PHIL 5140
Understanding environmental problems; making effective use of technical information; procedural fairness; justifying aspirations; of general applicability to environmental problems; aimed at the first party participant.
The focus of our class discussion this semester will be a series of topics in environmental philosophy. I will begin by presenting an overview of the field, and then we will move into a discussion of economic decision-making. We will discuss some basic concepts in neo-classical environmental economics, problems of using contingent evaluation in evaluating environmental goods, and economic concepts of sustainability. If there is interest, we may also discuss the new field of ecological economics. From here we will move to a discussion of future generations and global environmental justice. Next we will discuss some recent developments in ecology and environmental history that have been stimulated by the rise of post-modernism in the humanities. We will conclude by discussing some fundamental questions in value theory.