Environmental responsibility: ethics, policy and action
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| 3 Tutor-marked assignments (TMAs) | |
| End-of-course assessment | No residential school |
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This course is available for study in the countries shown. Fees may vary by country.
Summary
Have you ever wondered how to be a responsible environmental citizen? What it means to be responsible, to make a 'right' decision, or to achieve a 'just' outcome for our natural world that we share? Such questions affect many of us both on personal and professional levels. This course provides a framework for analysis, and innovative tools promoting individual and collective responsibility for decisions and action. You will examine how cultural traditions influence attitudes towards the environment, and develop skills in advocacy, argumentation, debate, evaluating direct action, and constructing and making sense of environmentally related documentation such as briefing papers and viewpoint articles.
Course content
The course consists of four parts: an introduction followed by three core sections.
Part 1 Introducing environmental responsibility provides an understanding of environmental responsibility in terms of caring for the environment and being accountable for harm or wrongdoing to the environment. A mini case-study explores these dimensions of responsibility associated with economic and ecological relations between a country from the global South and countries in the global North. The vignette provides an exposition of three interrelated and recurring questions relating to environmental responsibility: Firstly, what matters? What are the values being privileged or needing to be privileged in any environmental dilemma, and in what way do they relate to other values? Secondly, who matters in terms of individuals and communities, and how are matters addressed by these different stakeholders? Questions regarding who the stakeholders might be are intimately connected to questions of how particular stakeholders enact their responsibilities. And thirdly, why should these issues matter in contrast with other issues? What reasons are there for privileging particular interests over others and what political and institutional opportunities are there for challenging the legitimacy of some issues over others? Part 1 then briefly summarises three ethical traditions and how these traditions inform particular forms of policy and action. Based on the features of environmental responsibility outlined in Part 1, a heuristic framework is proposed providing a roadmap for the rest of the course as well as providing guidance to environmental responsibility in any ensuing professional or personal capacity. It concludes with an overview of the remaining part of the course emphasising the need to keep open space for re-conceptualising ideas on environmental responsibility.
Part 2 Nature matters, focuses more on the ecological (‘natural’) world in relation to human cognition and institutional practice. What issues of value are at stake – i.e., what matters? What is this thing to which we profess responsibility? Is it something to preserve or shape? Part 2 delineates environmental responsibility from related subject areas in environmental studies through the attention given to the integral relationship between human and non-human nature. This relationship is explored using the metaphor of ‘conversation’. Drawing on this metaphor and the need to connect more between human and non-human nature, issues of ‘what matters’ are explored from (i) a caring perspective, and (ii) an accountability perspective. The implications of (i) and (ii) are further examined in the context of contemporary broad based consequentialist traditions underpinning systems thinking and environmental pragmatism as means of improving environmental responsibility. The emphasis here shifts towards practical means for (re)constructing what matters in terms of socio-ecological well-being, and the implications for policy and action.
Part 3 Individual and collective responsibility focuses more on the human world in relation to ‘nature’ and institutional practice. Who is responsible and how responsibility is enacted, including what conditions must be satisfied if individuals are to be able to take responsibility More specifically, the part covers (i) individual responsibility in terms of who is accountable and individuals trying to ‘do the right thing’, including how individual responsibilities and actions accumulate, often in ways that do not address environmental problems as much as they might (ii) rights and contracts based traditions including ethical issues associated with ‘Commons’ (iii) the relationship between individual and collective responsibility and discussion of different kinds of responsibilities operating at different levels and in different contexts - including consideration of some of the ethical assumptions concerning autonomy competition and collaboration and the role of social learning in fostering the multi-level interactions that can enable second-order change (i.e. change that requires thinking and acting differently rather than continuing with ‘more of the same’);.
Part 4 Ecological citizenship: social and environmental justice and corporate social responsibility focuses more on the political, social, institutional contexts of environmental action and thus links ethics to policy. It considers how ethics, policy and action work together and how movements, NGOs, civil organisation partnerships and private-public partnerships can provide the space for enacting environmental responsibility? More specifically, the part covers (i) central virtues of ecological justice in relation to other virtues (hope, love, wisdom, forgiveness, sadness, courage, obligation etc.); (ii) initiatives relating to notions of corporate responsibility and ecological citizenship measuring up to multiple values and requirements of 'virtue' as well as 'the good' and 'the right'; and (iii) the politics of new types of citizenship where the framing of ecological citizenship might enable appropriate dialogue between public and the private, local and the global, future and the present, acting and thinking, rights and responsibilities etc. bridging the gap between (a) awareness of environmental injustices and development of environmental responsibility, and (b) civic engagement with ecological citizenship.
You will learn
- The practical challenges and theoretical underpinnings of environmental responsibility.
- A common grounding in debates on questions about applied ethics in an environmental context using a range of appropriate sources.
- To interpret, analyse and develop environmental reports and briefing papers with an ethical dimension.
- The relevance of ethical standpoints associated with a variety of ethical assumptions, and ascertain the strengths and weaknesses of the standpoints in question.
- The links between environmental and social justice through a range of environmental topics such as ecological restoration, waste management, food security and individual and collective action.
- To reflect on the relationship between ethical and political assumptions and values as they are manifest in academic sources, policy documents and public debates on the environment.
Vocational relevance
TD866 aims to support continual development of skills amongst managers in the public, private and voluntary sectors associated with environmental decision making. Within the UK and internationally there is substantial interest among the many existing and aspiring practitioners involved with environmental decision making for developing skills in constructing and making sense of environmentally related briefing papers and associated documentation, advocacy, argumentation, debate and evaluation.
Entry
This course can be taken on its own or counted towards a qualification. If you are taking it as part of a postgraduate qualification, you must have adequate preparation for study at this level, usually demonstrated by a bachelors degree (or the equivalent) from a UK university.
If you have any doubt about the suitability of the course, please contact our Student Registration & Enquiry Service.
Qualifications
TD866 is an optional course in our
- Advanced Diploma in Environmental Decision Making (C18)
- Postgraduate Certificate in Social Sciences (C24)
- Postgraduate Certificate in Systems Thinking in Practice (C72)
- Postgraduate Diploma in Development Management (D37)
- Postgraduate Diploma in Environmental Decision Making (D38)
- Postgraduate Diploma in Social Sciences (D41)
- Postgraduate Diploma in Environmental Policy (E15)
- Postgraduate Diploma in Systems Thinking in Practice (E28)
- MA in Environment, Policy and Society (F19)
- MA in Social Sciences (F09)
- MSc in Environmental Decision Making (F13)
- MSc in Systems Thinking in Practice (F47)
Some postgraduate qualifications allow study to be chosen from other subject areas. These qualifications allow most postgraduate courses to count towards them. We advise you to refer to the relevant qualification descriptions for information on the circumstances in which this course can count towards these qualifications because from time to time the structure and requirements may change.
Excluded combinations
Sometimes you will not be able to count a course towards a qualification if you have already taken another course with similar content. To check any excluded combinations relating to this course, visit our excluded combination finder or check with our Student Registration & Enquiry Service before registering.
If you have a disability or additional requirement
Written transcripts of any audio components and Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) versions of printed material are available. Some Adobe PDF components may not be available or fully accessible using a screen reader and musical notation and mathematical, scientific, and foreign language materials may be particularly difficult to read in this way. Large print versions of the course materials can be provided on request. Other alternative formats of the course materials may be available in the future. Our Services for disabled students website has the latest information about availability.
If you are a new student, or new to courses using a computer or the internet, you will need to inform us of your particular needs as soon as possible, as some of our support services may take several weeks to arrange. Details of how to do this and our range of support services are described in our booklet Meeting Your Needs which you can download or request from our Student Registration & Enquiry Service.
You can also find information about accessible course materials, financial support and the Disabled Students' Allowance, equipment and other services, on our Services for disabled students website. It also includes our contact details for advice and support both before you register and while you are studying.
Course materials
What's included
Printed material also available on the course website. Supplementary audio and visual material is provided through a DVD and some of which is also available on the website.
Computing requirements
This course has online computer activities – you can access these using a web browser that can play Flash and Shockwave.
You will need internet access and a computer. If you have purchased a new computer since 2002 it should meet your course computing requirements. Check our Technical Requirements section if your computer is older than this or is otherwise unusual.
Teaching and assessment
Support from your tutor
You will have a tutor who will help you with the course material and mark and comment on your written work, and whom you can ask for advice and guidance. You will be able to contact your tutor by telephone, email and post. There may be opportunities to meet your tutor and other students. You also can keep in touch with other students via an online forum. Contact the Postgraduate Technology & Computing (PTC) Office at The OU in the East Midlands (telephone 0115 971 5566, email R05-postgrad@open.ac.uk) if you want to know more about study with The Open University before you register.
Contact our Student Registration & Enquiry Service if you want to know more about study with The Open University before you register.
Assessment
The assessment details for this course can be found in the facts box above.
You will be expected to submit your tutor-marked assignments (TMAs) online through the eTMA system unless there are some difficulties which prevent you from doing so. In these circumstances, you must negotiate with your tutor to get their agreement to submit your assignment on paper.
Students also studied
Students who studied this course also studied at some time:
Future availability
The details given here are for the course that starts in May and November 2010. We expect it to be available twice a year.
How to register
To register a place on this course return to the top of the page and use the Click to register button. For more information and advice about registration see OU Study Explained.
About this page
A postgraduate course in Environment, Development and International Studies.
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