In recent years, environmental education has increasingly focused on the role of nonhuman animals in our ecosystems. However, even with growing research, animals are still not a central part of environmental education. Instead, the focus remains on human-centered issues. This reflects a larger societal problem, where influential groups—such as businesses and political or religious institutions—resist changes that might challenge human dominance. -/- A recent study points out that environmental education, shaped by the idea of (...) “sustainable development,” often overlooks the ethical treatment of animals. This happens partly because the concept of sustainability is vague, allowing economic growth and management goals to take priority over animal welfare. Moreover, many educational systems consider biocentrism—the belief that all living beings deserve respect—as optional rather than fundamental. (shrink)

The article is devoted to one of the crucial aspects of sustainable development, with the example of analyzing the possibilities for the development of environmental education in the Russian Federation. The article analyzes the possibilities of the current Russian Federal State Educational Standard for general and higher education in implementing the ideas of education in the interests of sustainable development. The methodological principles and philosophical foundations of environmental education are considered to designate the worldview (...) guideline of ecological thinking. The tasks of the state educational policy of the Russian Federation in the field of environmental education and the implementation of the concept of sustainable development are considered. The article describes the representation of the concept of sustainable development in the state policy of the Russian Federation, in the field of environmental education in the requirements of the Federal State Educational Standard for various subject areas and training courses related to the topic of environmental development in school and university education. The strategic goal of environmental education in Russia is the formation and development of an environmental outlook among students of all ages, which is based on scientific knowledge, environmental culture, and ethics. The continuity, basic principles, and trends of the implementation of environmental education in the Russian Federation are shown. (shrink)

Climate change and environmental degradation are threatening the existence of humanity. The youth have the potential and capability to play a pivotal role in tackling these challenges. Therefore, the current study aims to examine how school and family environmental education can enhance environmental knowledge, willingness to take action, and pro-environmental behaviors among children and young people. The Bayesian Mindsponge Framework (BMF) analytics was utilized on a nationally representative dataset of 2069 Vietnamese primary, secondary, and high (...) school students. The analysis results suggest that school and family environmental education is beneficial for improving students’ environmental knowledge and willingness to take environmental actions. Notably, the effect of school education is more substantial for cultivating environmental knowledge, whereas family education has a stronger impact on raising students’ willingness than school education. Students with higher levels of environmental knowledge are more likely to conduct pro-environmental behaviors only when they are willing to take environmental actions. If students are unwilling to act, higher environmental knowledge is negatively associated with the likelihood of pro-environmental behavior. Following these findings, we call for coordinated education efforts of schools and families to cultivate students’ eco-surplus culture. The education efforts should be implemented along with exposing students to environmental settings and encouraging them to read environmental books. (shrink)

Place-based education is founded on the idea that the student’s local community is one of their primary learning resources. Place-based education’s underlying educational principle is that students need to first have an experiential understanding of the history, culture, and ecology of the environment in which they are situated before tackling broader national and global issues. Such attempts are a step in the right direction in dealing with controversial issues in a democracy by providing resources for synthesising curriculum though (...) theory (curriculum content, including traditional subjects) and practice (practical learning as experiential education). Nevertheless, many place-based accounts discount Indigenous conceptions of place, which are integral to Indigenous ways of knowing, being and doing, especially in relation to the ontological relationship to Land and Country. Indigenous philosophy has the potential to inform what place-based education means by students developing a ‘sense of place’ when engaging with local communities as their ‘own’ place. In this article we re-imagine the community of inquiry as a place-responsive pedagogy by learning from Indigenous philosophy, and recentring Indigenous notions of place in experiential learning. In addition to exploring the pedagogical potential of a place-responsive account of the community of inquiry, we look to the implications for teacher preparation. (shrink)

Tourism education plays a key role in shaping students’ engagement with sustainability by providing them with the knowledge and skills to address environmental challenges and encouraging them to promote sustainable practices in the industry. This study explores how four years of tourism education at Prince of Songkla University in Phuket, Thailand, influence students’ knowledge, attitudes, and intentions toward sustainability. Despite gaining theoretical knowledge of sustainability principles, the findings reveal a decline in students’ willingness to adopt environmental (...) sustainability practices as their years of education increase. This may reflect a disconnect between classroom lessons and practical application, potentially due to limited practical learning experiences and the prevalent “eco-deficit culture” within the tourism industry, which often prioritizes profit over environmental responsibility. As a result, students may filter out information regarding environmental sustainability despite their sustainability education at the university. To support long-term engagement in sustainability, the paper recommends revising curricula to include more experiential learning opportunities, interdisciplinary collaboration, and stronger partnerships with industry stakeholders. (shrink)

The 5P, an acronym for the five principles, was proposed precisely to bridge the gap between scientific progress and societal acceptance, particularly in interdisciplinary scientific research on sustainability.

Eco-Rational Education proposes an educational response to climate change, environmental degradation, and desctructive human relations to ecology through the delivery of critical land-responsive environmental education. -/- The book argues that education is a powerful vehicle for both social change and cultural reproduction. It proposes that the prioritisation and integration of environmental education across the curriculum is essential to the development of ecologically rational citizens capable of responding to the environmental crisis and an (...) increasingly changing world. Using philosophical analysis, particularly environmental philosophy, pragmatism, and ecofeminism, the book develops an understanding of contemporary issues in education, especially inquiry-based learning as pedagogy, diversifying knowledge, environmental and epistemic justice, climate change education, and citizenship education. -/- Eco-Rational Education will be of interest to researchers and post-graduate students of social and political philosophy, educational philosophy, as well as environmental philosophy, ethics, and teacher education. (shrink)

Parental environmental education in early childhood is vital for nurturing environmental awareness and ecological protection. This study investigates how parents’ nature engagement methods influence children’s environmental awareness and participation in protection activities. Using the Bayesian Mindsponge Framework with data from 516 children and their primary caregivers across 23 elementary summer schools in five urban Chinese cities, the findings reveal varying impacts of parental engagement methods. Raising animals and plants is positively associated with environmental awareness (moderate (...) reliability) and protection activities (high reliability). Visiting museums about endangered and extinct species enhances children’s environmental awareness, while learning about insects and their habits improves their participation in protection activities (both high reliability). However, outdoor learning experiences and playing in natural environments (e.g., parks and forests) show ambiguous effects. These results underscore the value of family-centered environmental education, emphasizing the crucial roles of direct nature interactions and providing actionable insights for child-focused environmental policies. (shrink)

This work introduces the reader to the central issues and theories in Western environmental ethics, and against this background develops a Buddhist environmental philosophy and ethics. Drawing material from original sources, there is a lucid exposition of Buddhist environmentalism, its ethics, economics and Buddhist perspectives for environmental education. The work is focused on a diagnosis of the contemporary environmental crisis and a Buddhist contribution for positive solutions. Replete with stories and illustrations from original Buddhist sources, (...) it is both informative and engaging. (shrink)

Education as identity formation in Western-style liberal-democracies relies, in part, on neutrality as a justification for the reproduction of collective individual identity, including societal, cultural, institutional and political identities, many aspects of which are problematic in terms of the reproduction of environmentally harmful attitudes, beliefs and actions. Taking a position on an issue necessitates letting go of certain forms of neutrality, as does effectively teaching environmental education. We contend that to claim a stance of neutrality is to (...) claim a position beyond criticism. In the classroom this can also be an epistemically damaging position to hold. To further explore the problem of neutrality in the classroom, and to offer a potential solution, we will look to the philosophical community of inquiry pedagogy, and advocate for the addition of place-based education; a form of experiential education that promotes learning in local communities in which the school is situated, each with its own history, culture, economy and environment. However, how we understand ‘place’ is fundamental to understanding the potential of place-based education in giving students a ‘sense of place’—how they perceive a place, which includes place attachment and place meaning. To this end, we look to Indigenous understandings of Place and social reconstruction learning to inform place-based pedagogies. Doing so, we hold, opens a pathway to ethical education. (shrink)

The relationship between people and nature is one of the most important current issues of human survival. This circumstance makes it necessary to educate young people who are receptive to global challenges and ready to solve the urgent problems of our time. The purpose of the article is to analyze the experience of the environmental behavior of young people in the metropolis. The authors studied articles and monographs that contain Russian and international experience in the environmental behavior of (...) citizens. The following factors determine people’s behavior: the cognitive capabilities of people who determine the understanding and perception of nature and the value-affective component that determines the attitude towards nature. The next task of the study is surveying young people through an online survey and its analysis. The research was realized in Ekaterinburg, the administrative center of the Sverdlovsk region (Russia). The study of the current ecological situation in Ekaterinburg made it possible to conclude that the environmental problem arises not only and not simply as a problem of environmental pollution and other negative influences of human economic activity. This problem grows into transforming the spontaneous impact of society on nature into a consciously, purposefully, systematically developing harmonious interaction with it. The study results showed that, from the point of view of the youth of Ekaterinburg, the city’s ecological situation is one of the most pressing problems. Despite minor improvements over the past 3–5 years, this problem has not lost relevance, and regional authorities and city residents should be responsible for its solution. Young people know environmental practices, but they often do not apply them systematically. Ecological behavior is encouraged and discussed among friends/acquaintances. The key factors influencing the formation of environmental behavior practices are the mass media and social networks. The most popular social network for obtaining information on ecological practices among young people is Instagram, and the key persons are bloggers. This study did not reveal the influence of the socio-demographic characteristics of young people on the application of eco-behavior practices, which may indicate the need for a survey of a larger sample. (shrink)

Understanding climate change is becoming an urgent requirement for those in education. The normative values of education have long been closely aligned with the global, modernised world. The industrial model has underpinned the hidden and overt curriculum. Increasingly though, a new eco-centric orientation to economics, technology, and social organisation is beginning to shape up the post-carbon world. Unless education is up to date with the issues of climate change, the estate of education will be unable to (...) meet its task of knowledge transfer. This paper covers the basic science and ethical policy debates, and begins to outline the questions that will necessarily entangle education as we orientate ourselves to the new world that is upon us. (shrink)

The problem of future generations is a growing ethical issue. There are ongoing discussions about what kind of earth we are leaving and what we should leave to future generations as a result of the delayed awareness – if not ignorance – of the fact that this World does not belong to us exclusively. When we look at the example of Turkey, we can see that there is a huge conflict between environmental utilization and environmental education. On (...) the one hand, we have classes on the environment and its health; on the other hand, it is a reality that we have a not-so-eco-friendly government policy, which takes no notice of any kind of environmental issues or requirements. To mention but few, governmental insistence on real estate investments in green spaces, even by covering grade 1 natural site areas, a decline in the extent of agricultural land due to uncontrollable urbanization, and hydroelectric power plant projects are among recent events. These are the instances of conflicts between inscriptive and operative environmental policies in Turkey. The purpose of this article is to call attention to this dilemma and to assert that ecocide might be just another kind of genocide for Turkey, i.e., the genocide-yet-to-come. (shrink)

The issue of voting rights for older children has been high on the political and philosophical agenda for quite some time now, and not without reason. Aside from principled moral and philosophical reasons why it is an important matter, many economic, environmental, and political issues are currently being decided—sometimes through indecision—that greatly impact the future of today’s children. Past and current generations of adults have, arguably, mortgaged their children’s future, and this makes the question whether (some) children should be (...) granted the right to vote all the more pressing. Should (some) children be given the right to vote? Moreover, does the answer to this question depend on civic education, on whether children have been deliberately prepared for the exercise of that right? These are the questions that will occupy us in this article. Our answer to the first will be that older children—children roughly between 14 and 16 years of age1—ought to be given the right to vote. (shrink)

This quantitative study utilized the descriptive method of research that aimed to assess the implementation of environmental conservation practices in Baybay City Leyte with 92 officials and 115 zone residents of the 23 barangays in the city. Data were gathered through online and pen-paper surveys using frequency mean and Chi-square test. Barangay officials & Zone residents showed the same level of awareness of the environmental conservation practices implemented in Baybay City. Based on the results, the highest average weighted (...) mean environmental conservation practices were the Ordinance on Solid Waste Management. Whereas, the Ordinance on the Use of Plastics Bags has the lowest average weighted mean. There is no significant difference in the level of awareness of the environmental conservation practices between the barangay officials and zone residents. The findings on the level of implementation of the environmental conservation practices, barangay officials asserted a high level of implementation while zone residents claim to have implemented of all the (3) ordinances. For barangay officials, the Ordinance on Solid Waste Management had the highest weighted mean. While the Ordinance on the Use of Plastics Bags had the lowest weighted mean. Whereas, for the zone residents the Ordinance on Regulating the Use of Plastics Bags had the highest weighted mean. While the Ordinance on Anti-Littering and Prohibiting Persons from Throwing any Refuse or Garbage, Spitting, or Improper Urinating into Streets and Canals had the lowest weighted mean. There is a significant difference in the level of implementation of the environmental conservation practices between the barangay officials and zone residents on the Ordinance on Anti-Littering and Prohibiting Persons from Throwing any Refuse or Garbage, Spitting, Improper Urinating into Streets and Canal and Ordinance on Solid Waste Management. However, there is no significant difference in the level of implementation of environmental conservation practices in the Ordinance of the Use of Plastics Bags. (shrink)

This paper sketches an emotion-aware model of environmental ethics education. The proposal draws on insights from feminists scholars, moral sentimentalism, as well as work in the pedagogy of discomfort traditions. It identifies and defends four core elements of climate change ethic, noting how they shed new light on the aims and challenges of environmental ethics education.

Over the last two decades, there was an upsurge of research and innovation in biotechnology and related fields, leading to exciting new discoveries in areas such as the engineering of biological processes, gene editing, stem cell research, CRISPR-Cas9 technology, Synthetic Biology, recombinant DNA, LMOs and GMOs, to mention only a few. At the same time, these advances generated concerns about biosafety, biosecurity and adverse impacts on biodiversity and the environment, leading to the establishment of Research Ethics Committees (RECs) at Higher (...) Education and Research Institutions dedicated to reviewing research with implications for biosafety and the environment. -/- These Biosafety and Environment Research Ethics Committees, referred to as EBRECs, are in the early stages of their establishment and formalisation, and there is much uncertainty about their composition, scope, procedures of decision-making and the principles that should guide their deliberations and assessments. In many respects, EBRECs are venturing into uncharted territory, facing a very wide range of complex research fields, far-reaching research practices and deep concerns new to Review Boards, raising the question to what extent EBRECs can fall back on the fairly well-established principles and procedures of RECs focusing on Human, Health or Animal research, and to what extent they need new or adapted principles and procedures. -/- Against this background, I set out to answer the following three main research questions in this thesis: 1. What is the current state of ethical principles for ethics reviews in the field of environmental and biosafety research ethics? Which principles are currently used in this context, and how? 2. What are the shortcomings of the current principles used by EBRECs and how can they be overcome? 3. What ethical principles must be adopted by environmental and biosafety research ethics committees and guide them in their decision-making? -/- In order to prepare the ground and set the scene for my discussion of these questions, I also formulated four supporting research questions: i. What is environmental research ethics in action? ii. What is biosafety research ethics in action? iii. How are environmental and biosafety ethics related to one another? iv. How should the guidelines and ethical principles related to these two overlapping fields be implemented in the ethics review process? Following my introduction and problem statement in Chapter 1, I devoted Chapters 2 and 3 to an overview of my supporting questions to set the scene for Environmental and Biosafety Research Ethics. In Chapter 4, I turned to my main research question with a discussion of national and international declarations, frameworks and legislation and an investigation of principles in the different research areas to get a picture of applicable principles that can guide EBRECs. -/- The main finding of my thesis is that due to the complexity of EBR, different categories of principles could be the solution for EBRECs. I elaborate on this in Chapter 5, my concluding chapter, in which I also propose a list of core principles that can serve as an accessible and easy-to-use guide for EBRECs in their decision-making. In this proposal, I cluster different kinds of principles in terms of four categories: 1. Principles as a Moral Concept 2. Principles as a Social Concept 3. Principles as a Legal Concept 4. Principles as a Safety Concept . (shrink)

In this paper, we give a flavour of how, against the odds, Reggio-Emilia-inspired pedagogical documentation can work in reconceptualizing environmental education, reconfiguring child subjectivity and provoking an ontological shift from autopoiesis to sympoiesis in teacher education. Working posthuman(e)ly and transdisciplinarily across three foundation phase teacher education courses at a university in South Africa, we situate our teaching within current environmental precarities. We show how we stirred up trouble in and outside our university classroom and provoked (...) our students to “make kin” with children, each other, other animals, and the more-than-human, but also to stay with the trouble, that is, to learn to be truly present in colonized spaces. (shrink)

A study was conducted regarding ways in which higher education institutions can improve ethics. Theoretical frameworks used included: Virtue ethics, deontological and environmental ethics theories. The total sampled written texts were 94. Non-probability sampling was used. The type that was used was online convenience sampling through web scraping. Philosophical assumption that guided this study was interpretivism and the approach was Qualitative. Case study was used as a design and content analysis as a method of data analysis. Some of (...) the findings of the study included but were not limited to the following: Higher education's ethical and professional standards are critical for retaining the trust of students, staff, and the larger society. Institutions that prioritise ethics and standards will be better positioned to carry out their goal and positively impact society. The study recommended the following to Higher education stakeholders: Create faculty-led ethics committees to evaluate and advise on ethical issues such as teaching, research, and academic freedom. Make certain that these committees are composed of a diverse spectrum of faculty members with ethics expertise; Create explicit rules and protocols for using AI, machine learning, and big data ethically in academic research and administrative processes. Address the issues of discrimination, privacy, and accountability in AI applications; and Involve alumni in ethics programs and projects to encourage them to support and contribute to ethical education and research. Create opportunities for alumni to advise students on how to develop ethical professions. (shrink)

As attention to the pervasiveness and severity of environmental challenges grows, technical universities are responding to the need to include environmental topics in engineering curricula and to equip engineering students, without training in ethics, to understand and respond to the complex social and normative demands of these issues. But as compared to other areas of engineering ethics education, environmental ethics has received very little attention. This article aims to address this lack and raises the question: How (...) should we teach environmental ethics to engineering students? We argue that one key aspect such teaching should address is the tendency of engineers towards technical framing of (social) problems. Drawing then on engineering ethics pedagogy we propose that the competencies of moral sensitivity and critical thinking can be developed to help engineering students with problem (re)framing. We conclude with an example from our teaching that operationalizes these competencies. (shrink)

Recently in this journal, Jessica Morley and colleagues (AI & SOC 2023 38:411–423) review AI ethics and education, suggesting that a cultural shift is necessary in order to prepare students for their responsibilities in developing technology infrastructure that should shape ways of life for many generations. Current AI ethics guidelines are abstract and difficult to implement as practical moral concerns proliferate. They call for improvements in ethics course design, focusing on real-world cases and perspective-taking tools to immerse students in (...) challenging situations with relatable personal, social and environmental implications. The present paper considers the ACTWith model of moral cognition for use in such training contexts. Morley and colleagues' paper and contemporary literature are reviewed. Whistleblowing as a source for relatable case studies is discussed, and the purpose of ethics education considered. The ACTWith model is introduced, and correlations with contemporaries noted. The ACTWith model has been successfully employed in a broad range of technology ethics courses in the Netherlands and South Korea. Illustrations are offered. Correlations with contemporary efforts are drawn in the context of software engineering. Summary discussion considers strengths and limitations of the ACTWith program. Overall, the paper emphasizes training high-level moral reasoning through guided inquiry education informing lifetime professional practice, and indicates an outstanding need for teachers able to do the job. (shrink)

Every school needs an advocate leader who can influence others to address issues, concerns, and problems that affect education, its quality, access, and the welfare of the stakeholders, especially that of the learners. This leader needs to subscribe to the redefined roles and nature of leadership. Advocacy leadership challenges educational leaders to take a progressive stance on pressing educational issues and problems. The next in line leaders need to awaken in themselves a specific advocacy and tune-in to this new (...) trend. With this, a qualitative inquiry explored the educational advocacies of twenty graduate students involved in focus group discussions and interviews. Using the thematic network as an analytical framework, the inquiry identified 46 keywords, 51 basic themes, and 6 organizing themes. Thus, a new thematic network of educational advocacies was generated. Learners’ welfare was the most dominant educational advocacy of graduate students, while leadership and governance, professional development, culture and religion, safety and environmental protection, and community development were considered as developing and noteworthy advocacies. These educational advocacies were deemed interconnected and interdependent to each other. Also, the study comes up with relevant propositions, while it makes recommendations for further research and utilization of the new framework. The results have implications for revisiting the educational administration curriculum by mapping out the subjects that contribute to the development of educational advocacy. (shrink)

Circular economy (CE), a sustainability concept that promotes resource efficiency and waste re-duction, has garnered significant popularity in recent years due to its potential to address pressing environmental and economic challenges. This study develops the Bayesian Mindsponge Mindspongeconomics (BMM) framework/analytic method based on Bayesian Mindsponge framework (BMF) to the factors influencing young adults' pro-environmental behavior and purchases of green products at different price levels. The findings indicate that young adults who are knowledgeable about CE and value environmental (...) protection and energy conservation are more likely to engage in waste sorting, while the factors that affect their willingness to pay (WTP) more for green and en-ergy-saving products vary at different price tiers. The study demonstrates that CE knowledge, daily waste sorting habits, and environmental concern positively impact young adults' WTP for products that are 5%, 10%, and 15% higher-priced, respectively. Besides, the study also highlights the po-tential of educational programs and cultural influences in nurturing a generation that prioritizes environmental value. The research integrates multidisciplinary perspectives and offers practical implications for policymakers, educators, and businesses seeking to promote green literacy and foster an environmental culture among the youth, contributing to the broader goals of green transformation and sustainable development associated with CE and green economy, especially in urban areas of emerging countries and beyond. (shrink)

The purpose of this study is to identify the requirements of computerized Management Information Systems and their role in improving the quality of administrative decisions in the Palestinian Ministry of Education and Higher Education. The authors used the descriptive analytical method and the questionnaire method to collect the data. (247) questionnaires were distributed on the study sample and (175) questionnaires were collected back with a recovery rate of (70.8). The study showed a number of results, the most important (...) of which are: There exist a role for computerized management information system requirements in improving the quality of administrative decisions in the Ministry of Education and Higher Education. This result is due to the existence of the support and attention by the senior management in the Ministry of Education and Higher Education by 65.06%, the physical requirements available for the use of computerized Management Information Systems are available by (72.19%), and the software requirements for the use of computerized Management Information Systems are available at 67.74%. The results found that the human requirements available for the use of computerized Management Information Systems are available at (68.33%). The results showed that the organizational requirements that assist in the use of information systems are available at (64.19%). There are no statistically significant differences between respondents' responses to the role of computerized management information system requirements in improving the quality of administrative decisions in the Ministry of Education and Higher Education attributable to the variables(Gender, academic qualification, age, career level), while there are statistically significant differences in the role of computerized management information system requirements in improving the quality of administrative decisions in the Ministry of Education and Higher Education due to variable years of service. The study concluded that the Ministry of Education and Higher Education is able to cope with the external environmental changes rapidly and the limited time available for the collection and analysis of information. This means that administrative information systems should be used by increasing the approval of senior management on Management Information Systems in making their decisions, and to involve the employees in making any change and keep abreast of technical developments and try to use external bodies to advise in the field of computerized information systems, and work to increase coordination between the different departments of the ministry. (shrink)

Response to Steven Bland’s ‘Interactionism, Debiasing, and the Division of Epistemic Labour’ (in Social Virtue Epistemology, (eds.) M. Alfano, C. Klein & J. de Ridder). Biased cognition is an obvious source of epistemic vice, but there is some controversy about whether cognitive biases generate reliabilist or responsibilist epistemic vices. Bland’s argument, in a nutshell, is that since the development of cognitive biases is due to the interplay of internal psychological processes and external (i.e., environmental) conditions, it cannot be expected (...) that a solution to the problem tackles only one of these dimensions. We argue that the complex architecture on which Bland’s coordinated approach is grounded appears to lose some stability once we analyze more closely its pillars. We shall concentrate our attention on the notion of reliabilist and responsibilist epistemic virtues that the approach should foster as well as on the educational implications of Bland’s view. (shrink)

What we see is partially dependent on what we are shown. As communicators, we have a duty to inform and educate and lead. As environmental communicators we have the privilege of explaining how the various parts of our natural world work, individually, in unison, and in relationship to people. By examining two specific areas of growing global concerns, this paper provides an analytic tool and starts a discussion as to what should be guiding decisions concerning major environmental questions. (...) The first growing global concern discussed is tailings ponds in Northern Alberta’s oil sands. The second is the large bodies of air pollution in Asia. In both cases, (Good) short term decisions that benefit a few have led to large environmental concerns. Should humanity be worried about our future? Could (Right) long-term, sustainable, and inclusive decisions lead to more manageable environmental challenges? To be a communicator in the real world it is important to know and differentiate between the Good and the Right. Good and Right communications in environmental issues support daily or frequent acts concerning any or all of three critical areas: sustainability, conservation, and climate change. Questions are addressed. Where are people now with respect to environment, how did we get here, and what are the pros and cons of changing from Good to Right solutions? By looking at one individual’s choice, readers see that Good and Right decisions do not have to be mutually exclusive. (shrink)

Drawing on upper echelon theory, this study investigates the impact of CEOs’ (chief executive officers) demographic characteristics on corporate environmental performance (CEP) in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). We hypothesized that CEO characteristics, including gender, age, basic educational level, professional educational level, political connection, and ethnicity, affect SMEs’ environmental performance. Using the cross-sectional data analysis of 810 Vietnamese SMEs, this study provides evidence that female CEOs and CEOs’ educational level (both basic and professional) are positively related to the (...) probability of CEP. We also find that based on the role of institutional environment on CEP, political connections had a negative effect on CEP in the context of Vietnam. Another finding is that SMEs with chief executives from ethnic minority groups show a higher level of the probability of corporate environmental performance than companies operated by Kinh chief executives. Since CEP is an essential dimension of corporate social responsibility, a strategic decision for SMEs, it is crucial for the company to select appropriate CEOs based on their demographic characteristics. (shrink)

The move from good to ought, a premise form found in many justifications of environmental ethics, is itself in need of justification. Of the potential moves from good to ought surveyed, some have considerable promise and others less or none. Those without much promise include extrapolations of obligations based on human goods to nonsentient natural entities, appeals to educated judgment, precautionary arguments, humanistic consequentialist arguments, and justifications that assert that our obligations to natural entities are neither directly to those (...) entities nor derived from our obligations to humans. Some arguments that extrapolate obligations based on goods involving sentience from humans to sentient animals are promising, but whether they are sufficient is controversial. Gandhian andAristotlian arguments are also promising, provided we can justify their ought premises. (shrink)

This article considers the role of law as an active force in educating citizens on norms of the society. The norms are created and enforced in the law in general, but of particular importance are those in environmental law. In environmental law the environment is not protected only for the sake of serving human beings. To learn this lesson, however, one must look at the specifics of the law and its application. Some laws purport to be concerned with (...) the environment for its own sake, but a review of the language of that law shows it to be indirectly benefitting humans. (shrink)

Twenty first century is posing unprecedented challenges for the human existence and development. This era has witnessed awesome economic & technological growth, increased connectedness but great poverty, malnutrition, anxiety, mental stress and environmental degradation. Thus, this time depicts great contradiction, uncertainty, and risk. Accordingly, in this era a holistic education system has to deal with the challenges such as population growth, terrorism, environmental degradation, hegemony of machines, mental stress, cultivating creativity, bridging the skill and wisdom gap, and (...) expanding human potential etc. To find a sustainable solution to such challenges, we need to develop a holistic education system which acknowledges various dimension of human being. For this task, this paper will try to highlight some philosophical themes which are commonly suggested by various prominent thinkers such as M.K. Gandhi, R.N. Tagore, J. Krishnamurti, S. Radhakrishnan etc. in India, and J. Dewey, I. Illich, and B. Russell etc. in the west. They have put forward their philosophy to discuss the aims of education which are relevant to this century. In this paper, we will analyze their views from the perspective of the challenges that the twenty-first century world is going to face. Our investigation will analyze agreements and disagreements among the approaches taken by these educators. However, the focus will be on the commonalities, so that we can identify some philosophical themes which can work as the solid foundation for holistic model of education. (shrink)

African indigenous education is a mode of study that was fashioned to propagate and disseminate African economic and socio-cultural practices. This study gyrates on the extent to which this education inculcated ideal environmental consciousness among its recipients. The study analyses philosophical canons of indigenous African education and the role each canon played in sustaining a healthy environment. The method used in this study is analysis as it facilitates easy juxtaposition of philosophical canons of African indigenous (...) class='Hi'>education with the tenets of ecopedagogy. The study submits that African education was ecologic. This has been neglected yet it is useful in guaranteeing environmental sustainability. Place-based learning, revision of the curriculum to incorporate ecopedagogy and awareness creation through seminars are the approaches recommended by the study. (shrink)

Is the use of animals in undergraduate education ethically justifiable? One way to answer this question is to focus on the factors relevant to those who serve on Institutional Animal Care and Use Committees . An analysis of the debate surrounding the practice of dissection at the undergraduate level helps shed light on these issues. Settling that debate hinges on claims about the kind of knowledge gained from dissection and other “hands-on” kinds of experiences, and whether such knowledge is (...) needed to meet educational goals. Most undergraduate courses will probably lack a sufficient justification for the use of animals for dissection, since the educational goals can be met with non-animal alternatives. In addition, there are some general guidelines that can be extrapolated from this debate, which should be of assistance in deciding whether a sufficient justification has been given for animal use. One guideline is that justifications for animal use should require demonstrating that the use adds value to the educational experience in a way that is directly tied to the course objectives. Furthermore, the use of animals should not be simply built into the objectives of a course in such a way that the use is merely assumed, with no actual justification provided. One must beware of putative standards for justification that would fail to rule out any possible animal use. (shrink)

Cross-cultural dialogue between the Kyoto School of modern Japanese philosophy and the classical pragmatist tradition in American philosophy can help educators to clarify aims for greater ecological responsiveness in moral education. This dialogue can contribute to meeting an urgent practical need to cultivate ecological imagination, and an equally practical need to make theoretical sense of the way in which ecological perception becomes relevant to moral deliberation. The first section of this chapter explores relational thinking in the Kyoto School and (...) American pragmatism to help develop, in the second section, a concept of ecological imagination. A fine-tuned ecological imagination is a capacity we already count on in our best environmental writers, educators, scientists, and policy analysts. Moral deliberation enlists imagination of a specifically ecological sort when the imaginative structures we use to understand ecosystemic relationships shape our mental simulations and what John Dewey calls our “dramatic rehearsals.” The final section draws from the foregoing to clarify some appropriate aims for contemporary moral education. Enriched through cross-cultural dialogue about the relational networks in which our finite lives are embedded, a finely aware ecological imagination can make the deliberations of the coming generation more trustworthy. (shrink)

This chapter critically examines the dominant tradition in formal education as an indirect driver of biocultural homogenization while revealing that there is an alternative tradition that fosters biocultural conservation. The dominant tradition, originating in the Seventeenth Century scientific revolution effected by René Descartes, Thomas Hobbes, Isaac Newton, John Locke and allied thinkers, privileges science, seen as facilitating the technological domination of the world in the service of economic growth, as the only genuine knowledge. This is at the foundation of (...) a globalized, homogenizing culture that reduces everything and everyone to instruments of the globalized economy. The alternative, now recognized as the Radical Enlightenment, has its roots in the Renaissance. Represented by thinkers such as Giordano Bruno, Giambattista Vico, Gottfried Herder and Friedrich Wilhelm Schelling, it challenges such dogmatic scientism and upholds the value of diverse cultures, past and present. It offers an alternative tradition and model of education fostering imagination, understanding and appreciation of diversity in the quest for wisdom. It is a model of education which engenders respect for and appreciation of the value of different cultures, including indigenous wisdom with very different attitudes to nature, thereby developing the capacity to reflect on, question, criticize and overcome the homogenizing imperialism of mainstream modernist culture. (shrink)

Plastic waste pollution has become a significant issue, with global plastic production rising sharply over the decades. This dramatic increase has resulted in severe environmental and health consequences, affecting both terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems and potentially leading to serious health problems in humans. Addressing this crisis requires an approach that involves enhancing public capability, implementing effective policy interventions, and fostering motivation toward sustainability.

To fully rationally answer Socrates’s question, ‘How should one live?’, we need to answer the epistemic question: ‘How can one know how one should live?’. This paper attempts to answer both. ` The issue of rationality is crucial here. ‘Rationality’ here only concerns knowledge, e.g., ways to acquire scientific knowledge, and meta-knowledge concerning values. No values as such are rational or knowledge. However:- Many factors are required for human rationality to exist and develop, e.g., life, mental health and evidence-based (...) class='Hi'>education. Human rationality’s need for those factors, hence their value to rationality, is rationally-unquestionable – and that applies to the practised values prescribing the prescribable factors. Those prescribable factors require certain interrelated epistemic, moral, social, political, legal, educational and other values to be practised. This implies a pro-rationality values-theory with one obligatory, general end – a uniquely rationally-unquestionable end. This end provides the basis for answering Socrates’s question as rationally (correctly) as is possible for values. That end is fundamentally epistemic, namely ‘Be pro-rationality’, yet the theory has deeply-humanly-meaningful, universal applications. It has implications for current and all possible moral, social, political, legal, educational, environmental etc issues. E.g., the theory shows that human rationality crucially requires certain emotions, health-care, education and upbringing. With this, the paper discusses affection, free speech, journalism, psychotherapy, political and sexual consent, rights, responsibilities, freedom and government. The theory’s sub-values prescribe much prescribed by some other theories, e.g., broad and deep knowledge-acquisition (in certain areas), rationally-critical thinking, non-sexism, non-racism, general types of liberalism, holistic flourishing, happiness, unselfishness and fairness. However, all other values-theories lack pro-rationality theory’s maximum possible rational-unquestionability, internal coherence and coherence with rationality. The theory encourages total freedom in a-rationality areas, areas irrelevant to its obligatory end. The theory inherently requires its advocates to be (self )critical, rationally viewing the theory’s necessarily human-suggested specifics as often fallible or unavoidably approximate. So the theory is a work-in-progress. (shrink)

Collected and edited by Noah Levin -/- Table of Contents: -/- UNIT ONE: INTRODUCTION TO CONTEMPORARY ETHICS: TECHNOLOGY, AFFIRMATIVE ACTION, AND IMMIGRATION 1 The “Trolley Problem” and Self-Driving Cars: Your Car’s Moral Settings (Noah Levin) 2 What is Ethics and What Makes Something a Problem for Morality? (David Svolba) 3 Letter from the Birmingham City Jail (Martin Luther King, Jr) 4 A Defense of Affirmative Action (Noah Levin) 5 The Moral Issues of Immigration (B.M. Wooldridge) 6 The Ethics of our (...) Digital Selves (Noah Levin) -/- UNIT TWO: TORTURE, DEATH, AND THE “GREATER GOOD” 7 The Ethics of Torture (Martine Berenpas) 8 What Moral Obligations do we have (or not have) to Impoverished Peoples? (B.M. Wooldridge) 9 Euthanasia, or Mercy Killing (Nathan Nobis) 10 An Argument Against Capital Punishment (Noah Levin) 11 Common Arguments about Abortion (Nathan Nobis & Kristina Grob) 12 Better (Philosophical) Arguments about Abortion (Nathan Nobis & Kristina Grob) -/- UNIT THREE: PERSONS, AUTONOMY, THE ENVIRONMENT, AND RIGHTS 13 Animal Rights (Eduardo Salazar) 14 John Rawls and the “Veil of Ignorance” (Ben Davies) 15 Environmental Ethics: Climate Change (Jonathan Spelman) 16 Rape, Date Rape, and the “Affirmative Consent” Law in California (Noah Levin) 17 The Ethics of Pornography: Deliberating on a Modern Harm (Eduardo Salazar) 18 The Social Contract (Thomas Hobbes) -/- UNIT FOUR: HAPPINESS 19 Is Pleasure all that Matters? Thoughts on the “Experience Machine” (Prabhpal Singh) 20 Utilitarianism (J.S. Mill) 21 Utilitarianism: Pros and Cons (B.M. Wooldridge) 22 Existentialism, Genetic Engineering, and the Meaning of Life: The Fifths (Noah Levin) 23 The Solitude of the Self (Elizabeth Cady Stanton) 24 Game Theory, the Nash Equilibrium, and the Prisoner’s Dilemma (Douglas E. Hill) -/- UNIT FIVE: RELIGION, LAW, AND ABSOLUTE MORALITY 25 The Myth of Gyges and The Crito (Plato) 26 God, Morality, and Religion (Kristin Seemuth Whaley) 27 The Categorical Imperative (Immanuel Kant) 28 The Virtues (Aristotle) 29 Beyond Good and Evil (Friedrich Nietzsche) 30 Other Moral Theories: Subjectivism, Relativism, Emotivism, Intuitionism, etc. (Jan F. Jacko). (shrink)

Abstract: This study introduces a machine learning-based model for predicting student performance using a comprehensive dataset derived from educational sources, encompassing 15 key features and comprising 62,631 student samples. Our five-layer neural network demonstrated remarkable performance, achieving an accuracy of 89.14% and an average error of 0.000715, underscoring its effectiveness in predicting student outcomes. Crucially, this research identifies pivotal determinants of student success, including factors such as socio-economic background, prior academic history, study habits, and attendance patterns, shedding light on the (...) nuanced dynamics of student performance. The key influential features identified in this study offer valuable insights into the complex factors shaping student achievement. These insights are vital for educators, policymakers, and institutions seeking to enhance educational outcomes and promote equitable access to quality education. This research provides a data-driven foundation for proactive interventions, personalized learning strategies, and support systems, ultimately contributing to improved student performance and academic success. The high accuracy of the predictive model and the feature analysis it provides empower decision-makers in the education sector. This model holds significant potential for applications in student performance monitoring, early intervention, and tailored educational strategies. By adopting a data-driven approach, this work advances the field of educational analytics and contributes to the goal of fostering student success and educational equity. (shrink)

Rapid urbanization in Vietnam significantly impacts the environment and human well-being. Public parks are crucial for enhancing social and environmental sustainability in urban areas, yet their establishment and expansion require substantial funding. This study investigates the factors influencing Vietnamese urban residents’ willingness to donate to planting projects in public parks, utilizing the Bayesian Mindsponge Framework (BMF), which combines Mindsponge Theory’s informational entropy-based notion of value with Bayesian analysis. Analyzing data from 535 residents in major Vietnamese cities, we found that (...) while men visit public parks more frequently, they are less willing to donate to planting projects. Older residents visit parks more often and are more willing to donate, while higher-income individuals show greater willingness to donate. Most motivations—such as relaxation, physical activities, nature enjoyment, socializing, and family time—are positively linked to park visit frequency and indirectly to donation willingness. However, only relaxation and enjoyment of nature are directly associated with willingness to donate. Interestingly, higher education levels and visiting parks for children’s educational activities are associated with lower donation willingness. These findings hint at the possible existence of the free-riding problem, gender inequality, ineffective environmental education, and lack of awareness of public parks’ natural value, as well as opportunities to cultivate an eco-surplus culture through nature interactions in public parks. (shrink)

In this text, I discuss the environmental education project "Legible Landscape ", which aims to teach inhabitants to read their landscape and develop a closer, more engaged relationship to place. I show that the project's semiotic perspective on landscape legibility tends to hamper the understanding of the moral dimension of reading landscapes, and argue that a hermeneutical perspective is better suited to acknowledge the way that readers and texts are intimately connected.

This essay reexamines Holmes Rolston’s evocative notion of “storied residence” and evaluates it for its fitness for environmental virtue ethics. Environmental virtue ethics (or EVE) continues to garner attention among environmental philosophers, and recently Brian Treanor has argued for the indispensability of narrative approaches as part of that discourse. In this paper, I endorse this indispensability thesis generally, but I argue that narrative environmental virtue ethics must be supplemented either by “storied residence” or a similar environmentally, (...) scientifically, culturally, and historically rich concept of narrative. Rolston himself has criticized environmental virtue ethics for being too agent-centered. Fortunately, an adequate sense of storied-residence is precisely what is needed to avoid triggering the vicious anthropocentrism that concerns Rolston. More concretely, storied-residence makes place(s) central to environmental virtue ethics by giving expression to features of the more-than-human world that often become secondary considerations to agency in accounts of environmental virtue. (shrink)

Educated people everywhere now acknowledge that ecological destruction is threatening the future of civilization. While philosophers have concerned themselves with environmental problems, they appear to offer little to deal with this crisis. Despite this, I will argue that philosophy, and ethics, are absolutely crucial to overcoming this crisis. Philosophy has to recover its grand ambitions to achieve a comprehensive understanding of nature and the place of humanity within it, and ethics needs to be centrally concerned with the virtues required (...) to create and then sustain economic, social and political formations that augment the life of ecological communities. Achieving these ends will involve reviving speculative philosophy and its quest to forge a synthesis of natural philosophy, history and art to enable humanity to redefine its place in the world, both collectively and as individuals, in very practical ways. Such a synthesis is required to oppose the corrosion of democracy and to revive the virtues of citizenship and the sense of responsibility citizenship entails, but more fundamentally and intimately related to such citizenship, to oppose managerialism and the proletarianization of the workforce and to revive workmanship and professionalism as the foundations of not only economic life, but social and political life. (shrink)

In Fall 2012, Green Mountain College’s oxen team “Bill and Lou” became the focus of an international animal rights protest. The Guernsey team had plowed the fields of the small Vermont college farm together for a decade. Lou injured a rear leg twice over the summer and eventually became unable to support his own great weight. With administrative support, the college’s farm crew decided to slaughter the team. This was in keeping with an aim of the college’s Farm and Food (...) Project to “close the loop” with its dining services. At that time the mission of the environmentally-themed liberal arts college was to represent a community-wide ethos of responsibility for the systemic impact of human behaviors. Accordingly, the college farm sought to build a sustainable farming and food system that lifts the veil that separates consumers from the source of meat and livestock products. The basic idea was that if students wish to be change agents in the world, they need to understand the ins-and-outs of the systems in which that change can take place. So the college strove to bring the food system into the classroom. Chefs and farmers weren’t hidden away in kitchens and fields; they were brought into the educational process. Guided by faculty, staff, and administrative oversight, along with a thick sheaf of policies, this periodically meant that students made life-and-death decisions. (shrink)

La causa de la esterilidad e inoperancia del paradigma reinante de la educación ambiental, reside en que no se basa en ninguna concepción ideológica de la naturaleza humana, ni mucho menos, en una concepción axio-antropológica racional de la naturaleza humana.

What does environmental ethics have to say about the urban context? Is the city an environment that has only negative value or is it possible, and in fact necessary, to develop ethical recommendations about how to design it? In this paper, I argue for the second of these disjuncts and sketch some ideas for an environmental city ethics. I try to show that the most important principle of such an ethics is procedural: anyone affected by a decision about (...) the urban environment must have the possibility to participate in the process of making it. This principle has certain preconditions and there are also limitations on its applicability. For example, it is plausible that there are certain ecocentric ethical obligations, which are valid independently of the implementation of the principle. I sketch an idea for how a city’s green areas can help to raise citizens’ awareness of these obligations. -/- ¿Qué se puede decir, desde la ética ambiental, acerca del contexto urbano? ¿Se trata de un ambiente únicamente con valor negativo o es posible, e incluso necesario, desarrollar recomendaciones éticas sobre cómo diseñarlo? En este texto argumento en favor de la segunda afirmación y esbozo algunas ideas respecto de una ética ambiental para la ciudad. Defiendo que el principio más importante es procedimental: toda persona afectada debe tener la posibilidad de participar en la toma de las decisiones sobre el ambiente urbano. Este principio tiene ciertas precondiciones y también algunas restricciones. Por ejemplo, es plausible pensar en obligaciones éticas ecocéntricas válidas independientemente de la implementación del principio. Esbozo cómo las áreas verdes de una ciudad pueden ayudar a sensibilizar a los citadinos con estas obligaciones. (shrink)

Vẫn biết, học hỏi từ sách vở rất quan trọng, nhưng học từ thiên nhiên lại có những giá trị khó gì sánh nổi. Xét cho cùng phần nhiều kiến thức của con người cũng là thu nạp từ thông tin thiên nhiên mang lại. Hành trình của Charles Darwin từ xa xưa cũng mang bản chất học hỏi như vậy. Trong hình là hai cán bộ nghiên cứu của AISDL rời bỏ máy tính, thuật toán, dữ liệu số, để (...) đi vào rừng. Trước hướng nghiên cứu bền vững môi sinh, bước vào rừng là một việc mang nhiều ý nghĩa. (shrink)

This chapter delves into the museological side of ‘the way forward’ to conservation for planetary health bioethics. Specifically, it highlights the crucial role that museums play – their curatorial or exhibition interventions, conservation operations, development policies, or practices – which present or represent the vital relationship between human and planetary health. While it is not new to stress the significance of museums’ link to the environment and environmental education, it is necessary to re-examine recent cases in light of (...) the rapid changes brought about by climate change and the constant call for sustainability. We thus offer a review of some recent literature that appraises the museum’s role in bioethically considering the health of our living planet. Learning this role taps into relatively new themes such as ecomuseums and architectural heritage, or critical eco-museology. (shrink)

Environmental historian Kevin Armitage’s new book offers welcome relief to readers grown weary of anthropocentrism versus nonanthropecentrism debates and Muir-Pinchot-Leopold “third way” arguments. It will also find a receptive audience among those who have maintained all along that education is the key to addressing our environmental woes. In the United States, environmental education has a vibrant history. During the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, a critical mass of policy makers, educators, scientists, and philosophers shared (...) the belief that a curriculum based on the careful observation and study of nature should be taught in primary and secondary school classrooms. The “nature study movement,” as it was called, advanced an ambitious agenda for education reform based on a simple theory: children who develop a deep and abiding interest in the natural world mature into environmentally conscious adults and good citizens. Organized thematically, Armitage’s book lays out the meaning of nature study as well as its scientific and sentimental interpretations (introduction and chap. 1), the influence of progressive education on nature study (chap. 2), the connection between recapitulation theory and nature study (chap. 3), nature study and bird conservation (chap. 4), school gardening as an extension of nature study (chap. 5), the growth of nature photography in tandem with nature study (chap. 6), and finally nature study’s role in promoting agricultural reform (chap. 7). In case the significance of this progressive-era movement is still in doubt, the movement’s legacy can still be felt, Armitage contends, in the ideas of perhaps two of the most influential environmental thinkers of the past century: Aldo Leopold and Rachel Carson (conclusion). (shrink)

The study dealt with the present socio-economic status, perceptions and opportunities of maximizing the benefits of ecotourism to the local community. Responses from the local community, officials of the local government unit, and visitors using quantitative and qualitative method, particularly the inductive approach through survey, observation and interview was used. Local community involvement in tourism activity is limited to tour guiding, particularly the children, while the rest of the population are into farming, fishing and harvesting forest products. The park was (...) categorized as “Protected Landscape” under Republic Act 7586, now gaining its popularity and one of the fastest growing ecotourism sites in the Philippines is under the supervision of a private company. Visitor satisfaction and potential risk on environmental degradation were observed due to lack of regulation on the observance of carrying capacity. Tourism Action Plan for the destination was prepared but allocation for project for the local community that would contribute to their present socio-economic status was not evident. The geographical unit of the destination, its breath-taking view, the presence of various distinct flora and fauna made it to be labelled as the “Hidden Paradise and Mystical Eco-tourism in Nueva Ecija”. Sustainability in ecotourism, involves the participation of the communities that protect and manage the natural resources, cultural and indigenous knowledge and practices, environmental education and ethics. Community involvement equipped with proper education and conservation awareness, training, and employment opportunities may sustain the destination and enhance visitor satisfaction. (shrink)

MY CHAPTER CONTRIBUTION: "Paul Tillich's Enduring Relevance to Ecophilosophy and Environmental Ethics" *** -/- BOOK DESCRIPTION: Paul Tillich's ideas and methods continue to inspire and guide students, teachers, and professionals in all fields. He crosses boundaries between the academy and the community, religions and spiritualities, cultures and societies, taking leaders deeper and further than they ever imagined. Tillich is a master of conversation. His thought bridges social polarizations, program silos, and educational specialization. His ideas cannot be contained in a (...) closed system. His methodology has the power to engage other philosophies of life, religions and spiritualities, scientific research, culture shifts, and lifestyle diversity critically and appreciatively. Tillich is also a master of confrontation. His thought challenges political structures, racial and gender inequalities, and social injustice. He is an acute observer of social change and struggles courageously with moral quandaries. He inspires action for today and hope for tomorrow. Each essay explores another facet of Tillich's influence in education, religion, popular culture, science, health, social reform, and political action. They are chosen to be "snapshots" of his ongoing influence, accessible to both undergraduate and graduate students, and relevant to corporate and non-profit leaders alike. Reading this book will open your eyes to discern Tillich's hidden presence in academic curricula, contemporary research, political speeches and social policies, entertainment and internet, books and podcasts, and social media. Tillich can be your intellectual companion in whatever endeavor you choose to pursue. -/- . (shrink)