Evan Selinger

I am teaching Sustainability Ethics this quarter.

Syllabus
Sustainability Ethics (0509449-03 and 5001700-04)
Tuesdays & Thursdays: 2:00pm-3:50pm
Building 12, Room 3245

Instructor: Dr. Evan Selinger
Office: 01-3146
Office Hours: Tuesdays and Thursdays 1:00-2:00; by appointment
Telephone: 475-2531
E-mail: evan.selinger@rit.edu

COURSE DESCRIPTION
Although it is widely agreed that sustainability is an important goal, disagreement exists as to what sustainability actually means and why citizens, governments, and institutions should view it as an urgent priority.  The purpose of this class is to critically review some of the most highly regarded analyses of sustainability in order for students to gain a better understanding of the moral and political values, principles, and virtues that advocates claim promote sustainable living.

The instructor will not advocate for any particular outlook on sustainability.  Rather, as the quarter progresses we will critically examine complex and sometimes competing views.  The following questions will be central to our inquiry:

•    What are the leading definitions of “sustainability”?  What standards do different disciplines use to evaluate it?  Why do some people view “sustainability” as a purely technical concept, while others see it as a moral ideal?

•    Is there a single best way to define “sustainability” and “sustainability ethics”?  Or, are different definitions appropriate for different contexts?

•    Why are debates about sustainability often framed as a contrast between “weak sustainability” and “strong sustainability”?  Can objective principles help us determine which of the two perspectives is valid, or if the two perspectives can be reconciled through a unifying theory?

•    How might consideration of normative conceptions of “sustainability” that do not map onto the weak-strong binary enrich our understanding of sustainability ethics?

•    What are the leading philosophical views of the concepts that are central to sustainability ethics discourse, such as “intergenerational justice” and the “precautionary principle”?

•    Can technological innovation (e.g., new approaches to product design and architecture) solve the sustainability crisis, or do solutions to this crisis that foreground innovation exacerbate the problem?

•    What are the strengths and weakness of the leading philosophical approach to sustainability, namely, the “adaptive management” account?

•    What are the moral dimensions of applied issues that are central sustainability debates, such as population growth and global climate change?

COURSE READINGS
All of the articles are available online through MyCourses (https://mycourses.rit.edu/).

COURSE REQUIREMENTS AND POLICIES FOR ALL STUDENTS

•    Students will take an in-class mid-term and in-class final.  Each assignment is worth 25% of your final grade.

•    Students will write a guided essay on sustainability ethics.  This assignment is worth 25% of your final grade.

•    Each student will participate in classroom discussions and compose a sustainability ethics journal.  This assignment is worth 25% of your final grade.

[Note: failure to attend class; failure to participate in class; or failure to construct a rigorous journal will result in a poor grade for this component of the class.]

•    The sustainability ethics journal has three components.

* First, once a week students will reflect on how they personally deal with sustainability ethics issues that affect their lives.   The purpose of such reflection is: (i) to help students become clearer about how their choices reflect distinctive assumptions about sustainability, and (ii) to provide students with a structured opportunity for considering whether they can make better choices.

* Second, for every reading that is assigned, students will—to the best of their ability—clarify and assess the main thesis that a given author advances.

* Third, before the quarter ends, students will find four contemporary articles in newspapers or magazines that make substantive claims about sustainability ethics.  Students will clarify what these claims entail and explain why they agree or disagree with them.

* Note: Your sustainability ethics journal will be stored on MyCourses.  Since MyCourses does not have a journal tool that we can use for this purpose, each student will construct a journal by: (i) creating his or her own topic thread using his or her full name as the name of that thread, and (ii) making new entries by replying to the last thread that he or she posted.

ADDITIONAL REQUIREMENTS FOR GRADUATE STUDENTS

•    Graduate students will be held to higher standards than undergraduates.  To provide optimal flexibility, graduate students are responsible—at an early stage of the quarter—for providing me with a clear plan of how they wish to differentiate their participation from undergraduate obligations.  Each plan requires instructor approval, and poorly conceived plans will require revision.

SCHEDULE

Week 1
Sustainable Development: Historical Background
Tuesday (December 2nd)
•    Introduction to Class
•    Clarifying Preconceptions: How do members of the class define “sustainability” and “sustainability ethics”?

Thursday (December 4th)
•    Neil Carter’s Cambridge University Press seminar, “Understanding Sustainable Development”  (Read “Sessions” #1-#4 at http://www.fathom.com/course/21701763/index.html)
•    Aidan Davison, “Agenda: Toward Ecoeffiency” (first chapter from Technology and the Contested Meanings of Sustainability)

Week 2
Why is Sustainability a Contested Concept?
Tuesday (December 9th)
•    Robert Solow, “Sustainability: An Economist’s Perspective”
•    Wilfred Beckerman, “‘Sustainable Development’: Is it a Useful Concept?”
•    Herman Daly, “On Wilfred Beckerman’s Critique of Sustainable Development”

Thursday (December 11th)
•    Dale Jamieson, “Sustainability and Beyond”
•    Brad Allenby, “Macroethical Systems and Sustainability Science”
•    Thomas Seager, “The Sustainability Spectrum and the Sciences of Sustainability”

Week 3 Do We Have Moral Obligations to Future Generations?
Tuesday (December 16th)
•    Bryan Norton, “The Ignorance Argument: What Must We Know to be Fair to the Future?”
•    Bryan Norton, “Ecology and Opportunity: Intergenerational Equity and Sustainable Options”

Thursday: (December 18th):
•    Wilfred Beckerman, “Sustainable Development and our Obligations to Future Generations”
•    Brian Berry, “Sustainability and Intergenerational Justice”

*Dec 21st-Jan 2nd Holiday break*

Week 4 Do We Have Moral Obligations to Future Generations?
Tuesday (January 6th)
•    Richard Howarth, “Sustainability Under Uncertainty: A Deontological Approach”
•    John Cairns, Jr., “A Preliminary Declaration of Sustainability Ethics: Making Peace with the Ultimate Bioexecutioner”

Thursday (January 8th)
•    Stephen Gardiner, “The Pure Intergenerational Problem”
•    Robert Goodin, “The Sustainability Ethic: Political, Not Just Moral”

Week 5 Population Growth
Tuesday (January 13th)
•    Midterm

Thursday (January 15th)
•    Garrett Hardin, “The Tragedy of the Commons”
•    John Cairns, Jr., “Sustainability Ethics: World Population Growth and Migration”
•    Stephen Gardiner, “The Real Tragedy of the Commons”

Week 6 Does Sustainable Design Have Moral Worth?
Tuesday (January 20th)
•    Aidan Davison, “Sustainable Technology: Beyond Fix and Fixation”
•    Peter-Paul Verbeek, “Artifacts in Design”
•    Henk Muis, “Eternally Yours: Some Theory and Practice on Cultural Sustainable Product Development”

Thursday (January 22nd)
•    J. Craig Hanks, “Cities, Aesthetics, and Human Community: Some Thoughts on the Limits of Design”
•    Graham Farmer and Simon Guy, “Hybrid Environments: The Spaces of Sustainable Design”
•    Kersty Hobson, “Bins, Bulbs, and Shower Timers: On the ‘Techno-Ethics’ of Sustainable Living”

Week 7 Debating Bryan Norton’s Philosophy of Sustainability
Tuesday (January 27th)
•    Bryan Norton, “Ethics and Sustainable Development: An Adaptive Approach to Environmental Choice”
•    Kevin Elliott, “Norton’s Conception of Sustainability: Political, Not Metaphysical”

Thursday (January 29th)
•    Paul Thompson, “Norton’s Sustainability: Some Comments on Risk and Sustainability”
•    Larry Hickman, “Pragmatic Paths to Environmental Sustainability”
•    Marilyn Holly, “A Review of Bryan G. Norton’s Sustainability: A Philosophy of Ecosystem Management”
•    Jennifer Welchman, “Norton and Passmore on Valuing Nature”
•    Bryan Norton, “A Reply to My Critics”

Week 8 Precautionary Principle
Tuesday (February 3rd):
•    Stephen Gardiner, “A Core Precautionary Principle”
•    Jonathan Hughes, “How Not to Criticize the Precautionary Principle”

Thursday (February 5th)
•    W. J. McKinney and H.H. Hill, “Of Sustainability and Precaution - The Logical, Epistemological, and Moral Problems of the Precautionary Principle and Their Implications for Sustainable Development?”

Week 9 Global Climate Change
Tuesday (February 10th)
•    Peter Singer, “One Atmosphere”
•    Dale Jamieson, “Ethics and Intentional Climate Change”

Thursday  (February 12th):
•    Dale Jamieson, “An American Paradox”
•    Stephen Gardiner, “Ethics and Global Climate Change”

Week 10 Food and Sustainability
Tuesday (February 17th):
•    Paul Thompson, “Agricultural Sustainability: what it is and what it is not”
•    Bill McKibben, “The Year of Eating Locally”

Thursday (February 19th)
•    Review Session

Final’s Week
•    Final Exam