The Place of Moral Philosophy in Environmental Education

• In Event: Roundtable Session 106
  In Roundtable Session: Conceptualizing New Beginnings: Philosophical, Cosmic, and Personal Implications of the Ecological

Abstract

This paper argues that proposals for environmental education require extensive moral philosophical justification. This argument will be advanced in three stages. First, I will discuss a series of environmental educational proposals that involve extensive philosophical analysis. Second, I will discuss a series of environmental educational proposals that do not involve such extensive philosophical analysis. Third, I will discuss the pedagogical implications of the justificatory difference between these two categories. The moral content of environmental educational proposals must be clear and robust in order for such proposals to be fully compelling. Much otherwise praiseworthy work in this field does not meet this standard.

Author

• David Patrick Burns, Kwantlen Polytechnic University