Prof Kai Spiekermann

This course is available on the MSc in Environment and Development, MSc in Environmental Policy and Regulation and MSc in Political Theory. This course is available as an outside option to students on other programmes where regulations permit.

This course has a limited number of places (it is controlled access) and priority is given to students on the MSc Political Theory. In previous years we have been able to provide places for most applicants, but that may not continue to be the case.

Some prior training in political theory, ethics, or related fields is recommended.

This course analyses political and philosophical questions arising in the context of environmental change, especially climate change. The approach will be interdisciplinary. While the focus is on normative-philosophical issues, we will also make use of positive-analytical and empirical literature in order to understand the central conceptual, ethical and political challenges posed by environmental change. Some of the questions to be discussed are: How should we balance the interests of current and future generations? How does climate change affect our obligations towards the global poor? How do we make policy decisions if the effects are uncertain but potentially severe or irreversible? Are we individually or collectively responsible for causing climate change, and what follows from this? How do we relate to the environment and what precisely is valuable about preserving it?

This course is delivered through a combination of lectures and seminars totalling 30 hours in the Winter Term. There will be a reading week in WT Week 6.

Students will submit a short formative essay (up to 1500 words) and will be given feedback on this before submitting their assessed coursework.

John Broome (2012) Climate Matters: Ethics in a Warming World, New York (W.W. Norton);

Stephen Gardiner, Simon Caney, Dale Jamieson and Henry Shue, eds. (2010) Climate Ethics: Essential Readings, Oxford (Oxford University Press);

Denis G. Arnold, ed. (2011) The ethics of global climate change, Cambridge (Cambridge University Press);

Stephen M. Gardiner (2011) A Perfect Moral Storm: The Ethical Tragedy of Climate Change, Oxford (OUP);

Jeremy Moss, ed. (2015). Climate Change and Justice, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press;

Simon Caney (2020). “Climate Justice”, in: Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Ed. Edward N. Zalta. Available at: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/justice-climate/;

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (2021-2) Sixth Assessment Report, Available at www.ipcc.ch.

Essay (100%, 4000 words).