PHIL 4680 Environmental Ethics

Prerequisite: PHIL 2010 or permission of instructor. The questions concerning technology and nature are among the most important issues in contemporary philosophy. The traditional Western conception of human beings as the master of nature by virtue of their technological domination has turned out to be more and more problematic for us today. Is there a way to understand technology and nature that will recover the animated and reciprocal relations with the sky and the earth that have inspired the growth of human beings in many communities of the ancient and non-western worlds? With original insight into the essence of human perception of and relation to nature, with open minds for the various accounts of human experiences of nature and technology in the East and West.