCT

4 PH -115 Land; Presentations continue: tba

6 Presentations continue: tba. EXAM 1

FALL BREAK

13 PH -147 People; Presentations continue: tba

18 PH -169 The City; Midterm presentations conclude (?): tba

20 PH -191 Food; Assign final report topics.

25 PH -213 Energy

27 PH -255 Industry, Action + Connection, Afterword

NOV

1 KSR, tba; Final report presentations begin: tba

3 KSR, tba; Final report presentations continue: tba

8 KSR, tba; Final report presentations continue: tba

10 KSR, tba; Final report presentations continue: tba

15 KSR, tba; Final report presentations continue: tba

17 KSR, tba; Final report presentations continue: tba

22 KSR, tba; Final report presentations conclude?: tba

THANKSGIVING BREAK

29 Last class. Exam 2 (NOTE: Exam 2 is not a "final exam," it is the exam covering material since the first exam.)

DEC

2 Final blogpost due (post earlier for constructive feedback). See note above on * Deadlines.

EXAMS. Two objective-format exams based on daily questions, each worth up to 25 points.

REPORTS. Midterm presentation & posted summary (10 minute presentation, 250+ word summary, with sources and two discussion questions), final presentation & blog post (10 min, 1,000+ word post. Worth up to 25 points each.

PARTICIPATION. Participation includes attendance, your full and attentive presence in class, and posts, comments (etc.) to our site prior to each class. No points formally allotted, but steady participation earns strong consideration for a higher final grade. (Hypothetically, for instance: say you earned a total of 88 points (of a possible 100) on the exams and reports. If you did not participate consistently and well, your course grade would be B+. If you did, it would be A.)

SCORECARDS. Because your professor is a baseball fan, we'll track participation with baseball scorecards adapted to the purpose. Come to class to get on 1st base. Post pertinent comments and questions for discussion prior to class to advance to 2d & 3d base.To come home and "score" post a pertinent research discovery, something we wouldn't have known from the day's assigned reading. Good places for quick online philosophical research include the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, the Philosophical Dictionary, and the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy… For environmental research, let us know what you’ve found to be useful.

Keep a detailed and dated log of your posts and comments, appended to your last post each week. Always include your section # (7, 11, or 12 this semester) with your posts.

"Solvitur ambulando"... the art of walking

A NOTE ON THE BLOG POST FORMAT: Midterm & final report blog posts should include appropriately-bloggish content: not just words, but also images, links, videos where relevant, etc.

A NOTE ON WORD COUNTS. 250 and 1,000 are minimums. Write more, if you've got more to say. Write a tome, if you've got one in you. But your main goal in writing for our course is always to be clear, to say what you mean, and to say things your classmates (and I) will want to respond to. Think of your weekly blog posts not as "papers" but as contributions to a conversation. And again, do think of them as blog posts, with links, graphics, videos. etc.

Watch this space for updated info on the university's and our department's FREE tutoring service... and learn how to study, get help with understanding difficult course material, receive better test grades, or simply improve your grade point average. Tutoring is available in study skills and learning strategies that includes sessions on time management, notetaking, when and where to study, and memory principles. Tutoring is also available in over 200 courses including biology, history, computer information systems, physics, math, psychology, chemistry, economics, recording industry, and many more. The central location for tutoring is the Tutoring Spot, located in Walker Library, but is also conducted at various other campus sites. For available tutoring opportunities, visit http://mtsu.edu/studentsuccess/tutoring.php#on . For questions, call the Tutoring Spot at 615-904-8014.

Dr. Cornelia Wills

Director of Student Success

Middle Tennessee State University

P. O. Box 500

Murfreesboro, TN 37132

Telephone: 615-898-5025

http://mtsu.edu/studentsuccess/index.php

Title IX

Students who believe they have been harassed, discriminated against or been the victim of sexual assault, dating violence, domestic violence or stalking should contact a Title IX/Deputy Coordinator at 615-898-2185 or 615-898- 2750 for assistance or review MTSU’s Title IX website for resources. http://www.mtsu.edu/titleix/

Writing Center

The Margaret H. Ordoubadian University Writing Center serves all MTSU students, from freshmen to PhD candidates, on writing from any discipline, and in any genre. [website...] We have a brand new digital class visit, a brief introduction to the UWC, which can be embedded in any D2L shell for your students.

Tutoring sessions begin August 24th, and this semester, students will have two choices for online writing support:

Live Chat: students to use their mic and camera and meet tutors in real time to work on a shared document;
Document Drop: students upload their text and assignment sheet, identify specific feedback needs, and receive tutor feedback through email.

We also support writers through course-specific or assignment-specific workshops. The UWC administrative team has worked closely with faculty in diverse programs and departments, such as Biology, Anthropology, and Professional Studies, to create workshops and writing support for students in those courses. Please email Erica Cirillo-McCarthy, Director of the UWC, at erica.cirillo-mccarthy@mtsu.edu if you are interested in talking about ways the UWC can support writers in your class.

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First things first--a proper education

“The complexity of our present trouble suggests as never before that we need to change our present concept of education. Education is not properly an industry, and its proper use is not to serve industries, either by job-training or by industry-subsidized research. It's proper use is to enable citizens to live lives that are economically, politically, socially, and culturally responsible. This cannot be done by gathering or "accessing" what we now call "information" - which is to say facts without context and therefore without priority. A proper education enables young people to put their lives in order, which means knowing what things are more important than other things; it means putting first things first.” ― Wendell Berry

The college project

“The American college may be considered a continuation, at the human level, of the self-education process of the earth itself: universe education, earth education, and human education are stages of development in a single unbroken process...The entire college project can be seen as that of enabling the student to understand the immense story of the universe and the role of the student in creating the next phase of the story.” --Thomas Berry, “The American College in the Ecological Age,” in The Dream of the Earth

“Odd as I am sure it will appear to some, I can think of no better form of personal involvement in the cure of the environment than that of gardening. A person who is growing a garden, if he is growing it organically, is improving a piece of the world. He is producing something to eat, which makes him somewhat independent of the grocery business, but he is also enlarging, for himself, the meaning of food and the pleasure of eating.”
― Wendell Berry, The Art of the Commonplace: The Agrarian Essays

“Nature shrinks as capital grows. The growth of the market cannot solve the very crisis it creates.”
― Vandana Shiva, Soil Not Oil: Environmental Justice in an Age of Climate Crisis

“Why should we tolerate a diet of weak poisons, a home in insipid surroundings, a circle of acquaintances who are not quite our enemies, the noise of motors with just enough relief to prevent insanity? Who would want to live in a world which is just not quite fatal?”
― Rachel Carson, Silent Spring

“How can we be so arrogant? The planet is, was, and always will be stronger than us. We can't destroy it; if we overstep the mark, the planet will simply erase us from its surface and carry on existing. Why don't they start talking about not letting the planet destroy us?”
― Paulo Coelho, The Winner Stands Alone

“When asked if I am pessimistic or optimistic about the future, my answer is always the same: if you look at the science about what is happening on earth and aren't pessimistic, you don't understand the data. But if you meet the people who are working to restore this earth and the lives of the poor, and you aren't optimistic, you haven't got a pulse.”
― Martin Keogh, Hope Beneath Our Feet: Restoring Our Place in the Natural World

“When the last tree is cut and the last fish killed, the last river poisoned, then you will see that you can't eat money.”
― John May, The Greenpeace Story

“We are being made aware that the organization of society on the principle of private profit, as well as public destruction, is leading both to the deformation of humanity by unregulated industrialism, and to the exhaustion of natural resources, and that a good deal of our material progress is a progress for which succeeding generations may have to pay dearly.”
― T.S. Eliot

“There is a tendency at every important but difficult crossroad to pretend that it's not really there.”
― Bill McKibben, The End of Nature

“We know, at least, that this decision (ending factory farming) will help prevent deforestation, curb global warming, reduce pollution, save oil reserves, lessen the burden on rural America, decrease human rights abuses, improve publish health, and help eliminate the most systematic animal abuse in history.”
― Jonathan Safran Foer, Eating Animals

“An attitude to life which seeks fulfilment in the
single-minded pursuit of wealth - in short, materialism - does not fit into this
world, because it contains within itself no limiting principle, while the
environment in which it is placed is strictly limited.”
― Ernst F. Schumacher, Small Is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered

“One of the penalties of an ecological education is that one lives alone in a world of wounds.”
― Aldo Leopold

“Saving the world requires saving democracy. That requires well-informed citizens. Conservation, environment, poverty, community, education, family, health, economy- these combine to make one quest: liberty and justice for all. Whether one's special emphasis is global warming or child welfare, the cause is the same cause. And justice comes from the same place being human comes from: compassion.”
― Carl Safina, The View from Lazy Point: A Natural Year in an Unnatural World

“The re-establishment of an ecological balance depends on the ability of society to counteract the progressive materialization of values. The ecological balance cannot be re-established unless we recognize again that only persons have ends and only persons can work towards them.”
― Ivan Illich

Environmental Ethics

Monday, August 15, 2022

Syllabus 2022

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Peripatetics

	Michael Pollan (@michaelpollan) http://michaelpollan.com/
5/14/15, 10:57 AM All the lectures and talks from Edible Education 101 are now online. All told, a great introduction to food politics bit.ly/1Fausvx