The Future of Graduate Education in Environmental Philosophy/Ethics

In this brief paper, I focus on a specific area of the future of environmental philosophy and ethics (EP): graduate education. One way in which EP has substantially expanded in the past two decades is in the provision of graduate education, with a group of specialist Masters programs; a new PhD program at University of North Texas—University of Texas, Arlington; and a number of other universities now producing PhD graduates in EP. To keep the field growing and developing, new graduates must continue to enter it, both as academics and as environmental professionals informed by EP. In this context, I identify some questions, some challenges posed for EP by philosophy as an academic discipline, and some possible future strategies for developing EP at graduate level.

Questions

1. a. Is there a need for the provision of more specialist Masters and PhD programs in EP?

2. b. Are there key elements of EP with which all graduates (at PhD level, for example) should be familiar? If so, what are these key elements?

3. c. How can information be made more widely available and accessible to those who want to undertake graduate work in EP?

4. d. How can graduate students best be supported by those already working in EP while they are undertaking their graduate work (especially given the challenges below)?

5. e. How can those currently working in EP best assist graduates entering the job market (whether this is in philosophy, in some other academic subject such as environmental studies, or professionally)?

Challenges raised by academic philosophy

1. f. The climate of academic philosophy: While this may have improved in the past few years, it's reasonable to say that there is some skepticism about—and perhaps suspicion of—EP among "mainstream" analytic philosophers (and perhaps Continental ones as well). Doubts may concern the analytic rigor of EP (often in the context of applied philosophy more generally), or worries that the subject is peripheral to the "core" concerns of philosophy. Such worries have the particular implication that departments, in particular top philosophy departments, are reluctant to hire in this area. This reluctance may be compounded by more systemic problems, particularly that Philosophy "ranking" systems (the Research Assessment Exercise in the United Kingdom, the Leiter rankings in the United States) are not particularly favorable to work in EP. While an Area of Concentration in EP might be a useful second string on the Philosophy job market, an Area of Specialization in the field will substantially restrict the number of job opportunities available.

2. g. Related challenges for graduate education in EP. Graduate students wanting to specialize in EP, but who work outside the departments in which this is a particular focus, may feel isolated and unsupported during their studies. On the other hand, students who carry out graduate work at the institutions that do focus on EP may find it difficult to get jobs in good philosophy departments, perhaps because of suspicions that such a specialist background may not have prepared students adequately for broader philosophical work.

Some possible strategies

There are, of course, many ways of answering the questions and addressing the challenges above. These are just a few suggestions:

1. h. Ensure that graduate students who want a career in academic philosophy get a solid grounding in other areas of philosophy—in particular the "core areas" such as metaphysics, epistemology, and metaethics. It might be enough if graduate students take assessed courses in these areas. But there might be further advantages if they pursue a thesis topic where the environmental part of the thesis is illustrative, or an example of some much broader theoretical argument, so that it can be framed on the job market as not solely being a thesis in EP.

2. i. For those working in EP professionally: Maintain supportive links with graduate students working in EP in other institutions, especially if they seem isolated. Remember to inform them about relevant upcoming conferences, and offer to read and comment on draft papers/chapters. The establishment of a more formal network/annual conference for graduate students in EP is worth considering, as is the provision of special...