Philosophy 250
Environmental Ethics
Prof. Craig Duncan
Ithaca College
Spring 2005
ANNOUNCEMENT: The
final exam for both sections of Philosophy 250 is scheduled for Wednesday,
May 4th, from 4:30-7pm in the Ben Light gymnasium, section E
(the gym is divided into 5 sections for purposes of exam taking).
If (and only if) I have given
you
permission to take the exam at the make-up time (because of a
conflict
you have with the regularly scheduled time), then you may take the exam
in Friends Room 307 on Monday, May 2nd, from 4:30-7pm.
Handouts
Syllabus
Midterm Exam Review Sheet
Final Exam Review Sheet
Overhead Notes
Moral
Relativism
Texas and World Population
Kerala and World Population
Global Warming -- Part 1
Global Warming -- Part 2
Sustainability
Energy Sources
Energy
Pie Charts
Extra Credit Assignment
-
Click here
for the instructions to the extra credit assignment.
Reading Links
-
If you want to get started
on the
reading by Peter Carruthers, "Brute Experience," for Wednesday 2/2/05
(Carruthers
defends a modern-day Cartesian view of animals), try clicking here.
(The syllabus says this article is on reserve, but the electronic
reserve
file for it has not been assembled yet--at least, not as of 1/28/05--so
don't look for it on reserves.) If that link doesn't work, you can
access
the article via the electronic database named JSTOR, available through
our college. Click here,
then click on the "JSTOR" link. If you are on-campus, this will
take
you to the JSTOR search page; if you are off-campus, this will take you
to a login page, and then (once you log in) it will take you to the
JSTOR
search page. Once at the search page, type in "Brute Experience"
in the SECOND search box (that is, the box labeled "The exact phrase").
Then click on the Search button in the middle of the screen. A
list
of links appears; the correct one should be at the top of the
list.
Click on this to go to the article. At the article page, there
are
links at the bottom that allow you to print or download the article, as
you wish. (Please email me
if you have any trouble accessing the article.)
-
As a reply to Carruthers,
also for
Wednesday 2/2 we will read Colin Allen, "Animal Pain." Click here
for it. (Note: This article replaces the article by
Steven Wise listed on the syllabus, which turned out to be unavailable.)
-
If you are in a campus
computer
lab or on a library computer, click here
for Donald Griffin's article "Windows on Animal Minds."
Otherwise,
click here
to be taken to the library's database page. Then click on the
"Science
Direct" link. You'll be taken to a login page. Once you
login
and are at the database page, type "windows on animal minds" in the
"Quick
Search" box in the upper left. The article's link should
appear.
Click on the blue "PDF" link below the red article title. (Please
email
me if you have any trouble.)
-
Click here
for "The Soul of the Ape," by Clive D. L. Wynne.
-
The readings for Monday
2/8 are
George Johnson, “Chimp Talk Debate: Is It Really Language?” and
Sue
Savage-Rumbaugh, et. al., “Ape Consciousness – Human
Consciousness."
The Johnson article is available by electronoic reserve via the
libary.
The Savage-Rumbaugh article is also supposed to be on reserve, but it
turns
out only the abstract is on reserve. If you are in a campus
computer
lab or on a library computer, you can click here
for the article. Otherwise, click here
to be taken to the library's database page. Scroll down and click
on the "Proquest" link (the one that just says "Proquest," NOT
"Proquest
newspapers," etc.). You'll be taken to a login page. Once
you
login and are at the database page, you'll have to scroll down to the
very
bottom of the page and click on the yellow "Continue" button.
This
will take you to the "Advanced Search" page. Type in "ape
consciousness"
in the top search box and then click the yellow "Search" button.
The article link should appear (I recommend clicking on the "Page Image
-- PDF" link). (Please email
me if you have any trouble accessing the article.)
-
Gregg Easterbrook's
article "Safe
Deposit" is assigned for Friday, March 25th. To access it click here,
then scroll down and click on the "Academic Search Premier" link.
(If you are off-campus at this point you will be taken to a login page;
login and then continue.) Type in "safe deposit" in the box next
to the word "Find" and then change the box next to it (which reads
"Default
Fields") to "TI Title" (click on the box to access the pull down
menu).
Click on the "Search" button. The article should appear as one of
the ones listed (when I did the search it appeared as article number
4).
I recommend choosing the PDF format. (Please email
me if you have any trouble accessing the article.)
-
Jeffrey Sachs's article,
"Helping
the World's Poorest" is assigned for Monday, March 28th. Click here
to access it.
-
Readings on GM foods
(assigned for
Friday, April 1st): Click here
for the Wikipedia article on "Genetically Modified Food." Click here
for The Ecologist, "Five Reasons to Keep Britain GM-Free."
-
Click here
for a Wikipedia article on the Kyoto Protocol, and click here
for the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's
"Summary
for Policy Makers: Climate Change 2001 -- Impacts, Adaptation,
and
Vulnerability" (both of these are assigned reading for Monday 4/11).
-
Click here
for Ronald Bailey's article, "The Kyoto Protocol Launches! But
Will
It Matter?" Click here
for a transcript of "Debating 'The Skeptical Environmentalist,'"a
debate
between Bjorn Lomborg, author of the Skeptical Environmentalist,
and Fred Krupp, executive director of Environmental Defense. (Both
of these items are assigned reading for Friday, 4/15.)
-
Click here
for Alex Kirby, "Human Use Exhausts Earth"; click here
for Jonathan Fahey, "Hydrogen Gas"; and click here
for Jesse Ausubel, "Maglevs and the Vision of St. Hubert."
All are assigned reading for Monday, 4/25.
-
Assigned readings for
Wednesday,
4/27: Click here
for Otis Port, "Not Your Father's Ethanol." Click here
for a Wikipedia article on "Alcohol Fuel." Click here
for John Fialke, "Unlikely Allies." (Optional: The
article
"Unlikely Allies" reports on a recent letter to the President written
by
the Future Energy Coalition, a bipartisan group of former national
security
officials. For the text of their letter, click here.
It's short!)
Miscellaneous Links
-
For the website on
blindsight that
I mentioned in class (the one that allows you to try it out for
yourself),
click here.
Take some time to follow both sets of instructions; otherwise it won't
work for you.
-
Click here
to be taken to the UN Population Report containing the graphs displayed
on the overhead in class on 3/16.
-
Jeffrey Sachs, the author
of the
assigned reading "Helping the World's Poorest," has just this month
published
a book entitled The End of Poverty: Economic Possibilities
for
Our Time. It is bound to be a major book, as Sachs is the
world's
foremost authority on global poverty. He visited over 100
countries
in researching the book. Click here
for some recent excerpts of it in Time magazine. (Thanks
to
Jenny Thompson for making me aware of this article.) Click here
for the website devoted to the book. For a recent Foreign
Affairs
article of his explaining how little U.S. foreign aid actually goes to
development projects, click here.
-
An excerpt from Gregg
Easterbrook's
book A Moment on the Earth was assigned for today
(3/28).
This book was quite controversial when it appeared in 1995. In
particular,
the Environmental Defense Fund published a lengthy document alleging a
number of errors in the book. (For this document click here;
note that the webpage contains a link to a second fact-checking
document
as well.)
-
Anna Day of the 10am
section sent
me this link to an animated
short
presentation "The Meatrix," a vegetarian spoof of "The Matrix."
-
Click here
to go to the website of the "Millenium Ecosystem Assessment," a report
on the health of the planet that was released today (3/30/05). It
is the work of 1300 experts from 95 countries. The assessment
report
was designed by a partnership of UN agencies, international scientific
organizations, and development agencies, with guidance from the private
sector and civil society groups. Click here
for a summary of the report's results, presented for a layperson
audience.
-
I mentioned in class today
(4/4/05)
that it can be hard to sort through contradictory claims made by
opposing
sides in environmental debates. Some websites I have found
helpful
myself are the following. Click here
for a website on "anti-environmental myths." For a contrasting
perspective,
critical of much of the environmental movement, click here
to see the columns by Reason magazine's science
correspondent.
(Reason is a libertarian magazine.) I can't vouch for
Bailey's
reliability (or for the reliability of the anti-environmental myths
website,
for that matter). But Bailey has broken ranks with many
environmental
skeptics and conceded that DDT
does thin the eggs of some bird species, which shows some
commitment
on his part to respect scientific evidence. For more on the DDT
issue
regarding bird eggs, with particular reference to the chapter we read
by
Dixie Ray Lee, click here.
For more generally on the DDT issue, click here
and here.
Finally,
when assessing a source it is helpful to know the author's credentials
and the source, if any, of their major funding. Click here
for Source Watch, an online encyclopedia that contains much information
of this sort. For insight into the politics of science news
coverage,
click here for the
weblog
of Chris Mooney, a science journalist. Click here
for a recent article by Mooney in the Columbia Journalism Review,
on the subject of news coverage of science. Click here
for an article by Mooney in the Washington Post on the phrase
"sound
science."
-
Click here
for a series of articles from Mother Jones on climate change
denials.
-
Click here
for an interesting article on some recent research into
climate-friendly
fuels, involving the chemical mysteries of termite tummies.
(Thanks
to Grant Berger for the link.)
-
On the subject of
sustainable energy
consumption, click here
for a Wikipedia article on renewable energy, and click here
for a Wikipedia article on future energy development. Click here
for an article on maglev trains (magnetically levitated trains).
Moral Conversation Project
Links
-
For general instructions
on the
Moral Conversation Project, click here.
-
For a list of pairings for
each
of the three conversations, click here
for the 10am section and here for
the
11am section.
-
For the first conversation
topic,
click here.
-
For the second
conversation topic,
click here.
-
For the third conversation
topic,
click here.
Ethics Court Material
-
Click here
for general instructions to all the Ethics Court debates.
(Everyone
should read these.)
-
Click here
for a list of who is doing which debate.
Debate
#1 -- Medical Experimentation on Animals (Monday,
2/28)
-
Click here
for the topic sheet / instructions for debate #1.
-
For a background article
on animal
testing, click here.
Click here
and here for websites groups
that
support animal testing. Click here
and here for
websites
of groups that oppose animal testing.
10am
Section:
11am
Section:
Debate
#2 -- Overpopulation and Reproductive Liberty (Wednesday, 3/30)
-
Click here
for the topic sheet / instructions for debate #2.
-
For a background article,
and a
list of supplementary web links, click here.
For pro-population websites, click here
and here. For
websites skeptical of population control, click here
and here. Consider taking a
look
too at the most recent UN report on population, available via a link
under
the heading "Miscellaneous Links" on this page above.
10am
Section:
11am
Section:
Debate
#3 -- Genetically Modified Food (Wednesday, 4/6)
-
Click here
for the topic sheet / instructions for debate #3.
-
For the website of a
recent PBS
Nova special on the subject, containing a range of views and further
links,
click here. Click
here
for a World Health Organization site on genetically modified
foods.
See also the online readings on GM foods in the reading section
above.
For sites opposing GM Foods, click here
and here.
For pro-GM sites, click here
and here.
10am
Section:
11am
Section:
Debate
#4 -- Global Warming (Friday, 4/22)
-
Click here
for the topic sheet / instructions for debate #4.
-
See the online reading on
global
warming listed above
in the Reading Links section.
-
For information on Kyoto
in particular,
click here
for Pew Center on Global Climate Change's page on Kyoto. Click here
for a BBC information page on Kyoto. Click here
for a defense of Kyoto and here
for recent criticism of Kyoto.
-
On global warming more generally, click here
for the Royal Society's page on global warming (the Royal Society is
Britain's
top scientific organization). Click here
for a report by the National Academy of Sciences (the U.S.'s top
scientific organization). Click here
for the homepage of the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climatic
Change.
Click here
for a website on global warming put together by the BBC. Click here
for a Washington Post article claiming a consensus view in
favor
of the reality of global warming. Click here
for RealClimate.org, a weblog run by climatologists. For a weblog
with a rather different perspective, click here
for ClimateAudit.org. For the latest on satellite temperature
data,
click here.
-
For some skeptical sites, click here
for a libertarian environmental website, and here
for the George C. Marshall Institute. Click here
for Bjorn Lomborg's website. Click here
to learn about the flap between Lomborg and Scientific American (this
has a link to Lomborg's reply to the magazine), and click here
for a site alleging errors in Lomborg's work. Ronald Bailey of Reason
magazine
has a number of columns on global warming (click herefor
all of his columns, on global warming and other topics). For
the transcript of a recent CNN Presents debate on global
warming,
click here.
Click here
for a BBC account of a debate over a graph used by the IPCC as evidence
for global warming. Finally, click here
for a website devoted to debunking global warming skeptics.
10am
Section:
11am Section: