Kommentar |
Inhalte:
Aldo Leopold, in his 1949 book »A Sand County Almanac«, inaugurated »land ethic« as a field of applied ethics. Leopold’s land ethic »changes the role of Homo sapiens from conqueror of the land-community to plain member and citizen of it.« Leopold demanded:
»Quit thinking about decent land-use as solely an economic problem. Examine each question in terms of what is ethically and esthetically right, as well as what is economically expedient. A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise.«
Leopold spoke of a »cowman who cleans his range of wolves« and disrupts the ecological balance between wolves, deer and vegetation. The cowman, Leopold claimed, caused an ecological disaster because he »has not learned to think like a mountain.« The seminar will examine how various members of the land community might be thinking and which consequences »thinking like a mountain« has for land use ethics.
In order to frame our discussion, we shall use a model from John Rawls’ theory of justice: The veil of ignorance. The veil of ignorance conceals to the members of a constitutional assembly who they are. The members of the constitutional assembly have full information and data for their country and society, but since they do not know who they are, they cannot tailor the constitution according to their needs and preferences (and the famous difference principle emerged). Rawls developed his theory of justice for human animals. Although he wrote his book at the beginning of environmental activism (1971), he left it to others to ponder environmental justice and land use ethics. Which principles of justice would emerge from a constitutional assembly behind the veil of ignorance, if not only human animals participate ... but also non-human animals, plants, rivers, mountains, the land?
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Literatur |
Beatly, Timothy (1994) Ethical land use. Baltimore–London: John Hopkins University Press.
Caldwell, Lynton Keith & Kristin Shrader-Frechette (1993) Policy for land. Law and ethics. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield.
Davy, Benjamin (1997) Essential injustice. Wien–New York: Springer.
Leopold, Aldo (1949) A Sand County almanac. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Shiva, Vandana (2005) Earth democracy. London: Zed Books.
Singer, Peter (2011) Practical ethics. 3rd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. |
Bemerkung |
Lecturer: Prof. Dr. Benjamin Davy, Raumplanung, Lehrstuhl Bodenpolitik, Bodenmanagement und kommunales Vermessungswesen
Please keep an eye out for possible changes/new information: Original description in the database of TU Dortmund.
This lecture is offered primarily for students interested in fulfilling the requirements of module II of the certificate 'Education for Sustainable Development'.
Students from TU Dortmund may acquire the certificate 'Education for Sustainable Development' as well. please send us an e-mail from 17th March until one week before the course begins: zertifikat-bne@uni-due.de Studierende der Ruhr-Universität Bochum/Technischen Universität Dortmund, die am Zertifikat BNE interessiert sind, können sich zwischen dem 17.03.21 und einer Woche vor Veranstaltungsbeginn per E-Mail (zertifikat-bne@uni-due.de) anmelden. Es gilt das Prinzip "Wer zuerst kommt, mahlt zuerst."
Für fachfremde Studierende ist die Veranstaltung zugleich anerkennbar für das Modul E3 Studium liberale. Die Anmeldung erfolgt hier in LSF ab 17.03.21. Weitere Informationen zum Studium liberale, eine Liste freier Plätze, alle Veranstaltungen in chronologischer Reihenfolge etc. finden Sie oben unter „Weitere Links“. (Als Fachstudent*in wählen Sie zur Anmeldung das fachintern übliche Verfahren; bei LSF: die gleichnamige Veranstaltung ohne das Präfix 'E3'.) |