Daniel Mishori

Introduction to Environmental Ethics

Course Description:

The purpose of the course is to provide a detailed introduction to environmental ethics in its two main aspects: the relationship between humans and nature, and relationship between society and environment. The course will survey the historical development of the discourse on these issues, on the background of the growing awareness to the threat of an ecological crisis. The course provides a historical background to the discourse of the moral status of nature and the environment, including non-human animals, and exposes the dilemmas and ethical theories of environmental thought. The environmental discourse has evolved primarily in response to the idea that we are in the midst of a global "ecological crisis" -- an idea that develops from the sixties. The course will review the main responses to the crisis including the "doomsday prophets".  of the 60s and 70s, and the central ideological and theoretical responses to the environmental challenges, including deep ecology, social ecology, and eco-feminism. Also be reviewed anthropocentric ethics and environmental pragmatic, environment and democracy, ecological economics, voluntary simplicity (and lifestyle "green"), environmental activism and the future of the environmental movement. The rights of future generations, climate justice the commons will be discussed in brief, as an introduction to the more detailed discussion in other courses.