SMU – PHIL 3379 – ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS – FALL 2025 – JEAN KAZEZ

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Final Review Page

This page is under construction. It will be finalized by May 2.


BASICS

  • Date/Time/Place: May 9, 11:30, Hyer 106 
  • The final covers modules 4, 5, and 6
  • Closed everything
  • You'll be writing on paper
  • You'll have two hours
  • There will be about 6 questions and you'll choose 4 to answer
  • REVIEW -- we'll review May 6
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ADVICE

  1. Use all the materials available: 
    • blog posts (but don't memorize or repeat word-for-word) -- list with highlights is below
    • your own notes
    • the readings -- there are sometimes  annotated versions of readings in the blog posts 
    • RRs and comments you received on them
    • examples from reports -- use reporting document
  2. Answer questions as fully as you can in the time available.
  3. Make sure you understand what an "argument" is.  
  4. Answer completely.  See sample grading. 
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LIST OF POSTS WITH HIGHLIGHTS

We will review highlighted material on May 6
There are also pink highlights in the blog posts

MODULE 4: CLIMATE CHANGE

Mar 10 | Climate change basics  | basic science, concepts, terms, issues

Mar 12 | Climate change and politics  | why we are politically divided (Jamieson), see also May 2 for more on politics

Mar 14 | Future People | Broome on discounting, reasons for and against discounting

Mar 24| Future People  (class cancelled)

Mar 26 | Debate 3: future people  | arguments for and against discounting, arguments for longtermism (MacAskill)

Mar 28 | Climate justice | mitigation, Peter Singer's village drain, historical principles vs. time-slice principles, equal shares

Mar 31 | Climate justice |  more on historical principles vs. equal shares, making the reductions occur via cap and trade

Apr 2 | Geoengineering | Lomborg's defense of adaptation, Lomborg's optimism about geoengineering, examples in reports


MODULE 5: WILD PLACES

Apr 4 | Wild nature  Furtak's account of loving nature, what can we/can't we love?, EO Wilson on wilderness

Apr 7 | Is wilderness a social construct?  why loss of wilderness is bad, the value of wildness, Furtak and Wilson as valuers of wildness, Cronon's "The Trouble with Wilderness," his main arguments, his skepticism about wildness

Apr 9 | Faking nature  back to valuers of wildness, Elliot on faking nature, the restoration thesis and why he rejects it, land restoration examples, animal restoration examples, what art reveals about our values

Apr 11|  Returning  recap of Elliot, straw manning him vs. steel manning him, faking nature example (dire wolf), Treuer's return article summarized, his proposal

Apr 14 Debate 4: returning the national parks 

Apr 16 Restoring & rewilding  the difference between restoration and rewilding, ethical objections to rewilding, rewilding reports

Apr 18 No classes

Apr 21 | Urban ecology  Wilson vs. Cronon on urban nature, special obligations for urban wildlife (Palmer)


MODULE 6: ACTION/INACTION

Apr 23 | Green choices  the "just one person" problem, case1: littering, case 2: recycling

Apr 25 | Do our choices matter? "just one person" problem, Jamieson on why we lack individual impact, the cumulative and threshold models, why he thinks we should still make individual mitigation efforts

Apr 28 | Collective action Hourdequin's way of resolving the "just one person" problem, the Confucian views involved

Apr 30 | Debate 5: green choices  

May 2 | Can conservatives be environmentalists? Scruton on how conservative conservationism is different from liberal conservationism ***not on final***

May 5 | Ecosabotage  What it is, how Malm defends it

May 6 | Review

May 9 | Final exam at 11:30 in Hyer 106 (two hours)

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