People and Planet

3 Units

By the second decade of the twenty-first century, planetary thinking decisively ruptured global thought, changing the way morality and politics could be understood. Geology became important for how we should think about living together, and all life on Earth stood out as a dutiful concern for people. What is it to be an Earth-dweller? Who is a moral person? How can politics become multi-species? How should people face their inevitable extinction in deep time? What Earth should be left for nonhuman others? This course probes fundamental issues in environmental philosophy by taking humankind's Earth-changing power as an existential, moral, and politically counterintuitive matter. Offered as PHIL 318 , POSC 318 and ESTD 318 . Counts as a Communication Intensive course. Counts as a Moral & Ethical Reasoning course.