Overview

To provide students with a comprehensive understanding of environmental problems, including the threat of destruction of the current regime of the global ecosystem, of the forces driving this destruction, and what is required to address and overcome these problems.

Requisites

Prerequisites
PHI30009 Environmental Philosophy

Rule

50 credit points

Teaching Periods
Location
Start and end dates
Last self-enrolment date
Census date
Last withdraw without fail date
Results released date
Semester 2
Location
Hawthorn
Start and end dates
29-July-2024
27-October-2024
Last self-enrolment date
11-August-2024
Census date
31-August-2024
Last withdraw without fail date
13-September-2024
Results released date
03-December-2024

Learning outcomes

Students who successfully complete this unit will be able to:

  • Discuss the state of our environment and the causes driving its destruction
  • Identify the driving forces for ecological destruction for Australia and the global environment and discuss the main changes required to create an environmentally sustainable society and civilization
  • Critically review the core assumptions of prevailing economic theories and the alternative provided by institutionalist forms of ecological economics and human ecology
  • Evaluate the use of cost-benefit or risk-benefit analyses to assess policies, and the alternative provided by retrospective path analysis, and defend and use this alternative

Teaching methods

Hawthorn

Type Hours per week Number of weeks Total (number of hours)
Face to Face Contact (Phasing out)
Lecture
1.00 12 weeks 12
Face to Face Contact (Phasing out)
Tutorial
2.00 12 weeks 24
Specified Learning Activities (Phasing out)
Readings
5.00 12 weeks 60
Unspecified Learning Activities (Phasing out)
Independent Learning
4.50 12 weeks 54
TOTAL150

Assessment

Type Task Weighting ULO's
Essay 1Individual 40% 1,2,3,4 
Essay 2Individual 50% 1,2,3,4 
Essay proposal/presentationIndividual 10% 

Content

  • The environmental crisis as a global phenomenon, and the implications of the crisis for Australia and Australians
  • Ethics, cultural analysis, political philosophy and policy formation and their relationship
  • The assumptions of prevailing economic theory and alternative ways of conceiving our relations to each other and to nature.
  • A framework of ideas as the basis for formulating environmentally sound political and economic policies to replace those at present dominating Australian society

 

Study resources

Reading materials

A list of reading materials and/or required textbooks will be available in the Unit Outline on Canvas.