New Master’s Program in Environmental Ethics

When Pope Francis launched his encyclical Laudato si’Regarding the care for our common home, he gave a clear signal on the eve of the 2015 UN climate conference COP21 that theology has much to offer the contemporary world and the challenges it faces.

With the 2015 encyclical and its update Laudate DeumPope Francis has shown that caring for the environment is not just about dealing with climate change, marine plastic pollution and deforestation, but also about even more so with the way we see ourselves as people and our relationships with each other.

Unit

With this in mind, the Professional Ethics Platform was established within the Moral Theology department of the University of Amsterdam University of Malta offers one Master of Arts in Environmental Ethics.

This department within the Faculty of Theology has been teaching Catholic social teaching and professional ethics for more than 50 years in various areas, including bioethics and business ethics.

The program of study includes a number of carefully selected units that will equip students with what they need to help them analyze, plan and respond to ethical issues affecting the environment. The study units are built around some of the guiding principles of Laudato si’and include:

Environmental ethics in law and policy making;
Environmental ethics: the political community and future generations;
The relational human subject and cultural-ecological responsibility;
Sustainability in social-ecological systems;
The built environment: aesthetics and sustainability;
Environmental ethics and economics;
Food ethics;
Technological sustainability;
Education for sustainable development: an ethical perspective.

The part-time study program consists of a two-year course taught entirely online (both asynchronously and via Zoom). The third and final year also includes a dissertation under the supervision of a supervisor.

Read more about the program here.

If you have any questions about this study program or if you would like to collaborate in some way, please feel free to contact us!