Readings:
- Lynn White, Jr. "The Historical Roots of Our Ecological Crisis," in Schmitz and Willott, 5-11.
- David Schmidtz and Elizabeth Willott, "Respect for Nature: Introduction: The Last Man and the Search for Objective Value," in Schmidtz and Willow, 42-47.
- J. Baird Callicott, "Environmental Philosophy Is EnvironmentalActivism: The Most Radical and Effective Kind," in Schmidtz and Willott, 11-17.
- Andrew Light, " Taking Environmental Ethics Public," in Schmidtz and Willott, 654-664.
- Peter Singer, "All Animals Are Equal," in Schmidtz and Willott, 49-59.
- Mark Sagoff, "Animal Liberation and Environmental Ethics: Bad Marriage, Quick Divorce," in Schmidtz and Willott, 59-65.
- Paul Taylor, "The Ethics of Respect for Nature," in Schmidtz and Willott, 102-113.
Think through your entire answer as much as possible before beginning to write, perhaps even providing yourself with an outline of your main points. Remember you will be evaluated according to how THOUGHTFUL, THOROUGH, AND RATIONALLY PERSUASIVE your answers are. Also, proper citations are required for all direct quotations and references to the readings in the text, in parentheses.
Please choose TWO (2) PAIRS of articles from the assigned readings this semester: from Lynn White to Mark Sagoff (on consumption). You may pair ANY TWO (2) articles, but keep in mind you will need to compare them to each other for some of the questions. Therefore, you will be discussing FOUR (4) articles in total: TWO (2) PAIRS OF TWO (2) ARTICLES EACH.
To be able to compare the articles to each other, it would help to choose articles that discuss a specific common point. You can think of your own focal point or use one of the suggestions below:
a) respect for nonhuman nature
b) worldview
c) levels of analysis
d) nature of environmental ethics
e) egalitarian vs. hierarchical view of nature
f) purpose of philosophy
g) narrative as a form of philosophical argument
Examples of possible pairs, PURELY FOR ILLUSTRATIVE PURPOSES, might be: Callicott and Light, Singer and Sagoff (first reading), Taylor and Schmidtz, and Varner and Taylor.
And now for the exam itself.
Please answer the following questions FOR EACH WORK SELECTED FOR THE FOUR CHOSEN ARTICLES. I would suggest that you answer each of the first two questions for each author before proceeding to the next author's article. Therefore, I recommend that you answer Questions 1-2 for all four authors BEFORE proceeding to Questions 3-5.
1. What is the work's main environmental ethical position or conclusion?
2. What supporting evidence does the author offer for this philosophical conclusion?
Now, for the most important questions of this mental exercise and, as I see it, the most important aspects of philosophical discourse.
3. Which work of the two pairs selected offers the MOST SOUND OR SUPERIOR environmental ethical position? For example, following the suggestions give above, you might decide that Callicott is superior to Light, or Singer is superior to Sagoff, Schmidtz superior to Taylor, and Varner superior to Taylor.
The answer to this question could be as short as one sentence stating your position.
4. What reasons can you offer to support your assessment in response to Question 3? In short, offer a reasoned argument to support your answer to Question 3 regarding which article is superior to the two pairs you selected.
5. How might the authors of the articles NOT judged superior in Question 3 (Light, Sagoff, or Taylor in my examples) reply to the reasoned defense expressed in your answer to Question 4? That is, how can the judged inferior articles' authors reply to your argument in your answer to Question 4?
What would Light, Sagoff (first reading), or Taylor, say in defense of their view that you judged inferior to their other paired article?