Ethics and Environmentalism Lecture Notes

Regan Rights Abolition

  • Practical Implications:
    • Animal agriculture
    • Animal testing
  • Singer's contribution to animal welfare
  • Utilitarian calculus:
    • ↓ Animal suffering
    • ↓ Animal agriculture

Hunting

  • A case study: Hunting deer (White-tailed deer in Decorah, Iowa)
  • Archery with a bow
  • Minimal benefits, huge harms
  • "Fair chase": Process of how we hunt
  • Partial participation moral status of the deer?
  • Refuse to eat meat: Is it wrong or okay?
    • Criteria: Full vs. just a thing
    • Don't need meat

Approaches to Ethics

  • "Full" person
  • Consequentialism: Best result
    • Individuals
    • Pros & Cons
  • Deontology: Rules & Rights
  • Virtue Ethics: Good life; Virtues, characteristics, relationships
  • Utilitarianism: Benefits & harms

Kimmerer: Grammar of Animacy

  • Story cycles; Learning a new language
  • Main Points
    -Power of language
  • English/"Western" worldview
    • Fixed
    • Nouns objects
    • Anthropocentric (Humans as persons; Nature=object/resources)
    • Person = Homo Sapiens
  • Potawatami/Indigenous worldview:
    • More verbs - to be
    • Change-cycles
    • Non-anthropocentric (Nature Persons being deserving of respect/inherent worth)
    • Science: Honorable Harvest
    • Intuitive/Spiritual knowing
  • Story: Wild crafting
  • Main points:
    -Personhood of plants
    -Deserve respect - relationship with
    -Right Relationship
    -Introduce yourself
    -Ask permission
    -Give a gift
    -Reciprocity
    -Take what you need
    -Never waste
    -Share

"A Fierce Green Fire"

  • Case Study: Should you support trophy hunting to raise money for conservation? (e.g., $1 million to shoot a lion)
  • Values → limits
  • Arguments:
    • Yes, with certain caveats: Find habitat, research, enforcement
    • No
  • Does killing the animal help conservation?
  • Ecological Value:
    • Live lion: 75,00075,000 (+150k acres of habitat)
    • Dead lion: 74,00074,000

Justifications for Hunting (White-tailed deer)

  • Food (better than the alternatives)
  • Population Control (Ecological management)
  • Culture, community, tradition
  • Sport, competition, challenge, FUN
  • Education, connecting to Nature, learning of Ethics

Thinking Like a Mountain

  • Epiphany: perspective-wolf → mountain
  • Big Picture (all the components)
  • Long term
  • Rooted in Place
  • Relationships
  • Systems
  • Seeing from Nature's Perspective

Ethics Extending

  • Start over, use NATURE as a starting point
  • Humans-find a place
  • Ecological Perspective
  • History of human folly

The Land Ethic

  • New ethics
  • Community concept
  • Expand moral community
  • History - property, persons
  • The land: plants, water, people
  • The Land Community
  • Human Role: From Conqueror to "Plain member" & "Citizen"
  • Ecological Basics
  • Eco-centrism: Good for the whole community; Right action → best for ecosystem
  • Holistic
  • Ecological integrity
  • Non-anthropocentric
  • Persons-individuals deserving respect
  • Nothing is considered a person

Spring Break - PLACE!

  • Decorah, IA: Seasonal Place
  • Seasonality: sunlight, temperature
  • Animals Migratory
    • Winter regulator - Junco
    • Summer residence - Robin
    • Transient water fowl
  • Hibernate - Bears
  • Adapt coat

Personhood

  • Kimmerer: who are persons? What does that mean?
  • Cruel & Unnecessary
  • Animal rights
  • Is all hunting wrong?
  • Utilitarian
  • Reciprocity
  • Respect
  • Honorable Harvest
  • Game
  • Is all hunting ok?

Rights

  • Legal: citizens-government
    • Why don't everyone have them?
    • Why do we have to define instead of a
    • Who dictates who gets them
  • Moral: Natural / Human rights - all persons - universal
    • The question of whether everyone has human rights.
    • People still deal with poor treatment
    • Belong, given, taken….
    • Equality, human rights.
    • Rejection to other beings (Regan) - Human Beings.
    • Leopold, Singer, Kimmerer

Virtue Ethics

  • Ethics: Doing the right thing and Living a good life
  • Holistic framework: actions, principles, consequences
  • Flourishing - not = happiness
    • Longterm
    • objective
    • subjective
    • Positive emotions
    • Meeting basic needs
    • self directed
    • understanding larger forces
    • Gability Donavigate

Age of Climate Change (2020-2050)

  • Change, uncertainty
  • Unstable = Crisis?
  • Boundaries-Collapse?
  • Resilience - Adaptive Cycle
  • Forest Fires
  • Growth
  • edge release

Models Understand the way various things happen

Collapse
Stability

ConservationRelease / Big change

  • Education subjective Ethics - Virtue Theory C
  • Focus & approach?
  • Good life
  • Core
  • individual variability?
    • every indy. is unique
  • right V.S. wrongs
  • action rules calculation
  • Flourishing! / Thriving & "Cluster"
  • The good life: relationships - Character -excellence what makes a good life?
  • the consequence of ones actions will always catch up.

Luther College

  • Eduation -Focus & approach?
    Career preparation
    Skills dispositions,
    -what/how should we teach?! Character "Skillful habits"
    Classical liberal Arts /-collaboration
    Flourishing & selingman's
    Positive emotions.
    Deep engagement
    Strong relationships Sense of meaning Achievement
    link to Throops additional > Basic needs met (fond stellos) > Capability to be self-directed Sundersbinging of forces & navigate
  • Science & Ecology
  • Resilience -Adaptive Cycle Plane Maslow's Hierarchy - Change is cyclical patterns.
    Growth stability)
    Reorganization Collapse
    OPPORTUNITIES release
    Big chaye
    SES - social ecological systems
    human society enviro context
    Vision Save Civilization Crisis hopeless
    Throop's Argument
    Many release & reorganize Shop opportunity → win win
    Distinctive set of challenge's "Age of Climate Change) Environmental & Social (ex: inequality)
    Our Cultural horms are a bad fit for #1 indiv. 3) We'll do better if we develop alternative-traits & norms.
    Positive feedbacke do #3, we will do better as a society sustainability we should focus on developing alternative traits.
    good for me good for you

Get people interested

  • continuation of Throop →
    • Highlighting personal impacts motivate people
    • Overlap individual & community interests
    • Ex. I like cars so buying electric cars
  • Individualistic. Competitive, driven, convictions. Abundance skills. Collaboration. Frugality. Homility. SYSTEMS V
    The Virtue Ethics Big Ideas Aristotle
    Good (hot right) Eudaimonia
    Good life, good [person] time
    Virtues, chafer (not actions) Ection Skill fully dispositions Tection wisdom
    Temperature -Happiness Flourishing
    Practice, fake it till yo make it, repetition, learned Practical Wisdom Stu
    Health Analogy!
    How wold you know about Symptoms Disruption, Age of Climate change, enviro, social implications
    Circumstances shortsites comp.
    Individualistic frugile
    Healthyte Flourishing Society Sustainability longterm Flashing Dhea lthy balance nature & humanity -social equity
    I'm not that kind of person Slippery slope Culture change individual Society 10000 larger state community