Proposing faculty member: Matt Shockey
Date approved at Gen Ed Committee level: 3.11.2025
Category: Fundamental Literacies
Component: Critical Thinking
Description (abbreviated): At the heart of “sustainability studies” – the academic discipline that focuses on sustainability – are questions about what we value and what we ought to do in order to live up to our values. In this class we’ll explore the dimensions of sustainability that concern ethics and justice. Questions we tackle will range from how our values as individual consumers in a market economy shape the world we live in, to how to grapple with environmental burdens imposed in the past that continue to limit the quality of life of people today, to how to think about our obligations to future generations. As we look at these questions, we’ll highlight and practice the basic elements of critical thinking – asking questions, thinking about issues from multiple perspectives, making claims, and providing reasons for our claims.
Note: (This course previously taught as PHIL-P 101: Philosophy in the Public Sphere with the VT “Ethics of Sustainabilty.”)