PHIL 343: Environmental Philosophy
Dr. Brian Treanor | Fall 2009 | Thursday 4:30-7:00, St. Robert’s Hall 239
The professor reserves the right to alter this syllabus in order to serve the goals of the course.
The online version of this syllabus is provided for your convenience. It is superseded by any changes announced in class, and may not be up to date.
Professor: Dr. Brian Treanor
Office: University Hall 3639
Office Hours: Monday and Wednesday 9:39-12:00, Thursday 3:20-4:20, or by mutually agreeable appointment.
Slow Hours (explained on my website under “teaching”): MWF 12-1; T/Th 11-12; all day Sunday.
Phone: 310-338-3711
Email: btreanor@lmu.edu
Web page:http://myweb.lmu.edu/btreanor
I. Introduction
In this class we will consider the relationship between individuals and the environment, with special focus on the way in which virtue and vice affect our ability to flourish, and the role of the wider environment in that flourishing. Because our relationship with the environment is more than individual, we will also consider the relationship of individuals to the group(s) to which they belong and the relationship of those groups to the environment.
The environmental challenges that face us are complex and daunting, so much so that one common response to these challenges is, paradoxically, inaction. “What, after all, can one person do?” By the end of the course, students will have carefully considered myriad answers (individual, social, and political) to the perplexing question: “but what can I do (for myself and for the environment)?” This class will help you to see more clearly both the good and the bad in your own personal conduct and in our society, and to reflect on how you might improve things. Thus, the goal, or “one goal” I should say, of this course is nothing short of empowering you to be a better person.
Two warnings are in order. First, this course will require a substantial amount of work—both traditional, in-class work and non-traditional, out-of-class work. However, given that you have all been pre-screened, and given that any enlightened person wants to be a better version of herself, I assume you are willing to put in the work required. Second, as you were all warned during the pre-registration interview, this class does not satisfy your university core curriculum ethics requirement.
First Assignment: Know What You Are Getting Into |
This semester we will be reading together the following texts. Completing each day's reading prior to class is a necessary part of class preparation and bringing your copy of the text to class is necessary part of class participation.
You begin our class with a grade of “F.” Think about it. If all you did during the semester was show up the first day, you would fail the course. If you want a better grade by the end of the semester, you will have to earn it. (Nobody “receives a grade” in my classes, a misleading construction that implies the student is passive and without responsibility in the matter; grades are earned.)
You will not earn an “A” unless you approach this class in a serious manner. I’ve had other roles in life where I barked orders like a drill sergeant. I choose not to teach in that manner for pedagogical and ideological reasons. Nevertheless, I expect you to approach this class with a high degree of commitment, seriousness, and effort, and I expect you to do so without me playing the role of your mother. I put in a great deal of effort into preparing this class, and I am genuinely happy to help you do as well as you can. However, I expect you to take full responsibility for all of your actions.
Unfortunately, given your place in history, you probably have very few role models for this sort of behavior. Very few people in our society seem to be willing to take responsibility for their choices and actions. If you miss class, it is your responsibility, not mine, to insure that you grasp the material you missed. I will not “re-lecture” in office hours. If a class activity conflicts with another commitment (e.g., Greek life, theater rehearsals, etc.) remember that being a student is your primary occupation while at university. If you turn in a paper late, accept that you will be failing the assignment or receiving a drastically reduced grade. If your paper fails to meet the criteria for an “A” paper outlined on my website and in my rubric, accept that you earned, for example, a “C.” It doesn’t mean you are only an average human being; it just means you wrote an average paper. It’s so pithy that it bears repeating: “Treat people as if they were what they ought to be, and you help them to become what they are capable of being.”
Your final grade in the course will be determined in the following manner:
Note bene: Keep and file all materials that I hand back to you (you should do this for every course you take). In the unlikely event that there is a disagreement about your work (e.g., I only have a record of two of your three tutorials) you will need to produce evidence to back up any request to reevaluate your grade (e.g., copies—with my corrections, not just new printouts—of all three of your tutorial essays).
In this class, participation will have both in-class and out-of-class components.
In-class participation includes: (1) regular, active participation in class discussions, (2) attentive, respectful listening to others in class discussions, and (3) being prepared to participate in class (including bringing the relevant text to class). Class attendance is mandatory; it is a necessary, but not sufficient, condition for a good participation grade. I will not waste class time taking attendance; however, you will not be able to get a good grade in this class without attending the class sessions. Participation is graded in terms of both quantity and quality. And, yes, some students fail participation. Neither one or two insightful comments over the course of 15 weeks nor regular, thoughtless comments will earn an "A." Thus, your goal here should be regular, thoughtful contribution to class discussion. Note that, because class meets only once each week, missing one of our classes is equivalent (in terms of seriousness and in terms of the effect on your grade) to missing three of your MWF classes. Missing two classes would be like skipping two full weeks, six full classes, of a MWF class. Remember this when you read the comments below about quizzes.
In addition to in-class participation, our class will require you to participate outside the classroom in several non-traditional ways:
Reading Quizzes will be based on the assigned reading for the class. I sincerely wish this were not necessary, as it smacks a bit of high school. However, research (as well as my own experience teaching) indicates that the overwhelming majority of university students put very little effort into their classes. On the one hand, I could simply treat everyone as fully responsible and allow each individual to sink or swim; however, an individual’s lack of preparation has a negative impact on the class as a whole. Therefore, I will help you to resist the temptation to slack off by holding you accountable to reading carefully on a regular basis. These quizzes will take a variety of forms, depending on my sense of how well students are prepared for class. Some quizzes might be made up of simple true or false questions, others might ask you to summarize the main argument of the day’s reading. All these quizzes will be relatively brief, so as not to take up valuable class time.
Because we meet only once each week there will be a quiz at ‘most’ class meetings. Of those 10 or so quizzes, only the best 8 will count toward your final grade. Therefore, you can theoretically fail (or miss) up to two quizzes without any negative effect on your quiz grade (your participation grade is another matter). Because of this generous policy, there will be absolutely no make up quizzes, for any reason. This policy allows you to miss two quizzes for any reason whatsoever (e.g., emergency appendectomy, death in the family, alien abduction, epic powder, evening glass-off during overhead surf, or just arriving to class late), which is why I feel comfortable insisting that there will be absolutely no make up quizzes. Quizzes will begin at 4:30 sharp and if you are late to class (remember they will take only a few minutes) you will miss the quiz and, say it with me, there will be absolutely no make up quizzes.
Modeled loosely on the famous Oxford tutorials, the tutorial discussions will be intense, small group discussions focused on the virtue you have chosen for your term paper (see below). At the beginning of the semester, I will assign you a tutorial group with two other students. Each tutorial group will meet with me at least three times during the latter half of the semester. Although the tutorial discussions are related to your virtue paper, the two grades are distinct. Thus, it is possible to earn an ‘A’ for the tutorial discussions and nevertheless fail the paper, or vice versa. However, it is my hope that careful attention to the tutorials will, in most cases, lead to significantly better papers.
You will provide me with a written document for each session (focused on one aspect of the virtue paper, which I will announce prior to each session), due the class before the Tutorial week, which we will discuss in-depth and at length. You should be prepared to engage in thoughtful, serious discussion of the topic. Your grade in this part of our class will be determined not only by your ‘performance’ in the discussions (i.e., the clarity of your ideas, your constructive criticism of your colleagues, your ability to respond to critique and defend your position, etc.), but also by the seriousness with which you engage in the process (i.e., timely preparation of your written statement for each session, serious discussion of your topic as well as the topics of your colleagues, etc.). For updates on the tutorials, scroll to the end of the page.
The tutorials will meet on the following schedule:
You will be keeping a philosophical journal this semester. This semester I will be challenging each of you to change your behavior in some significant way, focusing on cultivating a virtue or uprooting a vice. If any of you has ever tried to give up a bad habit, or develop a good habit, you know how genuinely challenging this will be, which should give you more than enough to write about in your journal. Follow this link to a page with more detailed journal guidelines.
The journal should be reflective (e.g., reflections on how you are dealing your attempts to cultivate a virtue or uproot a vice, your aspirations or hopes as they relate to subjects under discussion in class, etc.), not simply practical (e.g., a record of what you did that day). Each week you should write about 750 words in your journal (this is about three double-spaced pages). You will have an entry due each week beginning on September 10 and ending on December 3. The journal will conclude with one longer entry of about 1250 words (or about 5 pages) that will serve as an opportunity to reflect on your journey during this semester, how far you have come, how far you have to go, how you feel about what you have accomplished or failed to accomplish, how your changing behaviors are impacting your flourishing, etc.
Your grade on the journal will take into account both your timely completion of the weekly entries and a closer evaluation of your final entry, which will be considered and evaluated like any other paper. Each Thursday, you should hand in a copy of your journal for that week. My weekly assessment of your journals will be concerned with (a) recording that you have completed the assignment and (b) that you are being properly reflective in your writing. I won’t generally comment a great deal on the weekly submissions, though I will occasionally speak to you about your journaling and will definitely call you out if your reflections are trivial or truncated. Your final, 5-page, entry will be a report of sorts on the semester: your reflections on your attempts to cultivate a given virtue or eradicate a given vice, including reflecting on the difficulties (individual, social, etc.) in doing so, the rewards, if any, associate with the exercise, whether or not you desire to continue with the virtue once the semester has ended, your desire (or not) to do so, etc. This final entry will be graded like a paper, which together with the recording of the weekly submissions will make up your journal grade.
The Virtue Paper is described in detail here. Please follow the guidelines for this paper very closely. If you have any questions, ask. Because many students struggle with time management and/or procrastination, the paper will be developed in several stages:
V. Some Notable Policies or Requirements
Although there several other important guidelines and policies described elsewhere on my webpage—which, as indicated above, you must read—the following are worth repeating here either due to the frequency of the relevant offence or the degree to which the relevant offence irritates me.
VI. Academic Integrity
The Loyola Marymount Undergraduate Bulletin clearly states that:
[T]he University expects all members of its community to act with honesty and integrity at all times, especially in their academic work… It is the student’s responsibility to make sure that his/her work meet the standards of academic honesty set forth in the Honor Code (59, emphasis mine).
Breaches of academic integrity will not be tolerated in our class. Cheating, plagiarism, and other related offenses are an insult to your classmates and a disservice to yourself. In any written assignment, you must clearly cite all outside sources that you use. This includes both direct quotes and borrowed ideas taken from any other source (author, speaker, etc.). Clear citation requires both that you cite all outside ideas and statements and that your citation enables me to locate your source. Please refer to a recognized manual for the writing of term papers for help with acceptable methods of citation (e.g., The Chicago Manual of Style), and please ask me before you turn in an assignment if you have any questions.
To make things perfectly clear, any coursework that, in my estimation, attempts to represent work that is not your own as your own will result in a failing grade in the class and the immediate notification of the appropriate dean(s).
VII. Resources
I am always available—by email, office hours or appointment—to help you with this class or with your experience here at LMU more generally. I hope you will feel free to come and speak with me if you have any problems. However, in addition, there are several specialized resources on campus to help you in a variety of ways and I encourage you to make use of them should you need assistance. The Office of First Year Programs (Malone Student Center, 338-5252), Learning Resource Center (Daum Hall, 2nd Floor, 338-2847), Disability Support Services (Daum Hall, Second Floor, 338-4535), Student Health Services (Burns Recreation Center, 338-2881) and the Student Psychological Services (Second Floor, North, Burns Recreation Center, 338-2868) are just a few of the many excellent on-campus resources.
VIII. Tentative Schedule
Date |
Reading |
September 3 |
Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, Books I-V |
September 10 |
Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, Books VI-X |
September 17 |
Hill, “Ideals of Human Excellence,” 47-60 |
September 24 |
Continue the discussion of simplicity from September 17 |
October 1 |
Franz, “Benevolence as an Environmental Virtue,” 121-134 |
October 8 |
McKibben, Deep Economy, 1-94 |
October 15 |
McKibben, Deep Economy, 95-232 |
October 22 |
Putnam, Bowling Alone, 15-28, 31-64, 277-284 |
October 29 |
Putnam, Bowling Alone, 287-295, 402-414 |
November 5 |
Thoreau, “Economy,” Eres |
November 12 |
Guest Lecture by Dr. Norman Wirzba. Reading TBA |
November 19 |
Thoreau, “Where I Lived and What I Lived For,” Eres |
November 26 |
No Class—Thanksgiving Holiday |
December 3 |
Cafaro, “Gluttony, Arrogance, Greed, and Apathy,” 135-158 |
December 10 |
BBQ @ my home with harvest from campus garden |
First Tutorial Meetings: Each group will meet with me for one hour. Potential meeting times (get together with your groups and work out a good time for you) are:
This means that I have made 16 hours available for these tutorials. There are only 8 tutorial groups, so this should be more and sufficient time to cover each group. I’ve substantially altered my schedule to try to accommodate everyone, so I expect that you will be able to do the same. We will finalize the schedule in class on October 8.
What to prepare: By October 8 you will need to give me and the other people in your tutorial group a two-page document addressing the following issues from the virtue paper:
Bring copies of your essay to class on October 8. Do not email the document to me.
What to expect: When we meet we will have a discussion of the various virtues chosen by the members of your tutorial group. I will expect you to come prepared to comment on your colleagues’ papers, and ready to answer questions about your own paper. This should not be a series of one-on-one conversations between me and members of the group. Rather, we should all be helping to make each thesis as strong as possible. Expect me to press you hard, though in a supportive and helpful way, on the claims you are making about your virtue. The goal is to get as clear as possible on the virtue you have chosen.
Bring to class on October 8: (1) your schedule for planning discussion times; (2) four copies of the above-mentioned document for the discussion.