AEM 103: Environmental ethics course rationale, its objectives and outline

  

Date Posted: 2/15/2019 1:20:46 AM

Posted By: jim items  Membership Level: Gold  Total Points: 2112

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AEM 103: ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS COURSE.
PROGRAMES: Bsc.Managemnrnt of Agroecosystem and Environment and Bsc Water resources and management.

Rationale for the course.
=>As Kenya’s population grows, transforming ecosystems and consuming the country’s resources at ever increasing rates, conflicts arise over our use of the environment, our relationship with nature and with non-human species, and over visions for our common future (Vision 2030).
=>Such conflicts stem from divergent understandings of values and responsibilities, of what is good and right and how we should live in Kenya.
=>In this course students will be introduced into a range of intellectual efforts to address the ethical dimensions of our relationship with the natural world, other species, and future
generations.
=>Students will be introduced to the major perspectives in traditional Eastern and Western ethical theories, as well as perspectives and debates over land and wilderness ethics, animal
rights, bio-centrism and deep ecology, social ecology and environmental justice, eco-feminism, and postmodernism.
=>While the course will focus primarily on contemporary philosophical environmental ethics, we will also introduce topics in religious environmental ethics, non-Western and indigenous traditions, globalization and new technologies.
=>We will also look at environmental aesthetics, and the connection between environmental philosophies and environmental activist movements.

Objectives of the course.
1.To develop and promote the intellectual skills necessary for understanding and reflectively acting on ethical issues and controversies.
2.To recognize values and ethical perspectives in environmental rhetoric and debate,
3.Critically analyze and adjudicate between competing moral arguments and philosophical perspectives, and general skills in critical thinking, reading, writing and communication,
argumentation and analysis.
4.To provide students with an appreciation for the range of ethical and value perspectives on environmental issues.
5.To provide them with an introductory understanding of the most influential and significant
theories in environmental ethics.
6.Provide them acquaintance with the social movements which correlate with and carry various perspectives on human-environment relations.

COURSE OUTLINE.
1.

Introduction to Environmental Ethics.
2. Overview of Man and Place in the Planet.
3. Early perspectives on environmental ethics – Western theories.
4. Historical stages of environmental ethics.
5. Anthropocentrism.
6. Animal and plant perspectives.
7. Wilderness, the built environment and ethics.
8. Movements – deep ecology.
9. Religions and the human-nature relationship.
10. Ethics, aesthetics and the environment.
11. Moral communities – responsibilities to future generations.
12. The ethics of food and agriculture.
13. Social ecology and environmental justice.
14. Class plenary presentations – group work.

REFERENCES FOR THE COURSE..
Environmental Ethics (2nd ed.) by Holmes

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