Introductory Lecture

    Hello, and welcome to ND’s OCW course in Environmental Philosophy.  I am Professor Sayre, instructor of the course.  Before explaining what the course is about, let me tell you a bit more about myself.
    I received a PhD at Harvard in philosophy and spent two years working at M.I.T. before coming to ND in 1958.  Apart from visiting appointments at Oxford, Cambridge, and Princeton, I’ve been here ever since.  I have taught and published in various areas, including theory of knowledge, philosophy of artificial intelligence, and Plato.  Since the mid-1970’s, however, I have been increasingly occupied with environmental issues.
    My environmental interests were first focused on the production and distribution of electric power.  In 1977 a research group under my direction published Values in the Electric Power Industry, followed by Regulation, Values, and the Public Interest in 1980.  In 1979 I co-edited Ethics and Problems of the 21st Century, dealing with issues in environmental ethics.  From 1981 through 1991 I was on the Editorial Advisory Board of the journal Environmental Ethics, in which I published articles on energy and the environment.
    As the 21st century approached, I became convinced that humanity was encountering serious problems in its relationship with the environment, and began working on a manuscript pulling different pieces of the picture together.  This led to a course entitled “Ethics, Ecology, Economics, and Energy” taught in 2002 to a dozen dedicated and talented students.  A subsequent run of the course in 2004 was taught to a larger group of about 30 students.  By this time the original manuscript had been revised and given the intentionally provocative title “Earth Not Ours” – suggesting that the earth is not property to be bought and sold.  As a result of this teaching experience, I returned to the manuscript for a more complete revision.  The resulting work was given a new title, no less provocative than the first but perhaps more informative.  It is now called “Unearthed: The Economic Roots of our Environmental Crisis.”
    This work serves as the main text of our OCW course.  The course is an extension of a live course taught for credit to some dozen and one-half students in 2007.  The for-credit course consisted of the 8 lectures filmed for on-line viewing plus 2 or 3 seminar sessions on individual chapters corresponding to the several lectures.  Due to their inherent unpredictability, these discussion sessions were not filmed.  In their place, a list of questions on which discussions were based is provided for each chapter for on-line use.
    Like its for-credit counterpart, the on-line course begins with the observation that contemporary industrial society is in deep trouble.  This perception is not novel, and in fact is shared by a large majority of the scientific community dealing with environmental matters today.  For our purpose, nonetheless, it is not taken for granted.  The 6 chapters constituting Part I of the text lay out in detail the underlying causes of our environmental crisis.  These causes trace back to our profligate consumption of fossil fuel, and the biosphere’s inability to rid itself of the resulting by-products.  As summarized in the Course Highlights, the cumulative conclusion of these chapters is that human society is on the verge of self-destruction because of its excessive consumption of fossil fuel.
    Part II of the text consists of another 6 chapters examining the economic background of the crisis.  Key assertions developed and defended in this connection are that economic growth goes hand in hand with growth in energy consumption, that standard arguments in behalf of economic growth are superficial and ineffective, and that strategies for resolving the crisis while preserving growth (like use of so-called “clean energy”) are doomed to failure.  These considerations are also summarized in the Course Highlights.  The overall upshot is that the basic cause of our environmental crisis is economic growth, and that the crisis will not abate unless growth is curtailed.
    As these summary comments suggest, the second part of the text is highly critical of the pro-growth view typical of mainstream economics.  The third part is likewise critical of the way the crisis is addressed by mainstream moral philosophy.  Like policy statements of political theory, pronouncements flowing from environmental ethics about what we should or shouldn’t do go largely unnoticed by the general public.  This means that they have little influence on the patterns of social behavior that led to the crisis initially.
    The final 6 chapters of the text argue that our environmental crisis can be alleviated only by a fundamental shift in the social values that govern our daily activities.  After a detailed analysis of the values that got us into this predicament, and then of alternative values that might help relieve it, Part III ends with a chapter proposing ways in which needed changes might be brought about.  As summarized in the Course Highlights, the most promising way out of the crisis is a culture-wide shift in lifestyles shaped by social values conducive to ecological health.  What this boils down to is a fundamental change in the values that govern our everyday public lives.
    Let me conclude this introductory session with a few general remarks that should help you use the materials of this course to best advantage.  One concerns the title, Environmental Philosophy.  The environmental part is clear enough.  But why label the course “philosophy”?  Part I is heavily loaded with physical science.  And Part II deals mainly with economics.  It is not until Part III that we get to questions of value which at first glance look like they belong to philosophy.  And given my critical remarks about moral philosophy a moment ago, the philosophic content of even this part might seem problematic.
    Nonetheless, there are two respects in which the approach of this course is quintessentially philosophic.  In the manner of philosophic giants like Plato and Kant, the course is concerned with fundamental issues underlying superficial appearances.  Most media accounts today, for instance, treat global warming as the world’s number-one environmental problem.  Before the first part of the course is finished, however, we shall see that global warming is only one problem among many.  It may not even count as the most serious problem.  Be this as it may, the biosphere would still be in deep trouble if the problem of climate change were somehow remedied while these other problems remain unsolved.
    The other distinctly philosophic feature of the course is its attempt to provide an overview in which initially disparate aspects of the crisis can be integrated.  Philosophy, in its better moments at least, is integrative as well as analytic.  By way of illustration, consider the interrelation among the first 6 chapters dealing with thermodynamics, ecology, and environmental degradation, respectively.  Although most of the material in these chapters comes from well-established disciplines, their contributions dovetail only with the help of a conception of entropy formulated for that purpose specifically.  With that conception of entropy at hand, we are able to identify excessive energy use as the culprit behind the crisis.  Students who persevere through these chapters will see aspects of the real world they had not seen previously.  This outcome itself is a philosophic achievement.
    Another general observation ties the lectures together with the course’s primary text.  The basic themes of the course are developed most fully in the 18 chapters of the text, which are divided into three main parts.  The first three lectures correspond to Part I, Lectures 4 and 5 go with Part II, while Part III is covered by Lectures 6, 7, and 8.  The basic themes of the course are also summarized in the Preface of the text and in the Course Highlights.  Students might find it useful occasionally to check their progress against these easily accessible summaries.
    Although the basic themes of this course were not chosen for entertainment, I am confident that you will find them thought-provoking.  So buckle your seat belts for a voyage of exploration.  I hope you have a rewarding trip.