Teaching Environmental Ethics

Environmental Ethics is one of the major fields in applied ethics. Applied ethics as a field in philosophy is rather new. It had its roots in the United States during the late 1960s when many students were protesting racism, poverty, and The War in Vietnam. Students of this era wanted their philosophy classes to talk directly about problems that faced them in their lives—especially those issues that pertain to the right and wrong in human life.

Initially, the principal areas of applied ethics were: Environmental Ethics, Medical Ethics, and Business Ethics. This has since expanded greatly to include many more areas of public affairs and institutions.

Below I have listed the important things that need to be kept in mind when teaching applied ethics: presentation of general ethical theory and the exploration of the applied subject area at hand. These are different and important in their own right. Since the applied subject matter at hand is the environment, this will control the slant of this brief presentation.

1. The problem of teaching applied ethics. Teaching applied ethics requires that students are presented with: (a) some ethical theory; (b) a grounding in the scope of the applied subject matter; and (c) some critical questions that are found in the literature on the subject matter with a sensibility to their ethical dimensions. In the case of environmental ethics, the subject matter area is nature and how we should regard and interact with it.
2. There is a tension between subject matter versus the ethical dimension that applications of the subject matter reveal. In environmental ethics, this comes to the fore in a battle between the sustainability of nature and our use of nature for our sustenance and betterment.
3. From the instructor’s point of view in teaching environmental ethics, there must be room for the student to respond in their own way to both the subject matter and its ethical dimensions. This means that there cannot be a “party-line” in which a single direction is set out for all to absorb. This is especially important in the applied ethics area of environmental ethics because students are inclined to be passionate about the world they will “grow-up in” and possibly “raise a family in.”
4. In the case of Environmental Ethics, many students are so committed to issues involving public policy that they also seek ways to get involved.

In Michael Boylan, ed. Environmental Ethics, 3^rd edition (Wiley-Blackwell, 2022) there is an attempt to address all of these issues. First, there is a chapter on the nature of ethical reasoning that is practically oriented so that students are presented with several options using the principal ethical theories recognized in the Western Tradition. Boylan also presents his Personal Worldview Imperative as this provides a segue into the structure of Environmentalism as a “subject matter.”

Second, there are two chapters that talk about meta-descriptions of nature and scarcity which present important structures by which all talk about the environment can be understood (ethical or purely prudential).

Third, the worldview arguments that undergird the subject matter: the land ethic, deep ecology, social ecology, eco-feminism, and the role of aesthetics in assessing nature.

Fourth, concerns the point of view that the debates should consider: anthropocentrism versus biocentrism.

In the next part of the book, Environmental Problems are highlighted. In most classes, this section of the book will excite students the most. The large topic areas of pollution and climate change, animal rights, and sustainability are broad enough to contain most of the more particular issues that are at the forefront of the crisis that threatens a 6^th mass extinction of the planet.

So, once we have the problems, the next reaction is what are we to do about these problems? This involves public policy reactions. From reacting to those who deny climate change, to an autobiographical account of one activist who talks about “getting involved,” to concern about those who might be hurt by environmental legislation—such as coal miners as we transition to clean energy (an absolute necessity). These concerns are contextualized within our technological present and our economic systems of markets and capitalism. This section is meant to ground students in the practical realities of creating the legislation we need to save the planet—not only in the United States but in the world as a whole. This is especially poignant in the last essay in the book about rising oceans and what this threat will mean to us all.

The book is also supported by a companion website which provides students a structure for reacting to the connection between ethics and subject matter concerning environmental problems. There is also a model for students to help them create a manifesto that is both descriptive and prescriptive. The manifesto is a wonderful “term project” that can bring it all together for the student.

In the end, environmental ethics is one of the hottest issue courses that we currently offer at the university level. By balancing theory and practice, students can acquire an understanding of the subject areas and what is at stake right now. The ethical component provides a supporting structure that can direct student interest into contemplation of public policy answers (or first steps) and may lead some students to become personally involved beyond the classroom. However, it is the goal of this text to encourage every student to seek public policy regulations that can support their personally chosen ideas for directions that might assist us in saving life on planet earth.

Michael Boylan

Michael Boylan received his M.A. in English Literature and his Ph.D. in Philosophy from The University of Chicago.  He is the author of forty-two published books in literature and in philosophy and one hundred and fifty journal articles/book chapters. His works on ethical theory include: Basic Ethics, 3^rd edition (Routledge, 2021); A Just Society (Rowman and Littlefield, 2004); and Natural Human Rights: A Theory (Cambridge University Press, 2014). His principal works in applied ethics include: Environmental Ethics 3^rd edition (Wiley-Blackwell, 2022); Medical Ethics 2^nd edition (Wiley-Blackwell, 2014), Business Ethics 2^nd edition (Wiley-Blackwell, 2014); Public Health Policy and Ethics (Springer, 2004); International Public Health Policy and Ethics (Springer, 2009); Ethical Public Health Policy Within Pandemics (Springer, 2022); and Ethics in the AI, Technology, and Information Age (with Wanda Teays—Rowman and Littlefield, 2022).  Critical works on Boylan include: Morality and Justice: Reading Boylan’s A Just Society, ed. John-Stewart Gordon (Lexington, 2009) and Reshaping Philosophy: Michael Boylan’s Narrative Fiction, ed. Wanda Teays (Springer, 2022). These works are systematized into his opus on his website.  Boylan has been an invited speaker at universities in fifteen countries on five continents and has served on national policy committees.