Ethics & Ecology

(3 Credit Hours) · Undergraduate

Climate change and other environmental crises have prompted calls to expand justice beyond the spheres of duties to individuals and political communities. Not only animals but ecosystems could then be seen as objects of ethical and political concern. This course investigates these controversial claims and their conceptual foundations. We begin by investigating what ecosystems are, and then turn to how they might be said to have inherent value. Finally, drawing on recent work in the social sciences as well as philosophy, we will consider how individual agents could fit into such accounts of the world.