Paper Assignment

Suggestions for Philosophy Paper

Final Exam
Study Questions

Jamieson, pp. 181-196 (on “Travails of the biosphere” and “Questions of justice”)

Oral Presentations (9) on Environmental Action

            a.   Peter Singer “Ends and Means”
            b.   No Impact Man trailer (optional: Lessons from Low Impact Week)
            c.   "Would You Ever Break The Law in Support of an Environmental Goal?"
            d.  “Wendell Berry Joins Retired Coal Miners and Residents in Kentucky Rising Capitol Sit-in”
            e.    “Environmental Leaders Call for Civil Disobedience to Stop the Keystone XL Pipeline”

Two Additional: FBI targets student/professor thinking about environmental disobedience (and here)

Friday, Apr 13

Paper due by 3pm, 14 Glebe inside mailbox

  Wilderness
Oral Presentation (8) on Wilderness

 a. "Environmentalists in a clash of goals" (wilderness versus green energy)
 b. Timothy Egan, “Searching for Eden; The Definition of Wilderness Is Increasingly Elusive”
c.  Etienne Benson, “Paparazzi in the Woods: Hidden surveillance cameras are making the wilderness less wild”
d.  Gabriel Escobar, “Rain Forest Gift Raises Suspicions”

Oral Presentations (7) on managing nature
            a. Jamieson, pp., 169-171 (on “Sierra Nevada Bighorn Sheep versus mountain lions”)
            b. Marris et al, “Hope in the Age of Man”
            c. Sierra, "To What Extent Should Humans Manage Nature If At All?”
            d. Holmes Rolston, “Managing The Planet”

Apr 2-5: Sustainability Week (flier)
Details about Sustainability Week
McKibben Talk

Free quiz opportunities: Maximum 2

Tuesday 4/3: Between the Harvest Showing and Panel Discussion
in the first floor auditorium of the School of Science and Mathematics Building (SSMB129) from 5:00pm-6:30pm
Wednesday 4/4: Speth Discussion
Discussion and Q&A with Dr. James Gustave Speth in the Stern Center Ballroom from 4pm-5:30pm.
Thursday 4/5: Greenbag Lunch Panel
Panel includes sustainability expert and author Dr. James Gustave Speth, Colonel Mark Mykleby, senior advisor to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, environmental philosopher Dr. J. Baird Callicott, and environmental law and sustainability expert Dr. P. Brian Fisher.  Seating begins in the Stern Center Ballroom at 11:30 am, with the discussion and Q&A taking place from 12:00pm-2:00pm.  Light refreshments will be provided, but all audience members are encouraged to bring their own bagged lunch
6pm Thursday, Bill McKibben Lecture
Sottile Theater

Oral Presentations (6) on the meaning and value of the natural
            a.   “Do what is natural, you say?” (reading begins on bottom of second page)
            b. “Faux Falls”
            c.  Bill McKibben’s “The End of Nature?” “More on McKibben,” and “Climbers clear trash from Everest” (all in one pdf file)
            d.  “Saving a Drowning Buffalo or Letting Nature Take its Course?”

Jamieson on Valuing Nature
            a. Jamieson, pp. 68-75 ( on “Intrinsic value”)
            b. Jamieson, pp. 153-162 (on “Valuing Reconsidered,” “The Plurality of Values,” and “Aesthetic Values”)

Jamieson on Intrinsic Value

Jamieson on Valuing Nature

Ecocentrism

           a. Aldo Leopold, “Preface to Sand County Almanac”
            b.  Aldo Leopold “The Land Ethic”  

Equador Constitution Rights for Nature 2008

Cafaro, Species Rights to Exist

Oral Presentations (5) on holism vs. individualism

            a.  “Delisting of Wolves Raises Hackles”
            b.  “States Seek Ok to Kill Sea Lions”
            c. Keith Kloor, “Conservation’s Ethical Tradeoffs”
            d.         Jamieson, pp. 172-175 (on “Feral goats versus endemic plants”)

Oral Presentations (4)
On ecocentric holism vs. individualism

            a. Roger Caras, “There are Two Ways of Looking at it”
            b.  “Species and Individuals” and “Harming Plentiful Species to Protect Endangered Species”
            c. Bruce Barcott, “Kill the Cat That Kills the Bird?” (Full article here)
            d. “Breeding Endangered Species” and “Sand Diego Zoo on California Condors”

Michael Pollan, An Animal's Place

 Peter Singer, “All Animals are Equal”

Jamieson, pp. 112-116 (on “Singer’s animal liberation”)

Singer, Equal Consideration for Animals

Jamieson on Singer

Oral Presentations (3) on other uses of animals

            a. Animal Experimentation: “Animal Research -- LD50" and “Head-Injury Research Using Monkeys” (ignore questions 6 &7)
            b. Hunting: Douglas Chadwick, “The American Hunting Myth”
            c.  Zoos: Marc Bekoff, “Thick skins, tender hearts and broken spirits,” Susan Freinkel, “Why I Still Believe in the Zoo,” and “It’s a Fish-Eat-Fish World”
            d. Pets: “Animal Rights Uncompromised: ‘Pets’”

  Oral Presentations (2) on using animal for food

            a.“'They Die Piece by Piece'; In Overtaxed Plants, Humane Treatment of Cattle Is Often a Battle Lost” and “Largest Recall of Ground Beef is Ordered”
            b.Selections from Pew Commission report on “Industrial Farm Animal Welfare”
            c. “Pork Producer Says it Plans to Give Pigs More Room,” “Burger King Shifts Policy on Animals,” “California voters pass initiative to modernize food animal production”
            d.“Farmers Lean to Truce on Animals’ Close Quarters” and “New organic rules guarantee pasture for grazers”
            e.Sierra, "Can You Eat Meat and Consider Yourself an Environmentalist?"

Downer Cow Video

Animal Studies at New York University

Animal Social Behavior: Orangutan and Hound Dog

Goose/Human friendship

Animals can tell right from wrong

Oral Presentations (1) on Property and Environment

1. “Who Owns the Moon?”
2. “Tragedy of the commons” and “Whales for Sale”
3. "Law is costing landowners," “Woodpecker clouds state forest’s future,” and “Biologists to move endangered birds” all (in one pdf file)
 4. “‘Takings’ and Property Rights” and “Property Rights and ‘Takings’ Legislation”
5. “The Lucas Case: Supreme Court Decisions”

Environmental Justice

Peter Wenz, “Just Garbage”

Free quiz opportunity:
Occupy Earth:  Lessons from the Occupy Movement for Individual Environmentalism
Wednesday, January 25th at 12pm in Stern Ballroom

Religion and Environment
Lynn White, “The Historical Roots of Our Ecologic Crisis”from Science (1967)

Rudy Mancke on humans part of nature, preserve/conserve and nature's resilience

Paul Kingsnorth, "Confessions of a Recovering Envrionmentalist" Orion magazine

Humor: Paper or Plastic?

Humor: The Majestic Plastic Bag