Milieuethiek

Environmental Ethics is an elective course that TU Delft students, or study abroad/exchange students, from any degree program are invited to take. No prior knowledge or experience with ethics or philosophy is assumed.

This course introduces key ideas, arguments, and concepts from Environmental Ethics, the area of philosophy concerned with the nonhuman world. Through the weekly meetings, readings, and course assignments, we'll consider questions like:

--- Do nonhuman entities (plants, animals, ecosystems, etc.) have moral value?

--- Is there really such a thing as 'nature,' existing separately from humans?

--- What is biodiversity, and how should we conserve it?

--- Who benefits when environments are protected, and who is harmed?

--- What makes climate change a moral issue, and what should we do to address it?

--- Are we living in the Anthropocene, and if so, what does that mean about how we should live?

We'll also think about what environmental ethics means for engineers specifically, asking questions like:

--- How can thinking environmentally attune us to others in space and time, and what responsibilities do engineers have to do this?

--- How do other traditions of thought (feminism, indigenous philosophies) consider human/nonhuman relations, and what might these, alongside environmental ethics, contribute to how engineers and engineering practices think about the nonhuman world?

Students are encouraged to pursue their own personal and/or professional interests throughout the course. Students choose the topic of their final assignment and the paper.

This course can be taken for 3ECTS without writing a course paper. (For the 3ECTS option, please see course TBM012B)

The 5ECTS course is assessed through several parts/assignments, described below. The argument assignment is worth 40% of the course grade. There is no exam.

40% - argument assignment (in pairs or trios)

15% - weekly quizzes (in class, no option to retake missed quizzes. Best 5 out of 6, graded individually)

18% - final assignment (individual)

18% - tutorial assignments (graded per group)

9% - participation (engagement in class meetings and/or in Brightspace discussions, feedback on other groups' work in tutorial, graded individually)

Final Grades:

The final grade is calculated according to the weights indicated above. To pass the course, the final grade has to be 5.75 or higher. All partial grades have to be 5.0 or higher.

There is no resit because there is no exam. However, partial grades are valid for all parts and can be carried from one year to the next if students do not pass or complete all parts of the course. This is only allowed for insufficient or incomplete grades, not to improve passing grades.