Etics, Public Policies and Environmental Diplomacy
Code
73224107
Academic unit
Faculdade de Ciências Sociais e Humanas
Department
Geografia e Planeamento Regional
Credits
5
Weekly hours
2
Teaching language
Portuguese
Objectives
To understand the framing process of the modern scientific revolution, which gave birth both to industrial revolution and to a new vision of the scientific endeavor guided by technological performance and economic market oriented goals.
To research the ethical roots of modernity, namely the shift from an humanistic moral approach to a new ethical reasoning able to cope with the need to take care of the intrinsic value and integrity of the environment.
To identify the epistemological and institutional obstacles to the establishment and implementation of sound public policies able to tackle environmental crisis and the growing challenges of climate change.
To acknowledge the cyclical nature of international environmental policies, mirrored in the difficulties of effective international regimes formation, namely in the field of climate change.
Prerequisites
None
Subject matter
The modern scientific revolution. The works of Thomas More, Francis Bacon and Descartes regarding the role of science as the main driver of bringing the utopian thought promises to the real world.
The birth of environmental ethics. From Thoreau to Aldo Leopold and Arne Naess. Peter Singer and Hans Jonas. The limits of ecocentrism.
The impact of a technological driven science in the Two Cultures divide. The epistemological debate. From Charles Snow to Thomas S. Kuhn and the concept of paradigm. Jean-François Lyotard and the philosophical implications of post-modernity. Hannah Arendt and the need to a back-to-earth science.
The complex process of the international environmental policies framing. State and non-state actors. The role of vested interests and ideological driven factions. The problem of implementation and monitoring of international treaties and corresponding protocols. The case of the UNFCCC.
Bibliography
ARENDT,Hannah, The Human Condition- A Study of the Central Dilemmas Facing Modern Man, New York, Doubleday Anchor Books, l958.
-----------Truth and Politics, Between Past and Future. Eight Exercises in Political Thought, New York, Penguin Books USA Inc., [1961] 1993, pp.
227-264.
BACON, F. , The New Organon [1620] , Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2000.
----------- New Atlantis and The Great Instauration, Jerry Weinberger (ed.), Arlington Heights, Illinois, Harlan Davidson, Inc., 1989, pp. 35-83.
MORE, Thomas, Utopia [1516],London, Everymans Library, 1988.
KUHN, Thomas S., The Structure of Scientific Revolutions [1962], 2nd edition, The Univ. of Chicago Press, Vol. 2, Number 2, 1970, 210 pp.
LYOYARD, Jean-François, La Condition Postmoderne, Paris, Minuit, 1979, 108 pp.
SOROMENHO-MARQUES, V., Metamorfoses. Entre o Colapso e o Desenvolvimento Sustentável, M.Martins, Europa-América, 2005.
WHITE JR, Lynn, The historical roots of our ecologic crisis, Science, vol. 155, 1967.
Teaching method
Theoretical explanations about the syllabus items by the professor (lectures).
Compulsory readings of the main texts by students on a regular basis.
In each class there is a time for open, although organized, discussion about the different issues dealt.
Evaluation method
The complete evaluation combines the students performance during the classes development with a final essay written by the student. The content of the essay is discussed with the teacher, before and after its writing by the student.