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Introduction to Course Timothy C. Weiskel Class Session 1 16 - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

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Environmental Ethics and Land Management ENVR E-120 http://courses.dce.harvard.edu/~envre120 Introduction to Course Timothy C. Weiskel Class Session 1 16 September 2008 Harvard University Extension School Fall Semester 2008 Tim Weiskel - 2

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Environmental Ethics and Land Management ENVR E-120

http://courses.dce.harvard.edu/~envre120

Timothy C. Weiskel

Harvard University Extension School Fall Semester 2008

Introduction to Course

Class Session 1 16 September 2008

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  • We will not fight to save what we do

not love.

  • We cannot love what we do not know.
  • We do not know what we have not

come to experience. …. So get out and experience all you can

  • f nature at this glorious time of year…
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Ethics Concern How We Ought to Behave… Ethics examines the principles of right or correct behavior. It asks: “What ought to be done? How should we behave? What must we do? AND what should we abstain from doing?” Where do we acquire our ethical norms? Our sense of what is morally correct?

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In part, we acquire or sense of right and wrong, good and bad from our “elders”…, judicial authorities, church officials, parents, teachers, etc. Where do these old [white men] get their moral insights?

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Well, largely from still

  • lder texts.

In fact, the oldest forms of human symbol systems are “lists” of one kind or another – not just “shopping lists” but lists

  • f who owes what to

whom, etc… A list implies a moral

  • rder – at the very least a

stated sequence and perhaps a normative hierarchy.

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When true lettering systems emerge, literature becomes possible. Lists develop into written rule systems, and the moral

  • rder takes a narrative

form. Human moral imagination is henceforth shackled with the “tyranny of text.”

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Text and “Deontological Ethics” The “tyranny of text” emerges from the tendency to make text itself authoritative in matters of ethical judgment – rather than, say, experience or empirical

  • bservation of the world, or the outcome of testing

experiments. This reasoning proceeds from a logic of “first principles” – principles committed to text a long time ago. “It is written, therefore, it is…[right or wrong]” [good or evil, etc.]

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Text and “Deontological Ethics” This is what is often referred to as deontological ethics. [“Thou shalt; Thou shalt not…etc. ] One can get the impression that these texts were “written in stone,” as indeed, some would have us believe they were.

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Text and “Deontological Ethics”

But not all authoritative text was “written in stone.” Deontological ethics can be and often is, based on

  • ther “first principles.”
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The fact that things are written in stone or on paper does not always make their meaning clear.

What could this possibly mean, for example?

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Beyond text: The second major approach to ethics… A second approach to ethics asks not: “What does the (sacred) text say?” but rather “What will the predictable consequences of such and such behavior be?” It concludes that what is “good” or “bad,” “right” or “wrong” based on the consequences of that behavior.

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Consequentialist Ethics… Consequentialist ethics begins from the assumption that ethics are far more extensive than any text can ever be. That is, ethics extends far beyond what can ever be “written in stone.” Ethics begins where the law and power leave off. From this perspective ethics are built into culture – that is, they emerge from learned, collective, unconscious behavior in specific human communities, very much like language.

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What this course is NOT This course is NOT:

  • An introduction to environmental studies
  • A field or laboratory course in environmental science
  • A course in environmental policy making.
  • A course in the history of environmentalism
  • A survey course in the literature of environmental

ethics In effect, it will help you place all these other kinds of courses in perspective.

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We will take on…. This course will take on controversy. It will touch upon many of the current debates in the field -- like those surrounding the recent publication

  • f so called “skeptics.”

It will include -- where ever possible -- interviews, video clips, news reports and multimedia documentation relating to contemporary and historical environmental problems that illustrate clear conflicts in environmental ethics. *

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We will examine the current administration’s energy policy and what forces lie behind it...

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*

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* * *

The administration’s stance underscores that the US has become a culture of consumption in a world of constraint

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Does anyone think that they can “control” the water cycle?

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Did you see this coming? Were you surprised by this? Have you ever asked: “Why?”

  • - not only “why did it

happen?” But, “why were you surprised?” What other “blind spots” to we suffer from as a culture?

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Other cultures have their own blind spots as well as their unique insights

  • n the human-

ecosystem interaction.

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The Catholic tradition recognizes the problem at the highest level, as well…

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Comparative Ethics Human Ethical Capacity

Just as there is no universal culture or universal language

  • n Earth, so too, there is, as yet, no universal ethic.

Nevertheless, ethical systems, like languages, can be “translated” from one to another. Further, we can learn a great deal about the human capacity for ethical reasoning by examining different ethical systems comparatively.

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Study of Ethics is like “linguistics” As with language, there is a two-fold aspect to the study

  • f ethics.

In the case of language, for example, there is: 1) the study of a particular language or series of languages and there is 2) the study of linguistics. By analogy with ethics there is the study of ethical norms in particular cultures and then there is the analysis of ethical principles that transcend all human cultures.

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Ethics analogous to the study of “linguistics” For example, the study of linguistics can reveal the “parts

  • f speech” in any one language and compare those

across all languages. So, too, the comparative analysis of ethical systems can help us discern universal elements of ethical reasoning which can be seen to be present at least implicitly in all cultures.

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Universal Elements of Ethical Discourse

Comparative analysis reveals that all systems of ethical reasoning contain at least six basic implicit theories.

  • A theory of Community
  • A theory of System
  • A theory of Authority or Warrant
  • A theory of Change
  • A theory of Agency
  • A theory of Time
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In reality, we all live in multiple, simultaneous realities…. …each with a claim on

  • ur identity

and moral

  • bligations.

self

Let’s look at the theory of “Community”

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Multiple, simultaneous realities…. We all live in multiple, simultaneous realities….

self

family

nation

International community Ecological community

…each with a claim on

  • ur identity

and moral

  • bligations.
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One can imagine humanity feeling a sense

  • f community on a global

basis if we could foresee something like this.

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Multiple, simultaneous realities…. We all live in multiple, simultaneous realities….

self

family

nation

International community Ecological community

  • Stress

…each with a claim on

  • ur identity

and moral

  • bligations.
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Multiple, simultaneous realities…. We all live in multiple, simultaneous realities….

self

family

nation

International community (Ecological community)

  • Stress

…each with a claim on

  • ur identity

and moral

  • bligations.
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SUV sales have reached record numbers and earned record market share during the course

  • f the 1990s.

These SUVs are widely regarded globally as a symbol of America’s bloated arrogance in a world of constraint.

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Environmental Ethics and Land Management ENVR E-120

http://courses.dce.harvard.edu/~envre120

Timothy C. Weiskel

Harvard University Extension School Fall Semester 2008

Introduction to Course

Class Session 1 16 September 2008