RELIGION, ETHICS, AND THE ENVIRONMENT
(Natural Resources 407)
Fall Semester 2003 (4 credit hours)
Tues. & Thurs. 10:10 11:00 (with discussion to be arranged)
Caldwell 100
Richard Baer, Professor
Greg Hitzhusen, Teaching Assistant
Rob Young, Teaching Assistant
A. SYNOPSIS OF COURSE
Although offered in the Department of Natural Resources as part of a Program in Agricultural and Environmental Ethics, this course is rooted in the humanities, especially philosophy, ethics, and religion. No formal education in these disciplines is presupposed, although students with such background will be able to work on assigned papers at a more advanced level.
Natural Resources 407 is reasonably theoretical in nature. In fourteen weeks of classes, we shall not offer fourteen solutions to fourteen environmental problems. Thus, in the short term the course is not necessarily altogether “useful.” Instead, we shall look at who we are in relation to nature: why we are so compulsive in our patterns of consumption and in our need to control nature and each other; why we are so addicted to recognition, achievement, and success; why we tend to see nature in such extreme terms–either as simply a resource to be exploited as efficiently as possible for human benefit or else as sacrosanct, divine, and degraded through human contact. The course presupposes that at the deepest level the environmental and agricultural problems we currently face are crises of culture and will not be solved simply through technical fixes, even though our best science and technology will be required to maintain a healthy environment. Paradoxically, former students tell me that over the long run NR 407 has turned out to be one of the most practical and useful courses they have taken at Cornell!
After briefly reflecting on our need to control the world about us, we will explore the meaning of terms like nature, wilderness, and garden. We will examine the view that “nature knows best” and the antipathy that many environmentalists have towards human intervention in nature.
We shall reflect on what it means to say that we know something–in science, in religion, in philosophy, and in ethics. What is knowledge? What is a fact? What is a value? What is objectivity, and how important is it? What are some of the similarities and differences between knowledge in science and knowledge in ethics, philosophy, or religion? We shall also explore the questions of whether there are significant differences in how women and men typically approach moral issues.
After fall break we will raise questions about the importance of truthtelling in relation to forming sound environmental policy. We shall examine how the media function in our democratic society and ask whether they are fulfilling their responsibility to keep the public accurately informed of what is happening environmentally. We will then focus on how the way we see and understand the world affects our particular ethical judgments, and we shall look at some of the differences between an ethics of virtue or character and ethics as moral rules and principles. After that we will take two weeks to look at how Christianity (and to a lesser extent Judaism) might shed light on current environmental problems. Our focus will be on the Biblical concepts of sin and salvation as reflected in Deuteronomy, Galatians, and in the writings of Reinhold Niebuhr.
The last section of the course will examine tensions between liberal political theory and attempts to resolve various environmental problems. Week 13 will focus on conflicts between an approach to animal rights/welfare issues that focuses on the well-being of individual animals and one that is concerned with the well-being of entire species and ecosystems. Finally, we shall look at the role of the state in forming environmental policy and shall ask whether classical liberalism (liberalism in the sense that both Republicans and Democrats are liberals) provides an adequate framework for solving such difficult environmental problems as wilderness preservation, responsibility to future generations, and our treatment of animals, issues which have a great deal to do with particular visions of the good life and the good society. And if it does not, what alternatives are available to us?
Natural Resources 407 pays close attention to secular ethical and philosophical analysis, but it also examines how religious traditions, notably Christianity and Judaism, shed light on current environmental problems. As a part of our basic theoretical analysis, we shall mention particular environmental problems, but we shall only occasionally discuss detailed solutions to these problems. For instance, when we reflect on questions of distributive justice and responsibility to future generations, we shall likely refer to land use, conservation, population growth, disposal of toxic wastes, energy use, consumption of nonrenewable resources, and global warming, but not in a highly detailed manner.
B. ASSIGNED BOOKS AND ARTICLES
1. You are expected to purchase the following books and course packets
A. BOOKS
(1) Stanley Hauerwas, A Community of Character: Toward a Constructive Christian Social Ethic, Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press, 1981.
(2) Michael Pollan, Second Nature: A Gardener’s Education, New York: Dell Publishing, 1991.
(3) Joseph Sax, Mountains Without Handrails, Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 1980.
B. COURSE PACKETS
(1) Stephen Budiansky, Nature’s Keepers: The New Science of Nature Management, New York: The Free Press, 1995. Available in Campus Store as Course Packet 1.
(2) Selected journal articles, etc. Available in Campus Store as Course Packet 2.
2. You are required to bring appropriate books and/or article reprints to each weekly discussion section.
NOTE: A number of copies of Reinhold Niebuhr’s The Nature and Destiny of Man, volumes I and II, have also been ordered. This book is a classic, a solid addition to your permanent library, and I encourage you to buy a copy if you can afford it.
C. EXAMS, PAPERS, GRADES
1. Exams will consist of:
a. An in-class midterm exam to be held on Tuesday, October 21. It will consist of one short essay (25 minutes) and six mini-essays (4 minutes each) and will cover the material through week eight. We will schedule two or three optional review sessions before the exam.
b. A final exam comprised of essay and mini-essay questions to be given during the regular exam period.
2. Term Papers
Each of you will be expected to write a 10 12 page term paper (250 words per page average) that will be due at the beginning of class on Tuesday, December 2. You are required to check out your topic with your Teaching Assistant or with Prof. Baer before you start your paper, and an outline of your paper is due on or before the beginning of class, Tuesday, November 11. Your outline will permit us to give you some feedback before you commit major time to your paper. There will be grade penalties for late papers as follows:
| Paper handed in by 2 p.m. on | Penalty will be |
|---|---|
| Friday, December 5 | 1/3 of a grade (A to A-) |
| Monday, December 8 | 2/3 of a grade (A to B+) |
| Thursday, Dec. 11 | 1 full grade (A to B) |
NOTE: No papers will be accepted after 2 p.m. on Thursday, December 11, unless you have made a special arrangement with your professor or TA at least a week before the December 2 due date. Extensions will be granted only in exceptional circumstances beyond your control.
3. Weekly Reading Synopses: In preparation for discussion sections you will be required each week to respond to a question or write a short synopsis of one or more of the assigned readings (length: one page, single spaced, typed). These will be due each week in discussion sections. We shall hand out these synopsis assignments along with questions designed to help you better understand required readings on each Thursday of the week before they are due. You will be required to hand in at least 11 of the 13 assignments over the course of the semester, and your papers will be graded. If you want to hand in all 13 of the synopses, we will credit you with your 11 highest grades.
4. Semester Grades for this course will be calculated as follows:
Mid-term exam* 25%
Term paper 25%
Final exam 25%
Participation in discussion sections, including grades on synopses 25%
**Note 1: Because many of you have not done a great deal of work in the humanities, we have decided to count your midterm grade only if it helps you; if it hurts your semester average we will not count it. You are required to take the midterm, however, and you are well advised to put as much effort into it as possible–both to take grade pressure off yourself at the end of the semester and to make it possible for us to give you valuable feedback on what you have written for the midterm. If the midterm reflects minimal effort on your part, our feedback will also be minimal.
**Note 2: DISCUSSION SECTIONS ARE AN INTEGRAL PART OF THE COURSE, AND REGULAR ATTENDANCE IS REQUIRED. EVEN THOUGH SECTIONS (INCLUDING SYNOPSIS PAPERS) CONSTITUTE ONLY 25% OF THE COURSE GRADE, STILL YOU CANNOT PASS THE COURSE AT ALL IF YOU DO NOT ATTEND AT LEAST HALF THE SECTIONS, AND YOUR GRADE WILL BE ADVERSELY AFFECTED IF YOU MISS EVEN TWO OR THREE SECTIONS, EXCEPT IN CASES WHERE YOU HAVE BEEN EXCUSED FOR JOB INTERVIEWS, ETC.****
**Note 3: The course may be taken S/U.
D. SCHEDULE OF LECTURES AND READING ASSIGNMENTS
** Required readings
* Suggested further readings
(no asterisk) Additional bibliography
NOTE: Some lectures will attempt to clarify assigned readings and present background material for them. Others will deal with separate themes. In discussion sections you will have the opportunity to discuss and raise questions about both readings and lectures. For those of you who have not read a great deal in religion, ethics, and philosophy, some of the reading assignments may be a bit difficult, and you may need to go through them more than once. The readings assignments are considerably longer during the first part of the semester than at the end of the semester. We have found that this works well for most students, for among other things, it gives you more time late in the semester to work on your term paper and to prepare for the final exam.
I. INTRODUCTION
WEEK ONE (August 28-29): Introduction
**Richard A. Baer, Jr., “Our Need to Control: Implications for Environmental Education,” The American Biology Teacher, November 1976, pp. 473-76, 490.
**Thomas Merton, “The Woodcarver” and “The Useless Tree,” in The Way of Chuang Tzu, 1965, pp. 110 111, 35 36.
*Thomas Merton, “Rain and the Rhinoceros,” in Raids on the Unspeakable, 1960, pp. 9 23.
II. ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES AND PROBLEMS
WEEK TWO (September 1-5): Why Have National Parks?
**Joseph L. Sax, Mountains Without Handrails: Reflections on the National Parks, 1980, pp. 1-113.
*John Passmore, Man’s Responsibility for Nature, 1973.
Ian Barbour, Technology, Environment, and Human Values, 1980, pp. 1-106.
Roderick Nash, Wilderness and the American Mind, New Haven: Yale University Press, 3rd ed., 1982.
Leo Marx, The Machine in the Garden: Technology and the Pastoral Ideal in America, New York: Oxford University Press, 1964.
WEEK THREE (September 8-12): The Garden: What Does It Tell Us about the Meaning of Nature?
**Michael Pollan, Second Nature: A Gardener’s Education, New York, NY: Dell Publishing, 1991, chapters 1-4, 6, 9, and 10. If you have the time, I urge you to read the entire book. Chapter 5 is delightful, one of my favorite chapters, but I am not assigning it, since it is not altogether relevant to the course. Some of you may also be intrigued by chapter 11.
*Gordon D. Kaufman, “A Problem for Theology: the Concept of Nature,” Harvard Theological Review, 65 (1972), pp. 337 366. This is a very difficult but valuable article on the various meanings of the term “nature” and on the relationship of human beings to nature.
Bill Devall, “The Deep Ecology Movement,” Natural Resources Journal, Vol. 20 (April,1980), pp. 299-322.
Bill Devall and George Sessions, Deep Ecology, 1985.
WEEK FOUR (September 15-19): The “Nature Knows Best” Myth: Should Humans Keep Hands off Nature?
**Stephen Budiansky, Nature’s Keepers: The New Science of Nature Management, New York: The Free Press, 1995, pp. 1-155, 245-250. I would also urge you to skim (or, if you have time, read) pages 159-242.
Alston Chase, Playing God in Yellowstone: the Destruction of America’s First National Park, New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1986.
Martin W. Lewis, Green Delusions, Durham: Duke University Press, 1992.
Rik Scarce, Eco-Warriors: Understanding the Radical Environmental Movement, Chicago: The Noble Press, Inc., 1990.
Christopher Manes, Green: Radical Environmentalism and the Unmaking of Civilization, Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1990.
Arne Naess, Ecology, Community and Lifestyle: Outline of an Ecosophy, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989.
III. WHAT IS SCIENCE?
WEEK FIVE (September 22-26): The Methods of Science
**Ian G. Barbour, Issues in Science and Religion, pp. 137 185. For those of you who have had little or no background in philosophy, this will be difficult material. The assignment is short, but you may need to read it two or three times to really understand it. The material is a bit dated, but it remains, in my judgment, one of the best short discussions of what it means to know something in science.
*Bill Joy, “Why the Future Doesn’t Need Us,” Wired, pp. 238-262.
*Ian G. Barbour, Issues in Science and Religion, pp. 207-270.
*Ian G. Barbour, Religion in an Age of Science, New York: Harper and Row,Publishers, Vol. I, 1990.
*Michael Polanyi, The Tacit Dimension, 1966.
Ronald N. Giere, Understanding Scientific Reasoning, New York: Holt, Reinhart and Winston, 1979.
Holmes Rolston, III, Science and Religion: A Critical Survey, 1987.
Michael Polanyi, Personal Knowledge, 1962.
Thomas S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 2nd ed. enlarged, 1970.
William Leiss, The Domination of Nature, Boston: Beacon Press, 1974.
Carl G. Hempel, Philosophy of Natural Science, 1966.
David L. Hull, Philosophy of Biological Science, 1974.
Hilary Putnam, Reason, Truth and History, New York: Cambridge University Press, 1981.
Philip Kitcher, Abusing Science: The Case Against Creationism, Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1982.
IV. WHAT IS ETHICS?
WEEK SIX (September 29 – October 3): Are Moral Judgments Matters of Knowledge?
**Lilly Marlene-Russo, “Ethical Theory and the Moral Status of Animals,” Hastings Center Report,May-June 1990, pp. 4-8.
**Allen Wood, “Relativism,” unpublished manuscript, revised 1993. Prof. Wood taught philosophy at Cornell for many years but now is at Stanford. This piece may be somewhat difficult for those of you who have had no formal background in ethics, but it is one of the best short discussions of relativism I have seen.
*Mary Midgley, Can’t We Make Moral Judgments?, pp. vii-x, 3-110. Midgley’s style rambles a bit, but overall I find her work solid and one of the better discussions of what really is at stake in our hesitation to make moral judgments and the commitment of many people today to moral relativism and subjectivism. It is a book well worth reading and reading carefully.
*Wayne C. Booth, Modern Dogma and the Rhetoric of Assent, 1974, pp. ix xvii, 1-40, 86- 139 (Introduction plus chapters 1 and 3). Booth is not easy reading, but his ideas are important for understanding the nature of moral judgments. Note the excellent bibliography on pp. 213 218. For many years this was an assigned reading in NR 407.
William K. Frankena, Ethics, 1963.
Bernard Williams, Morality, 1972.
John Rawls, A Theory of Justice, 1971.
Stephen Toulmin, Reason in Ethics, 1970.
Paul Ramsey, Basic Christian Ethics, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1950.
WEEK SEVEN (October 6-10): The Limitations of Rationalism in Ethics
**E.F. Schumacher, “On Philosophical Maps,” in A Guide for the Perplexed,” New York: Harper and Row, 1977, pp. 1-6.
**John H. Snow, “Fear of Death and the Need to Accumulate,” in Ecology: Crisis and New Vision, ed., Richard E. Sherrell, 1971, pp. 45 58. NOTE: This piece is on electronic reserve in Mann Library. Please download the article and bring a copy with you to discussion section.
Paul W. Taylor, “The Ethics of Respect for Nature,” Environmental Ethics, Vol. 3, No. 3 (Fall 1981), pp. 197-218. Taylor’s piece is an excellent example of the (hyper)rationalism Curtin and Gilligan have in mind in their respective pieces.
Carol Gilligan, In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Women’s Development, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1982.
Nel Noddings, Caring: a Feminine Approach to Ethics and Moral Education, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984.
Val Plumwood, “Nature, Self, and Gender: Feminism, Environmental Philosophy, and the Critique of Rationalism,” Hypatia Vol. 6, No. 1 (Spring 1991), pp. 3-27.
Karen Warren, “The Promise and Power of Ecofeminism,” Environmental Ethics Vol. 12, No. 2, pp. 125-146.
Note: Fall break is October 11-14.
WEEK EIGHT (October 15-17): Is It Possible to Make Sound Environmental Policy in a Democratic Society without High Standards of Truthtelling?
**Raymond Bonner, “Crying Wolf: How the International Wildlife Community Got Stampeded into Banning Ivory,” The New York times Magazine, February 7, 1993,
pp. 16ff.
**Aaron Wildavsky, But is it True?: A Citizen’s Guide to Environmental Health and Safety Issues, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1995, Chapter 14, “Detecting Errors in Environmental and Safety Issues” (pp. 410-426), and “Conclusion: Rejecting the Precautionary Principle” (pp. 427-447).
*If you want to be well-informed about important environmental issues it is essential that you read as widely as possible. If you normally get your news from the major TV networks and, say, the New York Times, Time magazine, etc., I would recommend that you occasionally read the Review and Outlook section of The Wall Street Journal. Hearing various points of view on public policy issues is essential if you want to be well-educated and able to make rational decisions about how we ought to relate to nature.
Ronald Bailey, Eco-Scam: The False Prophets of Ecological Apocalypse, New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1993.
Sisela Bok, Lying: Moral Choices in Public and Private Life, New York: Pantheon Books, 1978.
Theodore D. Goldfarb, ed., Taking Sides: Clashing Views on Controversial Environmental Issues, 6th ed., Guilford, CT: The Dushkin Publishing Group, Inc., 1995.
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MID-TERM EXAM: will be held in class on Tuesday, October 21. It will consist of one short essay (25 minutes) and six mini-essays (4 minutes each) and will cover the material through week eight. We will schedule two or three optional review sessions before the exam.
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WEEK NINE (October 20-24): Second Week on Truthtelling
**Bjorn Lomborg, The Skeptical Environmentalist: Measuring the Real State of the World, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001, pp. 3-33. NOTE: This piece is available at Mann Library on electronic reserve. Bring your copy to section.
**Arthur Waldron, “The Twisted Academy: How Academics Get Other Cultures Wrong,” The American Enterprise, (Vol. 13, No. 6 (September 2002), pp.38-40.
V. ETHICS AND WORLDVIEW
WEEK TEN (October 27-31: Seeing the World as It Is; The Role of Character in Ethics
NOTE: Week nine represents a major turning point in the course. So far we have looked at a range of issues having to do with how we view nature and man’s place in nature. We have briefly talked about what it means to know something, and particularly about some of the differences between moral and scientific claims. Now we will begin to think about who we are as human beings and about how our understanding of ourselves and of the world we live in affects our treatment of nature. Rather than a superficial survey of various religious and philosophical views on the nature of human beings and on how humans may find the good life, we will focus on just a few authors and documents from a single tradition. Stanley Hauerwas is one of the more original contemporary Christian ethicists, Reinhold Niebuhr is generally recognized as one of the most influential 20th century American theologians, and the book of Galatians from the New Testament has profoundly influenced Western culture for close to 2,000 years.
My past experience in teaching Hauerwas, Niebuhr, and Galatians suggests that the views which some of you may hold towards religious and theological concepts (towards terms like sin, righteousness, grace, reconciliation, salvation, etc.) may make it difficult for you to understand and appreciate these materials. But these writers deal with powerful ideas, so even when you disagree with them, try your best to read these pieces sympathetically. Don’t be surprised if you have to read them several times to understand what the authors are saying.
**Stanley Hauerwas, “The Significance of Vision: Toward an Aesthetic Ethic,” pp. 30-47 in Vision and Virtue: Essays in Christian Ethical Reflection, Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press, 1981 (first published in 1974).
**Stanley Hauerwas, A Community of Character, pp. 9-35 (“A Story-Formed Community: Reflections on Watership Down“), and pp. 129-135,
145-152 (“Character, Narrative, and Growth in the Christian Life”).
**Harvey Cox, “Playboy’s Doctrine of Male,” in Christianity and Crisis, Vol. XXI, No. 6 (April 17, 1961).
*Bernard E. Meland, Higher Education and the Human Spirit, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1953, pp. 61-78 (“The Appreciative Consciousness”).
Week Eleven (November 3-7): A Christian View of Human Nature: Sin
**Richard A. Baer, Jr., “Agricultural Ethics at State Universities: Why No Input from the Theologians?, Agriculture and Human Values, Vol. 2, No. 4 (Fall 1985), pp. 41-46. This is a somewhat defensive piece. It makes the point that there are no good reasons why religious texts should be excluded from the marketplace of ideas in state colleges and universities simply because they are religious.
**Reinhold Niebuhr, “Man as Sinner” and “Sin as Sensuality,” pp. 178-207 and 228-240 in The Nature and Destiny of Man: A Christian Interpretation, New York: Charles Scribners Sons, 1955, Vol. I. Note: We were unable to include this entire assignment in the course packet because of copyright limitations, so we have placed pages 178-207 on electronic reserve in Mann Library. Be sure to read the entire assignment and to bring a copy of pages 178-207 to class in addition to the material in your course packet.
**Stanley Hauerwas, “Our Sinful Character,” pp. 46-49 in The Peaceable Kingdom, Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press, 1983.
**Robert Coles, “On Sin,” pp. 99-101 in Harvard Diary: Reflections on the Sacred and the Secular, New York: Crossroads, 1988.
Mircea Eliade, The Sacred and the Profane, 1957, pp. 201 213.
William P. Alston, “Religion,” The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Vol. 7, pp. 140 145.
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Hymn of the Universe, trans. by Simon Bartholomew, 1965. Read section entitled “The Spiritual Power of Matter,” pp. 59 71.
Clifford Geertz, “Religion as a Cultural System,” in Reader in Comparative Religion. An Anthropological Approach, ed. William A. Lessa and Evon Z. Vogt, 3rd ed., 1972, pp. 167-178.
Josef Pieper, Leisure: the Basis of Culture, 1952.
D. Elton Trueblood, Philosophy of Religion, 1957. A straightforward, easily read examination of some of the classical philosophical problems raised by religious belief.
Jürgen Moltmann, Man: Christian Anthropology in the Conflicts of the Present, “What is Man?” pp. 1 21.
Week Twelve (November 10-14): A Christian View of Human Nature: Salvation
**Reinhold Niebuhr, “Wisdom, Grace, and Power,” pp. 98-126 in Vol. II of The Nature and Destiny of Man: A Christian Interpretation.
**St. Paul’s Letter to the Galatians, chapters 1-6.
**Richard Baer, “Comments on Galatians,” 1990, unpublished notes for class use.
**Deuteronomy 26:1 9, 6:20 25, Joshua 24:1 3, Deuteronomy 5:6.
A NOTE ON READING GALATIANS: Most of you who have not read much in the Bible will likely find Galatians puzzling and in many ways almost unintelligible. Nonetheless it is an extremely important document in terms of understanding the early development of Christianity and its later impact on Western culture. In lecture I shall present some background material on Galatians and will emphasize some of the things you should look for as you read this epistle. In my “Comments on Galatians” I have tried to pull together a bit of background material and commentary that should make your reading of the letter easier. You may want to read Galatians first, then these notes, then reread Galatians. The Bornkamm and Buttrick references below will also give you valuable interpretive material on Paul and on Galatians.
*G. Ernest Wright, God Who Acts, 1962.
Günther Bornkamm, Paul, trans. by D.M.G. Stalker, 1971.
George Arthur Buttrick, ed. The Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible, Vol. X, “The Epistle to the Galatians,” Introduction and Exegesis by Raymond T. Stamm, Exegesis by Oscar Fisher Blackwelder, pp. 427 593.
**NOTE: AN OUTLINE OF YOUR TERM PAPER IS DUE ON OR BEFORE THE BEGINNING OF CLASS ON TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 11. IF YOU WISH TO HAND IN A ROUGH DRAFT OF YOUR PAPER AT THAT TIME WE WILL GIVE YOU FEEDBACK ON IT BEFORE THANKSGIVING BREAK. THE COMPLETED PAPER IS DUE AT THE BEGINNING OF CLASS ON TUESDAY, DECEMBER 2.
VI. ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY IN A PLURALISTIC, DEMOCRATIC SOCIETY
WEEK THIRTEEN (November 17-21): Animal Rights/Welfare and Liberal Political Theory; Tensions between Concern for Individual Animals and Concern for Species and Ecosystems
NOTE: In reading Singer and Regan, I want you to pay particular attention to the assumptions about humans, animals, and nature that each author makes–assumptions that form the basis of their arguments. Make sure you are able to articulate these assumptions and can also repeat the basic steps in the argument each author makes for equal inherent value for humans and animals (Regan) or for equal consideration of the interests of animals and humans (Singer). Do you share their assumptions? How do you think a believing Christian, Jew, or Muslim would react to Singer and Regan’s dismissal of religious views regarding humans being created in the image of God? (Cf. chapter one, note 14 on pp. 270-71 in Singer or p. 112 in Regan).
You might also find it helpful to pay attention to how each author sees the function of reason in religion. Do you agree with the position each takes on this subject?
**Peter Singer, Animal Liberation 2nd ed., New York: New York Review, 1990, pp. 1-23; pp. 270-72, note 14.
**Tom Regan, “The Case for Animal Rights,” in Animal Rights and Human Obligations, ed. by Tom Regan and Peter Singer, pp. 105-114.
**Three short articles on Utilitarianism, Rights-based ethics, and Social Contract theory will be handed out in class. I have not yet located suitable pieces.
*J. Baird Callicott, “Animal Liberation: A Triangular Affair,” chapter 1 in In Defense of the Land Ethic, Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 1989, pp.15-38, 268-275.
*J. Baird Callicott, “The Conceptual Foundations of the Land Ethic,” Chapter 5 in In Defense of the Land Ethic, Albany: State University Press of New York, 1989, pp. 75-99.
Lewis G. Regenstein, “The Bible’s Message of Conservation and Kindness to Animals,” chap. 1, pp. 19-44 in Replenish the Earth, New York: Crossroad,1991.
Jan E. Dizard, Going Wild: Hunting, Animal Rights, and the Contested Meaning of Nature, Amherst, Mass.: University of Massachusetts Press, 1994.
Keith Tester, Animals and Society: the Humanity of Animal Rights, New York: Routledge, 1991.
Michael P.T. Leahy, Against Liberation: Putting Animals in Perspective, New York: Routledge, 1991.
Thomas R. Dunlap, Saving America’s Wildlife: Ecology and the American Mind, 1850- 1990, Prince: Princeton University Press, 1988.
J.J.C. Smart, “Utilitarianism,” Vol. 8, pp. 206-212, in The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed.Paul Edwards, New York: Macmillan Publishing Co., 1967.
Stanley I. Benn, “Rights,” Vol. 7, pp. 195-199, in The Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
WEEK FOURTEEN (November 24-25): Are Liberalism and Environmentalism Compatible?
NOTE: Because of Thanksgiving holiday, there will be no discussion sections this week. We will discuss the assigned pieces during sections on December 4 and 5.
**Stanley Hauerwas, “The Church and Liberal Democracy: The Moral Limits of a Secular Polity,” chapter 4, pp. 72-86, in A Community of Character.
**Richard A. Baer, Jr., “The High Court’s ‘S’ Word,” Christianity Today, Vol. 33, No. 12 (September 8, 1989), 20-21.
**Robert Coles, “The Hero Without and Within,” pp. 113-117 in Harvard Diary.
*Michael Eldridge, “Theology and Agricultural Ethics in the State University: A Reply to Richard Baer,” Agriculture and Human Values, Vol. 2, No. 4 (Fall 1985), pp. 47-53.
*Richard A. Baer, Jr., “Theology and Agricultural Ethics at State Universities: A Rejoinder,”in Agriculture and Human Values, Vol. VI., No. 3 (Summer 1989), pp. 99-104.
*Richard A. Baer, Jr., “The Supreme Court’s Discriminatory Use of the Term ‘Sectarian,’” The Journal of Law and Politics, Vol. VI, No. 3 (spring 1990) pp. 449-468. This piece focuses mainly on religion and education; I mention it here because it contains important ideas about whether ethics based on religious convictions ought to be acceptable in formulating public policy and structuring our common life.
Thomas A. Spragens, Jr., The Irony of Liberal Reason, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1981.
Jeffrey Stout, Ethics After Babel: The Languages of Morals and Their Discontents, Boston: Beacon Press, 1988.
Thanksgiving recess begins at 1:10 p.m. Wed Nov 26. Classes resume 7:30 a.m. on Monday, December 1.
WEEK FIFTEEN (December 1-5): More on Liberalism and Environmentalism; Praise For All Things
**Richard A. Baer, Jr., “Praise for All Things,” The Princeton Seminary Bulletin, Vol. II. No. 2 (New Series), 1979.
Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory, Notre Dame, Indiana: The University of Notre Dame Press, 1981.
Richard John Neuhaus, The Naked Public Square, Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1984.