Ethics of Climate Change

Catalog description

Offered intermittently. This course examines some of the fundamental issues raised by global climate change and considers how environmental ethics might help to address these issues. Students will become acquainted with the essential elements of climate change science and be provided with an introduction to contemporary approaches to environmental ethics that have developed out of the primary ethical traditions of western thought: deontological (Kantian) ethics, utilitarian ethics, and virtue ethics. In addition, the course examines alternative understandings of the appropriate relationship between humans and the natural world including: “Deep Ecology” and Native American perspectives.