Honoursmodule: Ethics and the Environment

Course manual 2025/2026

Course content

The moral issues raised by our relationship with the natural environment are among the most important that we face. Taking seriously our moral responsibilities regarding nature has the potential to radically transform the way we can justifiably live our lives (both individually and collectively). In this course, you will develop a firm grounding in environmental ethics and develop key tools for morally evaluating human-environmental interactions, so that you are equipped to reason carefully and critically about how humanity engages with the natural world.

We begin by considering what we owe to non-human animals and non-animal nature and how that implicates various social, political, and economic systems. We then turn our focus to socio-economic inequality and matters of environmental (in)justice at local and global scales (in particular, regarding climate change). We then consider distinct moral challenges regarding intergenerational justice. From there, we step back to analyze the relationships between technology, policy, and environmental ethics. The course ends with an inquiry into moral emotions (like grief, anxiety, and hope), individual moral responsibilities, and their relation to social and environmental movements.

Study materials

Literature

• Readings/study materials will be uploaded (or linked) via Canvas

Objectives

• Identify and reason critically about moral questions, concerns, and dilemmas regarding human interactions with the environment;
• Understand different ethical frameworks/perspectives and can use them to deliberate about a range of environmental problems;
• Critically reflect on their own role/responsibilities for promoting environmental justice;
• Actively and respectfully discuss/debate controversial issues in environmental ethics.

Teaching methods

• Seminar
• Presentation/symposium
• Self-study
• Working independently on e.g. a project or thesis

Learning activities

Attendance

Additional requirements for this course:

Attendance is required and will be taken each session. The course involves significant discussion and depends on everyone's active engagement to work. Students can miss two seminars without formal penalty. Beyond that, however, you will lose 1.0 point from your overall course grade per additional absence (e.g., from 8 to 7), regardless of the reason.

Assessment

Grades will be determined by attendance/participation, weekly reflections, peer reviews (all pass/fail), the individual project (and its corresponding components), and the group project (and its corresponding components).

• Weekly reflections will be accepted after the deadline until class starts with a .5pt penalty, but after class starts will not be accepted.
  • Weekly reflections will be graded pass/fail. For every pass, students will receive 1pt (unless a late penalty applies). Students must accumulate at least 9pts to pass this course component.
• Unless specifically arranged with the coordinator at least 24hrs in advance of the deadline, the individual project will not be accepted after the deadline.
• There are no extensions possible for the group project.

Assignments

• Weekly Reflections: Each week students will receive a prompt to structure their thinking about the topic and readings for the week. To various degrees, these will also help guide seminar discussion. Reflections should be short (~250 words) and take no more than an hour to complete. Reflections are due by 12:00 (noon) on the day of the seminar (except for the first seminar, which is due at the end of the first week, by 17:00 on Sept. 5th).
• Individual Project: Students will develop an individual research project using materials from the course on a topic of their own choosing (a topic that goes beyond what we cover in the seminars). The precise form of the project will be determined in consultation with the coordinator. It must involve a written essay component (~2,000 words), but it must also involve a more creative element that helps communicate, support, and/or expand the academic research (e.g., this may take the form of a short film, a podcast, ethics training materials, etc.). The project will be built in stages. Students will write an outline and exchange feedback with peers in class. Then students will produce a draft and exchange feedback with peers outside of class. The final version is due Nov. 28th.
• Group Presentation: Students will jointly produce an ethical assessment of a contemporary environmental issue/problem of their choosing and present their analysis to the class at the end of the semester (Nov. 24th). Like the individual project, it should deploy materials from the course but go beyond topics covered in the seminars.

More detailed information and guidance about the assignments will be shared via Canvas.

Fraud and plagiarism

The 'Regulations governing fraud and plagiarism for UvA students' applies to this course. This will be monitored carefully. Upon suspicion of fraud or plagiarism the Examinations Board of the programme will be informed. For the 'Regulations governing fraud and plagiarism for UvA students' see: www.student.uva.nl

Course structure

Last year's student feedback

In order to provide students some insight how we use the feedback of student feedback to enhance the quality of education, we decided to include the table below in all course guides.

Contact information

Coordinator

• dr. Colin Hickey PhD