The environmental issue that we have selected is Mass consumption.
Proposal Requirements:
1) Your proposal should begin with a description of the environmental issue you have selected. The issue you choose can be something we’ve already studied in class that you want to further investigate, OR something new (not covered in class). Please see “Some Possible Topics” at the bottom of this page if you need more ideas.
Please think about the following:
What are some different perspectives/positions within debates about this issue? Which perspectives do you find most ethical or unethical, and WHY? Please note I do NOT expect you to have firm answers or final positions at this point, since you haven’t done the research yet! So it might make sense to focus on the QUESTIONS you will explore rather than answers or conclusions. But I encourage you to consider these KEY TERMS & these GUIDELINES as you brainstorm.
(This section should be at LEAST 1 fully-developed paragraph [200 words], if not longer).
KEY TERMS FROM CLASS:
• Intrinsic Value
• Instrumental Value
o Question: Does value presuppose a valuer? Is it something humans create & assign, or does it exist independent of us?
• Anthropocentrism, Sentientism, Biocentrism, Ecocentrism
• Moral Standing
• Speciesism
• Taylor’s Biocentrism (respect for life)
• Myth of human separateness & human exceptionalism
• Utilitarianism
• Deontology / Telos
• Natural Law
• Is the individual an illusion?
• What counts as a “person”?
o Question: Difference between a subject and an object?
• Intersectional approaches to animal rights / social justice
• Mass consumption vs. “compassionate consumption”
• Anthropomorphism vs. “other intelligence”
• “Land Ethic” and Indigenous wisdom (or TEK)
• Is extinction a moral crime?
• Shifting baseline syndrome and “defaunation”
• Anthropocene
• Ethics of geoengineering
• Environmental Racism and Climate Justice
• Climate colonization & Indigenous resistance
