Spring 2024 | Asia, Africa, and Europe Exploration

PHIL 345 Environmental Ethics [CRN 21066]

Overview of Course

Exploration of the scientific, philosophical, and religious concepts of nature as they bear on human conduct; an ecological perspective. We will examine the global dimensions of environmental problems and how these dimensions affect the particular countries we visit in Southeast Asia, Africa, and Europe. We will pay particular attention to the environmental issues of climate change, population growth, and resource depletion. Even though environmental problems are global issues, differences in cultural and religious texts, beliefs and rituals lead societies to make their own unique environmental decisions and policies. Utilizing primary and secondary sources, personal reflections from field study, sacred scriptures and rituals, we will explore religious and philosophical resources for how they best support or ignore ecological perspectives.