NOTE: Having problems? Refer to my essay on writing philosophy papers.
On-Line Discussions
You will find a link to the On-Line Discussion site on the Index page for the course. There is a discussion scheduled for each day of class. You should visit the site no later than 12:00 PM on the day of class and participate in the discussion. (Directions are included at the site.) Your participation in these discussions is part of the paper-writing assignment for this course, and I will review discussions each day prior to class.
Paper #1
The first paper should be about 5 pages in length and it is due on Tuesday, February 13th. The topic for this paper is the current discussion topic, a "preliminary exercise in environmentalism." Environmentalism begins with recognition and recognition has a deep structure in language, hence, description. In this paper, you should adopt an environment that you know well (perhaps where you grew up or where you now live) and describe it (as your environment) as completely as you can in order to communicate it to the rest of us as a distinctive space. Part of the task involved in this exercise is coming to understand what needs to be included in this description and recognizing how easily we pass over the essential aspects of places in our daily lives. Submit both a paper copy and a digital copy (preferably in MSWord). Submit the digital copy by "attachment" in an e-mail to the class list. We will combine the papers into a little monograph on places so that we can read each other's descriptions.
Paper #2
The second paper should be about 5 pages in length and it is due on Thursday, March 22nd. This paper can develop any topic of your choice from the section of the course on "structural issues in the context of case studies." You can either take one of the case studies discussed in class and demonstrate reading in other sources (bibliographies are available), or you can select another case study (best to clear this with me in advance). Elaborate on the case study so that you demonstrate your understanding of it as a complex environmental issue. Also, however, try to show how the "structural issues" figure into this case study. The main purpose of this assignment is to demonstrate an articulate use of general and important concepts that we have discussed so far this semester -- environments, nature, wild(erness), reciprocity, mass/energy balance, sustainability, health, and (of course) ethics. Environmentalism as a distinctly philosophical endeavor is really an attempt to examine and discuss issues regarding our environments with the clarity and wisdom that promises some social agreement regarding behavior modification. This paper is a short version of the semester research paper and will allow me to give you some feedback on your approach to discussions of this type.
Semester Research Paper
The research paper should be at least 15 pages in length and should include an annotated bibliography to at least five good external sources of material that are used in the paper. Appropriate citations to sources should be made within the paper. You can follow any consistent, intelligible format for citations and bibliography -- e.g., MLA, APA. Your introduction should include a strong sense of direction (thesis) for the paper; and the paper should be divided into easily recognizable sections appropriate to its organization.
While case-studies, by definition, are devoted to some specific practical issue, they should not dwell on the practical technicalities of the issue alone. The purpose of doing case-studies in this course is to put our philosophical discussions to immediate use. Thus, research papers should discuss case-studies within the philosophical frameworks that we have developed through the earlier part of the course. The paper should communicate and advance an understanding of environmental philosophy, and it may work from and extend any topic developed in the course.
Alternatively, you may wish to write a paper that is more purely philosophical. This might be a review paper that reports on and critiques a group of philosophical books or articles on some issue in environmental philosophy or ethics. Or it might explore several books or papers written by a single author. Does environmental ethics require a special philosophical preparation (as in "environmental philosophy") or do you believe that traditional ethics can handle these problems?
Please see my Standards for Writing Research Papers
| Course Index |
This page was last updated on April 10, 2001.