Philosophy 150: Nature, Technology, and Society
Schedule of Assignments, Hettinger, Fall, 2005
- Aug 23: Introduction
- Handout: "78 Reasonable Questions to Ask about Any Technology," from Stephanie Mills,
ed., Turning Away from Technology (Sierra Club Books, Copyright by Stephanie Mills, 1997)
PART I: PHILOSOPHY OF TECHNOLOGY
- Aug 25: Langdon Winner, "Technology as Forms of Life," originally from Cohen and Wartofsky, eds.,
Epistemology, Method and the Social Sciences (D Reidel 1983); reprinted in and copied from David
Kaplan, ed., Readings in the Philosophy of Technology (Rowman and Littlefield, 2004), pp. 103-113.
- Aug 30: Theodore Roszak, "Foreword: In Defense of the Living Earth," pp. vii-xi from Stephanie
Mills, ed., Turning Away from Technology
Challenging Conceptions of Progress and Primitivism
- Sept 1: Two articles
- Paul Shephard , Preface to The Only World We've Got (Sierra Club Books, 1996; Paul Shepard,
Copyright 1996), pp. ix-xx.
- Jared Diamond, "The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race," Discover (May 1987).
Also available on the web at
https://www.agron.iastate.edu/courses/agron342/diamondmistake.html
Luddism Examined
- Sept 6: Wendell Berry, "Why I'm Not Going to Buy a Computer" Harpers 1987. Also on the web at:
https://www.tipiglen.dircon.co.uk/berrynot.html Copied from Minutes of the Lead Pencil Club, ed. Bill
Henderson, (Norton, 1996), pp. 35-49
- Sept 8: Critique of Luddism and Defense of Technology
- Samuel Florman, "In Praise of Technology" (from Florman's Existential Pleasures of
Engineering, 1975 St. Martin's Press) copied from Controlling Technology ed., William B.
Thompson (Prometheus,1991), pp. 148-156.
- Samuel Florman, "Small is Dubious" (Harper's Magazine, 1977) copied from Controlling
Technology ed., William B. Thompson (Prometheus,1991), pp. 399-403.
- Sept 13: Analysis & Defense of Luddism:
- Dan Lyons, "Are Luddites Confused?" Inquiry 22: 381-403 (1979)
- Sept 15: Appropriate Technology
- Alan Drengson "Four Philosophies of Technology" Philosophy Today (Summer 1982): 103-117 copied from Larry Hickman, ed., Technology as a Human Affair (McGraw Hill 1990), pp.
25-40.
PART II: BIOTECHNOLOGY
Food and Biotechnology
- Sept 22: Jonathan Rauch, "Will Frankenfood Save the Planet?" Atlantic Monthly, October 2003, pp.
103-108. Taken from and available on web at: https://www.spcottawa.on.ca/ofsc/frankenfoods.html
- Sept 27: David Magnus & Arthur Caplan on "Food for Thought: The Primacy of the Moral in the
GMO Debate," from Michael Ruse and David Castle, eds., Genetically Modified Foods (Prometheus
2002), pp. 80-87
Cloning and Enhancing Human Beings
- Sept 29: Leon R. Kass, "The Wisdom of Repugnance," New Republic, June 2, 1997 copied from
https://www.csus.edu/indiv/f/friedman/spring04/govt112/reading/h2/cloning.html and can be found in
Ethical Issues in Biotechnology, ed. by Richard Sherlock & John Morrey (Rowman & Littlefield,
2002), pp. 551-571.
- Oct 4: Dan Brock, "Cloning Human Beings: An Assessment of the Ethical Issues Pro and Con" in
Clones and Clones: Facts and Fantasies About Human Cloning, eds. M. Nussbaum and C. Sunstein
(New York: W. W. Norton, 1998): Packet 105-117
- Oct 6: Carl Elliott, "Enhancement Technology" in David Kaplan, ed., Readings in the Philosophy of
Technology (Rowman and Littlefield, 2004), pp. 373-379.
- Oct 11: MIDTERM EXAM
PART III: ENVIRONMENTAL RESTORATION AND THE NATURE OF NATURE
- Oct 13: Case study--Oil and Alaska: Sandra Hinchman, "Endangered Species, Endangered Culture:
Native Resistance to Industrializing the Arctic" USDA Forest Service Proceedings RMRS-P-27. 2003,
pp. 77-84 Copied from and also available on the web at:
https://www.fs.fed.us/rm/pubs/rmrs_p027/rmrs_p027_077_084.pdf
Fall Break
- Oct 20: Robert Elliott, "Faking Nature" (in William Throop, Environmental Restoration: Ethics,
Theory, and Practice, 71-82)
- Oct 25: Eric Katz, "The Big Lie: The Human Restoration of Nature" (in Throop, 83-93)
- Oct 27: Two articles
- Holmes Rolston III, "Restoration" (in Throop, 127-132)
- Jared Diamond "Must We Shoot Deer to Save Nature?" Natural History (August 1992, pp. 2-8.
Friday, Oct 28th, Paper proposal due
- Nov 1: Jon Mendelson, et al., "Carving Up the Woods: Savanna Restoration in Northeastern Illinois"
(in Throop, 135-144)
- Nov 3: Steven Packard, "Restoring Oak Ecosystems" (in Throop, 145-167)
- Nov 8: William Jordan III, "Sunflower Forest": Ecological Restoration as the Basis for a New
Environmental Paradigm" (in Throop, 205-220)
- Nov 10: Ned Hettinger, "Insight and Peril: Nature Restoration as a Paradigm for the Human
Relationship with Nature"
PART IV: CONSUMPTION AND ECOLOGICAL DESIGN
Consumption and Progress
- Nov 15: Jerome Segal, "Are We Simple Creatures?" Philosophy & Public Policy 19 2/3:
Spring/Summer 1999, pp. 14-18.
- Video: Affluenza and/or Escape from Affluenza
- Nov 17: Two articles
- Juliet Schor "A New Economic Critique of Consumer Society" from "The Ethics of
Consumption" Philosophy and Public Policy 15,4 Fall 1995, pp. 17-21
- Juliet Schor, "Clothes Encounters" Orion September/October 2004, p. 11.
Friday, Nov 18th, Paper Due (unless paper is on consumption)
- Nov 22: Judith Litchenberg, "Consuming Because Others Consume," from "The Ethics of
Consumption" Philosophy and Public Policy 15,4 Fall 1995, pp. 23-27.
Thanksgiving break
- Nov 29: Jerome Segal, "Consumer Expenditures and the Growth of Need-Required Income," from
David Crocker and Toby Linden, eds. Ethics of Consumption (Rowman and Littlefield, 1998), pp. 176-197.
- Dec 1: Two articles
- Ecological Design: David Orr, Chaps. 1 and 2, from The Nature of Design (Oxford, 2002),
"Introduction: The Design of Culture and the Culture of Design" and "Human Ecology as
problem of Ecological Design" pp. 3-32
- Carl Pope, "Let's Get Technical," Sierra July/August 2005, pp. 10-11
Friday Dec. 2nd, Paper Due (if on Consumption)
FINAL EXAM (During exam week. See syllabus for date.)