In this assignment, you will critically analyze the historical origins and present ethical dimensions of a past event or enduring cultural pattern of action in American society which had, and probably still does have, important environmental (as well as other) consequences.

1) From the content covered in the given section of the course, identify a key choice, event or major historical phase (composed of a set of related events) to focus on. (i.e., in the Hanford unit, obvious candidates include: development of nuclear techn. culminating with use of the bomb; use of nuclear reactors for civilian power generation; creation of wastes at Hanford & elsewhere; revelation of wastes and plans for cleanup...)

2) Describe this event, including the actions leading up to it, and how it was viewed / understood by important actors at the time.  Show that you have incorporated facts and perspectives from the readings into your thinking.

3) Address the consequences of the event (social and/or environmental consequences... whatever you feel is significant to your analysis).

4) Then, in a second part of the paper (of about equal length), identify and discuss the ethical issues raised by this event and/or its consequences. You can focus on the past or the present or both in this section.  Part of your discussion should include presecriptive ethics (questions of what we should or ought to do, to provide reasoned judgments of actions, justifying your judgments on prescriptive criteria).  In doing so, show that you have disgested the readings by employing their vocabulary, concepts, principles, and so on, in your discussion.

If you follow the above guides, you should do fine.  If you want more guidance, you can look at the following steps, but don't worry about following them slavishly -- just take them as additional suggetions for a process.
 

Your paper should have a thesis that argues for a certain analysis of the causes of the event or pattern, and that presents what is in your judgement the best ethical framework for thinking about the present consequences of it.

It often helps to imagine an audience for your writing.  Of course I'll be the real audience, and I'll want you to write a well researched and argued piece.  But what I really want you to do is demonstrate your ability to put the pieces together from this unit of the course in a way that adds to your, and others', comprehension.  Thus, it might help to imagine your audience as someone in the present who needs to make a decision on the matter, but who approaches it without the benefit of historical perspective and ethical reflection.  Your writing should help inform such a person so that their understanding and thus their decision will be less naive.  Possibly your audience is an open-minded and reasonable elected official or a citizen's group who needs to take a stance on the issue.

In what follows, I offer several steps that may help clarify this task.

First you will need to select from the subject matter of this section of the course, an object for analysis.  That object might be an event, a choice or decision (by an individual or government, or other agency), or an identifiable institutional arrangement or cultural practice or belief.  For example, you might look at the establishment of the National Forest Service (an event creating an enduring institution); or the passage of the Wilderness Act; or our culture's materialist/mechanistic and dualistic metaphysics, as it is manifested in many ways including nuclear physics; or the role of policies supporting economic growth or consumerism.  The main thing is that your object of analysis should have historical antecedants you can examine, and environmental consequences that may reach down to the present.  You're looking for something that people did or believed in the past that you can describe, and examine in historical and ethical perspectives.

Next you should draw together your materials on the environmental history of your subject.  What forces and events came together to produce the thing you're studying.  This might include the dialectical human-environment interactions that have determined how people use or understand this part of nature (e.g., soil type and farming attempts; colonial technology and vast forests...); the cultural conditions or practices and associated beliefs involved (e.g., cut and take and the idea of superabundance; economic overproduction and innovation); and especially the guiding values (e.g., progress, providence, security from an immediate threat, social welfare, efficiency; prodigality).  It also includes a definite chain of human actions and choices.  You may not be able to identify all (or even many) of these, but at least the major ones (laws passed, executive choices, attempts to influence others, etc.) should be noted.

Next you should also draw together your materials on the consequences of the event or pattern you've chosen. Consequences may be both environmental and social, and "positive" and "negative" - see 2x2 table below.  Note that "positive" and "negative" depend on viewpoint, so different parties may have seen things differently.  Try to be concrete rather than vague in describing these:
 
 

Consequences
	Positive	Negative
Social	list here	list here
Environmental	list here	list here

Then, answer this question: What did people at the time of the event or pattern know and believe about the consequences of their actions?

Having assembled the information above, you may be prepared to draft the first part of your paper, which presents the historical origins of the important environmental consequences.  Your account may not need to contain all the material you've gathered; you need to think carefully about what were the most important causes of the event or pattern.  One main part of your thesis will advance your analysis of the historical origins of the environmental consequences that flowed from the past event.

The second part of your paper should present a coherent ethical framework for thinking about the present manifestations of your topic. For example, you might have picked high-level radioactive nuclear waste.  The first part of the paper will offer your historical account of how this problem arose, including the perceptions of actors at the time.  In a sense they were responsible for the problem, though this is tempered by understanding their historical context and beliefs.  Yet their responsibility carries no currency in the present (in this example -- since they are no longer here; indeed we have inherited the dilemmas they created).  To decide what we must do now, we need a separate analysis of the (present and future) ethical dimensions of nuclear waste and policies dealing with it.  Presenting such an analysis is the job of this second part of the thesis.

Find sources that help you develop your ethical analysis.  In most cases, some of the assigned and optional readings will directly offer resources for this part of your task, and you should draw on them as fits your thinking, always acknowledging your use of others' ideas.  Your treatment of the ethical dimensions may fall short of being comprehensive; that's expected.  I'm more interested in seeing you appropriately apply some of the concepts covered, and seeing you grasp the ethical implications of the present environmental controversies.  So, to follow up on the above example of nuclear waste, you could draw on Shrader-Frechette; or on the political / technological considerations addressed by Rosa et al.  Part of your job is to determine what the critical ethical issues are; beyond that you should propose principles that respond to the needs of the situation.  I do not expect you to find or offer a perfect solution. I'm interested in seeing you find and grapple with the ethical difficulties, and then propose some reasonable ways to think about them.

You should be able to mostly draw on the materials from the course to complete this assignment.  Outside sources are allowed, if you wish (be sure to cite your sources, using MLA or Chicago style).

Evaluation
The scope of your considerations and quality of your reasoning will be of primary importance in evaluation, not your particular stance on an issue.  See this evaluation rubric for more (Note: it is slightly different than the one for the first paper).

Sample Papers
Wilderness / End Spp. Example of excellent paper # 1
Wilderness / End Spp. Example of excellent paper # 2
Wilderness / End Spp. Example of excellent paper # 3
Wilderness / End Spp. Example of good paper
Wilderness / End Spp. Example of 'below average' paper

Hanford Sample Example of excellent paper # 1
Hanford Sample Example of excellent paper # 2
Hanford Sample Example of excellent paper # 3
Hanford Sample Example of good paper
Hanford Sample Example of inadequate paper #1
Hanford Sample Example of inadequate paper #2