Abstract
A number of factors inhibit ethics literacy, the integration of ethics and values into environmental education. The first is belief that science can be value-free. On the contrary, science contains both epistemic values or values of knowledge and non-epistemic values (including social values). Practitioners of science, students, and citizen-participants should be able to recognize these values, articulate them, and evaluate them critically. A second factor is the so-called Culture War, during which, since the early 1800s, ethics and value education has been systematically eliminated from schools in the United States. Efforts to introduce ethics and values into schools are typically met with charges of indoctrination and relativism. This problem can be overcome, in part, by teaching the social values that are explicitly stated in our environmental laws. A third factor is the influence of modern economics, which considers that it has become a science by focusing on what is and ignoring what ought to be. Economics undermines ethics and values by translating our non-economic or social values into economic values in terms of willingness to pay and sell (for example, translating aesthetic value of a landscape into what visitors are willing to pay to experience it). Because ethics and values are learned tacitly, not formally taught, most people lack the vocabulary to articulate their ethical views except in terms of how they feel. The absence of ethical learning is particularly problematic regarding environmental issues as management decisions must integrate ecological, social, and cultural dimensions, and a comprehension of the values underlying those decisions. This paper concludes with a short overview of six programs that illustrate a variety of ways to include ethics literacy in environmental education.
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Notes
- 1.
William James. Pragmatism: A New Name for Old Ways of Thinking (Harvard University Press, 1975). Eds. Fredson Bowers, Ignas K. Skrupskelis. p. 33.
- 2.
Heather Douglas, Science, Policy, and the Value-Free Ideal (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2009), p. 46. There are notable exceptions, however; see Merton’s (1942) highly influential essay, “The Normative Structure of Science” where he points out that while science should mostly cling to its internal norms for guidance it ultimately has to comport with the greater social context which necessitates the inclusions of “values and norms” within science (263, 268–269). Douglas also points to the work of John Dewey, Rudolf Carnap, Otto Neurath, and Philip Frank.
- 3.
For a discussion of the issues involved in the relationship of intrinsic value and pragmatism, see Ben A. Minteer, “Intrinsic Value for Pragmatists?” Environmental Ethics 23 (2001): 57–75.
- 4.
Public Law 88–577, in U.S., Statutes at Large 78 (3 September 1964), pp. 890–91; Public Law 91–190, in U.S., Statutes at Large 83 (1 January 1970), p. 852.; Public Law 93–205, in U.S., Statutes at Large 87 (28 December 1973), p. 884.
- 5.
See Eugene C. Hargrove, Foundations of Environmental Ethics (1996) Chap. 3; see also Eugene C. Hargrove, “Why We Think Nature is Beautiful,” http://www.cep.unt.edu/show.
- 6.
Emotivism is an ethical view according to which only factual statements that are empirically verifiable have meaning. While there may be some factual content in ethical statements, they are basically nonsense. It is the value or emotional content that is fundamental and it is considered to be arbitrary based on accidental child upbringing. The ethical or value content is neither true nor false except at the level that it accurately reflects the emotions the speaker is feeling and expressing. Such emotion is therefore merely personal preference and cannot be the basis for rational debate and discussion. The view is most clearly and succinctly explained in chapter six, “Critique of Ethics and Theology,” of Alfred Jules Ayer’s Language, Truth, and Logic (New York: Dover Publications, 1952), pp. 102–120. The most elaborate version of the theory can be found in Charles Leslie Stevenson’s Ethics and Language (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1944). Ethical statements are meaningless and contain no objectivity. They are subjective (personal expressions of emotion) and contain no intersubjective (social) objectivity since agreement between individuals is totally arbitrary and cannot be justified on factually verifiable grounds.
- 7.
German philosopher and historian Wilhelm Dilthey provided a theoretical foundation for the split of sciences by arguing that the recognition of the different methodologies used by the two distinct types of sciences would improve the outcomes of each of them. Dilthey’s argument gained popularity due to its influence on German sociologist Max Weber. Consequently, in the early twentieth century the independence of the social sciences followed Dilthey – as did sociological positivism. For a critical assessment of the historical developments of the distinction between natural and social sciences see Hans-Georg Gadamer, who criticized basing the distinction on methodology rather than on the goals of the sciences (Truth and Method, London: Continuum, 1996).
- 8.
Social values, which are initially picked up tacitly, are the starting point. They form the basis for basic agreement within a society. These values, however, are subject to change and can evolve through discussion and education and in more extreme cases political disagreement. Education is not itself advocacy since its primary role is to strengthen our understanding of our existing social values. Our personal values are variations on these socially evolved values. It is these variations that sometime become the beginning of changes in our social values. If in education by talking about values, you make actually strengthen them or present problems could eventually lead to the values being changed. The teacher who is guiding in such a discussion is not necessary trying to change the values, but instead, aiding the individual in learning how to make their values clear.
- 9.
“More About TNT.” http://teachnorthtexas.unt.edu/about-us/more-about-tnt. Accessed March 28, 2013. Dr. Robert Figueroa is the founding professor and program coordinator for TNT’s replication of “Perspectives in Mathematics and Science” at UNT. Both he and philosophy PhD students regularly teach the course. For more information please email: figueroa.unt@edu.
- 10.
“Replicating UTeach.” http://uteach-institute.org/replicating-uteach. Accessed March 28, 2013.
- 11.
For example textbooks see: Pojman and Pojman, eds., 2011; Keller, ed. 2010; Armstrong and Botzler, eds., 2003; Light and Rolston, eds., 2002; Benson, ed. 2001; Gruen and Jamieson, eds., 1994.
- 12.
Rolston, 2011; Derr and McNamara, 2003; Attfield, 2003.
- 13.
Various syllabi for introductory courses, as well as advanced courses on the philosophy of ecology, are available on the International Society for Environmental Ethics website (http://enviroethics.org/syllabi/).
- 14.
see Armstrong and Botzler 2003.
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Poole, A.K. et al. (2013). A Call for Ethics Literacy in Environmental Education. In: Rozzi, R., Pickett, S., Palmer, C., Armesto, J., Callicott, J. (eds) Linking Ecology and Ethics for a Changing World. Ecology and Ethics, vol 1. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-7470-4_28
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