When Pope Francis launched his encyclical Laudato si’, On the Care for Our Common Home, on the eve of the 2015 UN Climate Change Conference COP21, he gave a clear signal that theology has much to offer the contemporary world and the challenges that it is facing.
With the 2015 encyclical and his update Laudate Deum, Pope Francis showed that caring for the environment is not only about dealing with climate change, marine plastic pollution, and deforestation, but even more with the way that we view ourselves as human beings and our relationships with one another.
It is with this in mind that the Professional Ethics Platform within the Moral Theology Department at the University of Malta is offering a Master of Arts in Environmental Ethics.
This Department within the Faculty of Theology has been teaching Catholic Social Teaching and professional ethics across a variety of fields including bioethics and business ethics for more than 50 years.
The program of studies includes a number of carefully selected units that will equip students with what they would 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 among others:
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 program of studies consists of a two-year coursework delivered fully online (asynchronously as well as via Zoom). The third and final year will also include a dissertation under the direction of a supervisor.
Find out more about the program here.
If you have any queries about this program of studies or if you would like to collaborate in some way or another, please do reach out!
