PHI 214 Environmental Ethics

3 hours 

This course will explore the moral obligations of human beings to nature and nonhuman animals. Students will learn and apply various ethical theories to a consideration of nonhuman animals, inanimate objects, ecosystems and nature as a whole. Potential topics include but are not limited to: What sort of (moral) value do natural objects have? Is there intrinsic value in nature? Is sentience - the ability to experience pleasure and pain - the primary moral rights conferring property; that is, the property that makes a being matter morally? Do ecosystems matter morally? Which has moral priority collective entities such as species or ecosystems or individual sentient beings? What are the obligations of present generations to future generations of human beings?