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Mark Sagoff, environmental ethicist, University of Maryland
is a Senior Research Scholar, and former Director, at the Institute
for Philosophy and Public Policy at the University of Maryland and
the author of The Economy of the Earth: Philosophy, Law, and the
Environment. Sagoff has a B.A. in history and literature from Harvard
and a Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Rochester and was
on the faculty at the University of Pennsylvania and Cornell before
he joined the University of Maryland. He is a fellow of the Hastings
Center, past president of the International Society for Environmental
Ethics, and a 1998-99 Fellow of the Woodrow Wilson Center.
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Politics & Economics of
Environmental Policy
January 5-9, 2000 at
the University of Oklahoma
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In this seminar participants explored the extent to which two
sciences - environmental economics and ecology - can help us
formulate as well as achieve the goals of environmental policy.
Participants dealt primarily with "green" issues,
such as the protection of old growth forests, biodiversity,
and natural ecosystems generally, rather than with "brown"
issues, which include urban air and water pollution. The idea
was to examine philosophically some of the key concepts of environmental
economics (such as "externality" and "public
good") and some of the key concepts of ecology (such as
"ecosystem"). The discussion examined the extent to
which these concepts give us some firm purchase on environmental
policy and the extent to which they may be completely fluid
and simply take the shape of any political container into which
they are poured.
Participants examined in particular the question of the protection
of endangered species under the Endangered Species Act. The
seminar might ask whether and to what extent the sciences of
environmental economics and of ecology can justify or explain
the social commitment to protect species. This commitment may
be justified, it is often explained, in terms of religious and
moral beliefs and convictions. Can the environmental sciences,
including economics and ecology, add anything to our understanding
of why biodiversity is valuable and ought to be preserved?
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The Class Reading List: (These books and articles supplied
by OSLEP)
Des Jardins, Joseph R., Environmental Ethics: An Introduction
to Environmental Philosophy, Wadsworth, 1997, 2nd
edition.
Reading Packet
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