SMU – PHIL 3379 – ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS – FALL 2023 – JEAN KAZEZ – eesmu.blogspot.com

Friday, December 1, 2023

MODULE 5: Review, follow-ups

 AGENDA

  1. Self-rating
  2. Please do an evaluation for this class (Canvas)
  3. Follow ups
  4. Review for Exam II

  1. Please rate your own contribution to class discussion
    1. top--most classes
    2. frequent--every week
    3. occasional--every few weeks
    4. rare--once or twice over semester
    5. never--not a contributor
  2. Please rate your own contribution to group discussions
    1. leader--you got the ball rolling 
    2. participant--you did your fair share
    3. listener--mostly listened to discussion


FOLLOW-UPS

MODULE 5: ACTION

American conservatives vs. Scrutonian conservatives -- Groundwater depletion 


Civil/Uncivil Disobedience: Climate change protesters interrupted the opera at the Met last night. -- video here


Lifestyle changes: I'm  appalled by what I learned about recycling but we can fix it"

MODULE 3: CLIMATE CHANGE

COP-28 has started in Dubai -- FAQ here

Geoengineering has arrived! -- first carbon capture plant in the US opened Nov 9 -- website here



Tuesday, November 28, 2023

MODULE 5: Environmentalism and politics

 AGENDA

  1. Finish discussion of art attacks
  2. Discuss Scruton, "Conservatism Means Conservation"


Action module
  1. Lifestyle choices--recycling, etc.
  2. Activism--civil disobedience, uncivil disobedience
  3. Politics, government--having a political philosophy, running for office, voting
Environmental politics in the US


Roger Scruton (SCREW-ton)




Conservatives vs. Liberals -- 5 contrasts (according to Scruton)

Oikophilia (from Greek: home-love)
  1. conservative: has love of home, wants to preserve and protect home
    • "it is the love of home that provides the most effective motive on which the environmental movement can call"--p.2
    • Do you think home is a local concept for him? What about America as our home, or even the earth as our home?
  2. liberal: focused on good of all, the least advantaged, equality
Does it make a difference where you live?  

 



Where we live



Love of beauty
  1. conservative: values beauty in surroundings
    • "aesthetic judgment is the primary form of environmental reasoning" -- p. 7
  2. liberal: more concerned with progress, equality, the least advantaged
       Example: wind turbines, solar panels






Preservation
  1. conservative: wants to conserve resources and ways of life; see themselves as stewards or trustees 
    • there ought to be a "partnership between the dead, the living and the unborn" -- p. 2, cites Edmund Burke
  2. liberal: progress, not preservation
Application (he doesn't discuss here): fox hunting, other types of hunting (banned in the UK in 2014); in the US: Ducks Unlimited




Local action vs. "big government" policies
  1. conservative: looks for local solutions
  2. liberal: supports government solutions at all levels including global (the UN)
Local action: neighborhood association that cleans creek, girl scout troop that keeps highway clean, civic association that protests new highway or train tracks 

 

 




*Texas conservatives are not Scrutonian conservatives!  Legislature and conservative Supreme Court have blocked local control--e.g. Denton plastic bag ban.




 Private property, capitalism
  1. conservative: supports private property, capitalism; but growth can be incompatible with love of home and love of beauty
  2. liberal: distrusts; worries about greed leading to depletion
Application: environmental problem of suburbs

    •     "The most important man-made environmental problem in this country is that presented by the spread of the suburbs. Suburbanization causes the increasing use of automobiles, and the dispersal of populations in ways that exponentially increase the consumption for energy and non-degradable packaging" -- p. 3
    •  If Americans want to live in the suburbs, its only because government policies have made them desirable--subsidies, problems in the inner cities, zoning
    • Poundbury  (p. 4-5)






The Scrutonian Conservative Environmentalist's approach to some of the topics we've discussed
  1. Climate change--agrees with Bjorn Lomborg (adaptation, geoengineering)
  2. Restoration vs. Rewilding--what would he say?
  3. Exporting recycling to a developing country--what would he say?
  4. Environmental injustices (e.g. Bullard)--what would he say?
  5. groundwater depletion


Monday, November 27, 2023

MODULE 5: Civil and uncivil disobedience

 AGENDA

  1. Exam II review page
  2. New kinds of climate protests
  3. Hi Phi Nation podcast: framework

Taking action
  1. Lifestyle choices--what do I have to to, as just one person?
  2. Activism--legal vs. illegal--is illegal environmental activism ever justifiable?
  3. Politics--can environmentalists be conservatives? (next time)
Art attacks
Framework for discussing: Hi Phi Nation, "Uncivil Disobedience"

 

Friday, November 17, 2023

MODULE 5: Ecosabotage

 AGENDA

  1. No office hours today, no class on Monday, Happy Thanksgiving!
  2. Ecosabotage


What can I do about environmental problems?
  1. Change my own behavior
  2. Work toward collective solutions ("activism")

Types of activism--which are ethical?

    Blowing up pipelines..................................................voting for green candidates



Ecosabotage--destructive or obstructive action to achieve environmental goals


Types of activism
  1. Legal activism
    • supporting/becoming a green candidate
    • joining environmental organization
    • participating in legal demonstrations
    • boycotts
  2. civil disobedience
    • disobeying laws to achieve change
    • civil means both non-military and "with civility" 
    • example: blocking traffic
  3. Uncivil disobedience 
    • disobeying laws to achieve change
    • uncivil
      • obstructive (e.g. shouting down a meeting)
      • destructive (against property). 
      • violent (against persons)
  4. Ecosabotage
    • uncivil disobedience 
    • stops harm to environment
    • "direct action" -- tree sit-in, tire deflating, Sea Shepherd stopping whaling ships
  5. Terrorism--random violence against civilians designed to terrorize population





Andreas Malm, How to Blow Up A Pipeline -- 

His argument--
  1. Climate change activists like Extinction Rebellion (XR) use civil disobedience  but reject ecosabotage and other property crimes.
  2. Pacifism isn't ethically or strategically required
  3. Property crimes have been a tactic of many successful protest movements
  4. The climate change movement is not different from these movements--not less important or less urgent, for example.  THEREFORE
  5. Climate change activists should not limit themselves to civil disobedience.


How would you respond to this argument?  Is environmentalism different from the other protest movements, so that property crimes are less justifiable in this case?




Examples of protest movements--
  1. Suffragetttes (p. 41): London, beginning of 20th century--used property crimes as tactic to win vote for women (they split from the Suffragists, who used peaceful means)-- breaking windows, arson, throwing pepper at people. Came to an end with WWI.
  2. Abolitionism in the US
  3. Civil Rights movement--Martin Luther King vs. Malcolm X, peaceful protest plus riots
  4. Gandhi's movement for Indian independence from Britain--rejected violence against the British, but not against fighting with the British in WWI (p. 43)
  5. ANC  and Nelson Mandela fighting apartheid in South Africa--mostly peaceful, but also "Spear of the Nation"



Wednesday, November 15, 2023

MODULE 5: Debate & personal choices

 AGENDA

  1. Debate (slideshow)
  2. Wrap up personal choices




Same puzzles involving wilderness, wildlife, nature
  1. Entering depleted wilderness areas
  2. Overhunting endangered species
  3. Scuba diving near vulnerable corals


"Why should I hold back?"...in detail

"If I hold back it won't make much of a difference (feature 1), and I'll miss out on something (feature 2), but I do realize that if everyone gets close the coral will be damaged (feature 3).

We've looked at 3 solutions--3 ways of defeating "why should I?" type questions




 

 

Monday, November 13, 2023

MODULE 5: Personal Choices (2)

 AGENDA

  1. Puzzles of personal responsibility
  2. Solutions




Which green behaviors generate these two puzzles of individual responsibility?  
  •  The action has to have all three features--minimal impact, personal cost, collective benefit
  •  Then we can consider what stage we're at.
  1. Using alternative lightbulbs--all 3 features?
  2. Driving a hybrid/electric car--all 3 features?
    • are we at the rare or collective stage?
  3. Riding a bike to SMU instead of driving--all 3 features?
    • are we at the rare or collective stage?
  4. Recycling
    • 3 features? (maybe not)
      • minimal impact (may successful recycle item)
      • personal cost (minimal)
      • collective benefit (yes

The two puzzles--
  1. First puzzle--hardly anyone is doing it, why should I?
  2. Second puzzle--lots of people are doing it, why should I?
A non-solution
  1. Garrett Hardin--individuals will not make green choices without coercion--must go directly to the required stage

Three solutions
  1. Baylor Johnson (discussed by both Jamieson and Hourdequin)
  2. Marion Hourdequin
  3. Dale Jamieson (last time)





Puzzle 1--about the rare stage
  1. At the rare stage, there's no obligation change behavior--not rational to make an effort with negligible impact but high personal cost
  2. At the rare stage, there IS an obligation to try to bring about the collective stage
Puzzle 2--about the collective stage
  1. At the collective stage you should change your behavior--otherwise you'd be a "free rider"--you'd be taking advantage of other people


Marion Hourdequin--philosopher specializing in both environmental ethics and classical Chinese philosophy
  • Confucius -- 551-479 BC (before Socrates-Plato-Aristotle)
  • the relational self--not I, but we--family, community, country, world


Hourdequin p. 454

     
  • moral models

Hourdequin p. 454




  • how do these ideas help with the two puzzles?

    • At the rare stage--become a moral model, look to moral models
      • car-buyers highly influenced by such factors, not just "cost-benefit analysis"



    • At the collective stage--don't think of yourself as an individual, but as a component of a "we"





Hourdequin vs. Jamieson--how are they different?

Friday, November 10, 2023

MODULE 5: Personal choices

 AGENDA

  1. Plan for module 5
  2. Personal choices









Three areas of "activism"--
  1. Personal choices.  The "just one person" problem. (Today, 11/13, 11/15)
  2. Protest. What forms of protest are ethical and effective?  (11/17, 11/27)
  3. Politics.  Can conservatives be environmentalists?  (11/29)

DISCLAIMER

When we get to "protest" we will be discussing some forms of protest that are illegal.  Assigning a reading does not mean recommending what it says!  Discussing a form of protest does not mean supporting it!

How to Blow Up A Pipeline: discusses whether environmental groups should engage in "ecosabotage"-- attacks on property but not persons.  There's also a movie based on the book.


We will also discuss publicity stunts like the one below. 




Personal choices: the "just one person" problem:
  1. Large-scale changes are effective
  2. But can changing my lifestyle make a difference?
  3. If YES, should I do it?
  4. If NO, should I still do it?

Lifestyle changes--answer to Q2 will vary

  1. Preventing climate change
    • boil just the water you need
    • travel less by car and air
    • eat less meat
    • use less heat and air conditioning
    • don't buy new stuff
  2. Reducing waste in landfills
    • recycle (debate)
    • don't buy water bottles
    • bring reusable bags
    • downsize, live simply
  3. Reducing pressure on wildlife/wilderness
    • have fewer children
    • don't contribute to suburban sprawl--live in apartment
    • tread lightly in wilderness areas
  4. Preserving water
    • take shorter showers
    • choose drought-tolerant plants
    • irrigate wisely

Focus: preventing climate change

Boil just the water you need! (from a British website)

  1. Large-scale changes are effective
  2. But can changing my lifestyle make a difference?
  3. If YES, should I do it?
  4. If NO, should I still do it?








Dale Jamieson--Reason in a Dark Time

Will my tea kettle habits make any difference? YES OR NO?

YES?

Cumulative model--"every relevant input produces a relevant output" (Jamieson p. 3)
  1. limiting fill --> some tiny effect on climate
  2. 1000 torturers analogy
  3. Go Fund Me analogy--1000 people give $10 to someone who lost their job and needs living expenses
  4. Jamieson--atmospheric science rejects this for climate change related behaviors

Threshold model-- "no effect occurs unless a specific level of collective contribution is achieved" (Jamieson p. 3)
  1. limiting fill --> possibly hit threshold --> some tiny effect on climate
  2. group pushing a car analogy
  3. Go Fund me analogy -- 1000 give $10 to someone who needs to buy a car
  4. Jamieson--atmospheric science rejects this for climate change related behaviors



NO?
Jamieson: "For all practical purposes climate change damages are insensitive to individual behavior." (p. 4)


Recycling

How are the impact issues different?


Jamieson

  1. Large-scale changes are effective
  2. But can changing my lifestyle make a difference?
  3. If YES, should I do it?
  4. If NO, should I still do it?

Yes, for non-consequentialist reasons

I. Adding meaning to your life
  •     trying adds meaning, eve if you don't succeed

II. Virtue matters independent of impact
  • Traditional virtues: courage, honesty, moderation, kindness, etc.
  • Green virtues--virtues that involve the environment
  1. Green virtues that preserve traditional virtues
    • humility
  2. Green virtues that rehabilitate traditional virtues
    • temperance: reducing consumption
    • simplicity
  3. Green virtues that create new virtues
    • mindfulness
III. Respect for nature


Wednesday, November 8, 2023

MODULE 4: Debate

Rewilding vs. Restoration debate

Slideshow

Saturday, November 4, 2023

MODULE 4: Rewilding

 AGENDA

  1. Elliott recap
  2. Two approaches 
    • Conservation/Restoration
    • Rewilding

Robert Eliot, "Faking Nature"

Fake nature is not as good as wild nature because...
  1. Importance of origins: they're often relevant to the value things have (forged art, etc)
  2. Meaning of wildness:  origins not human
  3. Value of wildness:  world is better for having a lot of wild nature
  4. Recovery impossible:  you can't make a wild bison herd

Conservation/restoration vs. Rewilding (debate next time)

Conservation/restoration (older)
  • Interventions to restore nature so the ecosystem has the "right" elements again
  • Philosophical argument for conservation/restoration: Aldo Leopold, ecological holism
"A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise." Aldo Leopold, Sand County Almanac p. 6 (Canvas)       
        
Rewilding (newer)
  • Rewilding: 
    • stop interfering so areas become wild again
    • intervene, then let things go
    • area doesn't become literally untouched, but the way it would be without humans
      • not necessarily going backward in time
    • no end point--no "right" elements
    • Monbiot also defines wildness in terms of "trophic function"
    • rewilding organizations:  Rewilding Earth, Rewilding Europe, Rewilding Patagonia

  • Philosophical argument for rewilding: 
    • value of wildness (Eliot)
    • rejects Aldo Leopold's emphasis on "integrity and stability" (see Hettinger and Throop)


 article


Examples
  


Conservation/restoration that's NOT rewilding
  1. Restoring buffalos to the great plains, musk oxen to Alaska , etc. AND managing them -- NPS video
  2. Exterminating non-native species simply because "they don't belong there" 


Rewilding that's NOT conservation

Passive
  1. Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant (Russia) (watch video)
  2. Stop weeding lawn and garden
  3. Human extinction--"The Last of Us" TV series
Active
  1. Rewilding areas depleted by agriculture (watch video)
  2. Restoring animals and then NOT managing them


Projects that are BOTH conservation AND rewilding
  1. Yellowstone wolf restoration
    • conservation: they were once part of the ecosystem
    • rewilding: adding makes Yellowstone more like it would be without humans, they add trophic function
  2. Exterminating non-native species that are invasive--coqui frogs in Hawaii
    • conservation: they don't belong to the Hawaii ecosystem
    • rewilding: they're messing up trophic function
  3. Wildlife corridors

Potential arguments for conservation--
  • Ecological holism argument (Leopold)
  • Anthropocentric argument (Baxter)
  • Species preservation argument (Russow)
Potential arguments for rewilding
  • Wildness as a good (Eliot, Monbiot)
  • Respect for nature (Taylor)
Election tomorrow--proposition 14--Centennial fund--new parks--should they be created based on conservation principles or rewilding principles?

Friday, November 3, 2023

MODULE 4: Faking nature

 AGENDA

  1. The big picture/recap
  2. What to do about vanishing wilderness





Restoration vs rewilding
  1. Restoration--deliberately recreating a feature that existed before 
  2. Rewilding--letting areas revert to being beyond human control (next time)
Restoration examples in Elliot, "Faking Nature"
  1. Dune example (p. 81)
  2. Moving a creek to accommodate a highway (p. 82)
More restoration examples


  1. Restoring the buffalo--
    • at the brink of extinction at the end of the 19th century
    • preserved by breeders and in zoos
    • conservation movement decides to create herds
    • buffalo from the Bronx zoo sent to Wichita wildlife refuge in Oklahoma
    • contrast with buffalo herd at Yellowstone (not restored but highly managed)
  2. Eliminating non-native species in Florida
  3. Restoration projects involving plants and geological features?
Extreme faking (not restoration)
  1. Termite mounds at the Dallas Zoo
  2. Rock formations at the Arboretum--poured concrete


Elliot's arguments about restoration--
  1. "restoration policies do not always fully restore nature" (p. 84)
  2. "object's origins do affect its value and our valuations of it" (p. 85)
  3. real Vermeer painting vs. fake vermeer (p. 85)

  4. experience can be spoiled by knowing the origin (p. 86)
    • knowing the buffalo came from the Bronx zoo
    • knowing keys of an old piano are made of elephant tusks
  5. experience can be enhanced by beliefs about origin
    • John Muir talking about Hetch Hetchy Valley (Yosemite)--p. 86
  6. He is not saying wild nature is the only thing we value--we may also admire aspects of a city or even a dam--p. 86 (exampled of a mixed natural and built environments--Trollstigen in Norway)

  7. He is not saying "natural is better" in all cases (diseases, etc.)--p. 87
  8. He is saying: "nature is not replaceable without depreciation in one aspect of its value which has to do with its genesis, its history" (p. 87)
  9. "Of course I can be deceived into thinking that a piece of landscape has that kind of history, has developed in the appropriate way.  The success of the deception does not elevate the restored landscape to the level of the original, no more than the success of the deception in the previous example confers on the fake the value of a real Vermeer." (p. 88)
  10. Thought experiment--(a) virtual nature, experience machine (bad) (b) totally synthetic nature (a bit better) (c) real but restored (best, but still not great)



Wednesday, November 1, 2023

MODULE 4: Too many people?

 AGENDA

  1. Ethics minor/spring classes
  2. Recap of Hardin
  3. Toby Ord


Garrett Hardin Recap
Scientific American
  • Assumption: very high population is bad   
  • Prediction: population will keep increasing  FALSE!
  • Diagnosis: tragedy of the common (Hardin)
    • ethics won't work
    • need coercion (mutually agreed upon)
    • there are no other possibilities  FALSE!

Why is population leveling off?
  • lower infant mortality --> people have fewer children
  • new opportunities for women
  • contraception
  • prosperity



Toby Ord, "Overpopulation or Underpopulation?" 

Main points
  • We should look at COSTS of more people but also BENEFITS
  • What are the benefits?
    • More people can add instrumental goods
      • they are beneficial TO other people
    • Instrumental goods: material (a hammer)
      • more people --> need more material goods (so that's a cost)
    • Instrumental goods: informational (a song)
      • more people --> more information producers (songs, books, ideas)
      • more people --> more information consumers benefiting
    • More people can add intrinsic goods--"joy, love, excitement, contentment, etc." (p. 5)
  • We should not overlook the benefits and just focus on the costs of higher population



Workbook--
  1. Ord says the 2 billion people world is better in a way. Agree or disagree?
  2. Will a future world of 10 billion be better than the present world of 8 billion in some ways?








The plot thickens (we didn't cover this material)



  1. Total Utilitarianism:  total good is all that matters (the view Ord favors)
    • Which future is best?  High
    • What is bad or puzzling about thinking about population this way?
  1. Average Utilitarianism: average good is all that matters
    • Which future is best? Medium
    • What is bad or puzzling about thinking about population this way?
  1. Existence Utilitarianism: ethics tells us to make people happy, not to make happy people
    • Which future is best? The one that's best for people who exist now. (which is that?)
    • What is bad or puzzling about thinking about population this way?

Sunday, October 29, 2023

MODULE 4: Too many people?

AGENDA

  1. Finish discussing Native American kinship with nature
  2. Disappearing nature & population ethics (Monday, Wednesday)
  3. Restoring vs. rewilding (Friday, next Monday...then debate)

Do we have a wilderness problem because of human overpopulation?

Nature

Garrett Hardin, "The Tragedy of the Commons" (1968)
  • important article because of key concept: tragedy of the commons
  • applies to many environmental issues
Why environmentalists worried about overpopulation in the 1960s 
  • thought population would always grow exponentially (double ever X years)
  • thought famines and other resource depletions would eventually kill everyone
  • Garrett Hardin, Paul Ehrlich, Kenneth Boulding (biologists, economists)
  • Watch up to 3:21
 

Why environmentalists worry about population today
  • high consumption --> climate change, loss of biodiversity and wilderness

Garrett Hardin, "The Tragedy of the Commons" (1968) -- biologist

The pasture example

  • 10 herders share a pasture-- a "commons"
  • each herder has an incentive to add more sheep, to the point of overgrazing
  • Why?
    • herder keeps the whole benefit of adding one more (the profits)
    • herder shares the cost of adding one more with the other 9 farmers (the depletion of the pasture)
    • so the herder will gain more than he loses by adding another sheep
  • The way a "commons" inevitably leads to disaster = "the tragedy of the commons"



The tragedy of the commons--other examples

  1. Free parking (commons = open access spaces)
  2. National park access (commons=park)
  3. Dumping (commons = stream)
  4. Air pollution (commons = atmosphere)
  5. Water use (commons = groundwater)
  6. Buffalo hunting before ~1880 (commons = public herds)
  7. Lazy approach to Halloween (commons = bowl of candy)
  8. Having children (commons = world plus welfare state)





How should the tragedy of overpopulation be avoided?
  1. Ethics isn't enough because it's not sufficiently motivating to overcome the incentive to overuse the common
  2. The only alternative to ethics is coercion--"mutual coercion mutually agreed upon by the majority of people affected" (p. 1247).
Applications
  1. Free parking--pay by the hour
  2. National park access--allocate entry
  3. Dumping in stream--laws, fines
  4. Air pollution--laws, regulations
  5. Using up groundwater--limit water use (various laws in different states)
  6. Buffalo over-kill--hunting permits
  7. Halloween candy--"trick or treat" custom plus allocation
  8. Reproducing...
Ethics
  1. 1960s ZPG movement--wrong to have more than 2 children
  2. Today--some people refrain for ethical reasons
Hardin--ethics not effective enough--need coercion (mutually agreed upon)






How to limit reproduction
A proposal from the 1960s 
  • Kenneth Boulding, The Meaning of the Twentieth Century (1965) p. 135-136
  • Cap and trade for reproduction
  • Decide on cap--1, 2, 2.1, whatever, per person
  • Women get the permits
  • Unused permits can be sold or gifted
  • Reproducing without a permit is prohibited--deterred through taxes, fines, imprisonment, what?


Next--
  1. Did population growth continue like the 60s authors predicted?
  2. If not, why not?
  3. Are there now too many people? How many is too many?
  4. To what extent is vanishing wilderness the result of overpopulation?




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