Hi John,

You wrote and asked:

>Not only am I  qualified but I have the credentials to teach environmental
>ethics based on my post graduate studies. I can teach environmental ethics
>in college. Having two science degrees makes my competencies in the area of
>ethics extremely valuable. How about your qualifications?

I debated whether to respond or not, also whether to respond to the list or
in private, but since you asked, John, I might as well provide a couple of
the syllabi from courses I've actually taught.  Feel free to
comment/criticize/tear apart as you see fit, either in private or on the
list.  (e.g., I'm sure I must have committed an ad hominem fallacy here
somewhere . . . <g> .)

http://appliedphilosophy.mtsu.edu/ISEE/JimTantillo/TantilloReligionEthicsEnviron
ment.htm
http://appliedphilosophy.mtsu.edu/ISEE/JimTantillo/TantilloEnvironmentalEthics.h
tm

I sincerely hope that my posting these does not appear as a self-serving
nor as an overly defensive move on my part.  If nothing else, I hope that
this might serve as a plug for Robert Hood's excellent efforts with the
Syllabus Project at the International Society for Environmental Ethics (see
http://appliedphilosophy.mtsu.edu/ISEE/index.html ).

>From time to time there has been interest expressed by various participants
on this list about my own personal beliefs, my job status, credentials,
etc. etc. etc.  I simply have never felt it necessary to elaborate much
about these personal topics.  But I do not want it to appear that I am
hiding anything; I have nothing to hide.  Perhaps the syllabi listed above
can provide some insight for the terminally curious.  I began teaching as a
lecturer in the Department of Natural Resources at Cornell University in
1989; I am currently in the final stages of writing a doctoral dissertation
in environmental ethics on the topic of the morality of hunting; and with
any luck I will continue to be employable as an applied ethicist after
getting my degree sometime in, near, or around May 2001.  I emphasize,
"with luck."

I am not sure why you seem so obsessed with a person's "qualifications,"
John, whether about forestry or about environmental ethics.  One's
arguments and views either make sense, or they don't.  On their own merits,
so to speak.  I have met plenty of over-credentialed idiots in academia,
John, at Cornell and elsewhere.  And some of the smartest people I know
don't have any degrees.  So again, I ask you: What's your point?

Jim




Why do you think
>this paper by Mintner has anything do with environmental ethics? I read this
>paper and failed to see any connection at all with an ethics of the
>environment. It is a quasi-political science paper. I like the theories of
>Rawls because there is an indication of ethics in them which postulates the
>idea of the 'overlapping consensus' in negotiations that may be applied to
>natural resources and modern technologies. At least Rawls does not attack
>people that have different beliefs than he does. When I read the works by
>Russell for instance and find a statement by him that the truth of  a
>proposition cannot be supported when it is a proposition to deny the
>existence of a real object, and then read some political proposition made by
>Mintner that because an ethicist has supported her beliefs on a foundation
>which gains it's legitimacy through the science of ecology, that this is not
>democratic.  I am being asked  to take a blind leap of faith, and I am not
>being asked to reason. If you don't believe in the existence of 'intrinsic
>values' and claims like these, that is a problem since you are asserting
>that intrinsic vales do not exist in an object, only utilitarian egocentric
>values exist. What I see is a much more deeper issue operating here.
>
>The Greeks had the view that nature consisted in those things which change
>by themselves. The term that they use is phusis which is closely related to
>physis. The perception of nature thus was also in contrast to those things
>which man could change, the things that through work by human hands were
>called techne. The word techne is used to denote in ancient Greek the useful
>things that man could make to live comfortably with nature. The natural were
>those living organisms in the world that possess the properties of
>assimiliation, addition and oxaresis. Therefore techne and <phronesis> are
>termed practical knowledge and the arts. Techne and nature are contrasting
>senses of reality. Outside nature are those things which do not change such
>as the elements (elementals like fire, etc.) so in fact the idea of what is
>'self-regenerating' <autopoesis> was entrenched in a sense as an
>environmental value apart from the value of the artifact which is the
>useful, instrumental or utilitarian things that human hands fabricate. To
>this day we still use the term artifact to denote things that are made by
>man including even our own laws and prescriptive codes. Theologians are in
>consensus about one aspect of techne in that they believe that the 'law' is
>simply a shadow of the divine reality, but it is not itself the divine. In
>other words, the concept of law is much different in ancient Greece for
>instance, than it is now. The word law in ancient Greece was understood by
>Plato as being 'a discovery of reality' (Philebus). If that is the root
>definition of law, then the ecological 'laws' that are constructed through
>observation and experimentation, are indicative of order, complexity, and
>the inter-functionality of the various spheres in nature: biotic,
>atmospheric, etc. In fact the word Kosmos means order and this order was
>ramified through the universe by God throught the powers of the demiurgos.
>The term paradigmata means pattern which was used to model a copy of the
>existing universe. So in fact -citing Heraclitus- there never was any
>disorder. There is no support in the classics for an 'ex nihilo' creation.
>Even the book of Genesis is correct when interpreted in the light of modern
>physics.
>
>So when I read Heidegger and his essays on modern technology wherein he
>states that modern technology has an essence that is different than say the
>way the Greeks understood techne, then there is reason to believe that he is
>correct in his account. The reason for this assertion that modern technology
>has an essence, a definition, is that it is has a definition in light of the
>understanding of the ancient Greek regarding the difference between nature
><phusis> (change) and techne.
>
>We can never make progress as long as we fail to understand as well that the
>current epoch today is dominated by modern technology. The essential
>definition of modern technology is that it is 'autonomous ordering
>activity'. Which means that technology is not some instrument or equipment
>that can be turned off and turned on at will, but it is encompassing and as
>well an ordering activity which orders humanity.
>
>I gave the example of the ancient meaning of techne and phronesis (similar
>to pragmatism) which is a technology of making useful things, even language
>is techne. So when the craftsman takes a piece of wood and makes an axe
>handle or takes a piece of iron, that is what the ancients understood as
>techne. However the modern term technology (when we think of GMOs, nuclear
>power, the things that cannot be turned off and on at will, put into a shed
>over the winter) we are talking about change on a different scale. For
>instance you cannot turn of large power generating stations like hydrodams
>that block the movement of the Columbia River (there are 14 dams that block
>the salmon) without creating  huge economic expense. You cannot simply stop
>timber mining in the boreal forests by simlpy agreeing to halt clearcutting.
>You simply cannot stop people from using their cars to drive to work on vast
>intricate freeways, etc. There is no viable method whether polictical or
>economic nor technoligical that is going to result in a decline in the use
>of these technologies given the 'order and scale' and necessity of the
>modern forms of technology that we have. So there is no immediate solution
>to environmental degradation caused by modern technologies that 'order
>humans' completely.
>
>The metaphor of the machine that feeds on the worlds blood is an appropriate
>metaphor because it is one vast interconnected machine of telephony,
>satellites, fiber optics, voting systems, oceanic transportation,
>transcontinental trains, etc.
>
>The problem with modern technologies was never seen in advance by the
>persons that developed them. Certainly as one anti-environmentalist state
>(Kennan) "if Henry Ford been required to prepare an Environmental Impact
>Statement for the car, then it would never have gotten beyond the prototype
>stage." That prediction is accurate now. We only have 500 million cars on
>the road today in all the world, but we have 6 billion people. We cannot
>even predict how much more impact cars will have in the near future, but we
>know now that cars are responsible for a major amount of climate change,
>petrochemical usesage, destruction of forests, grasslands, etc.
>
>The ethical dilemna is so apparent regarding modern technology, that it is
>useless to take a political swipe at the environmentalists, ecologists, and
>biologists (I include the environmental engineers, scientists as well). We
>have examples of the worst kinds of perverse economic subsides regarding
>consumption of finite fossil fuels here in North America.
>
>Therefore the evolution of ethics applied to the environment in it's
>practical sense is the evolution of the sciences of conservation biology,
>environmental laws, environmental impact statements, risk assessments, risk
>communication, risk management, criterion regarding sustainability,
>environmental values research, life cycle analysis, ecologica economics, and
>so on. The evolution of these capacities and competencies are illustrative
>of the implicit understanding that modern technologies are an 'autonomous
>ordering activity' that man has to get 'a hand on' or they will cause
>destruction to the biosphere. The conscience that attends this kind of
>practice in assessing impacts, entrenching environmental values, and
>formative types of cognitive and emotive responses to those new entrenched
>environmental values resulted from some sense of responsibilty. The
>imperative is to make progress toward sustainability it is imperative to
>take responsibility for modern technology so as to not to sustain the
>practices which are harmful to life.
>
>john foster
>
>"When an idea is new, it is seen as crazy. This is followed by a period in
>which it is viewed as dangerous. After this, there is a period of
>uncertainty. In the end, you can't find anyone who disagreed with it in the
>first place".
>
>Stephen J. Gould



%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%