Biography

Thomas H. Bretz is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at Utah Valley University, where he is also the Environmental Ethics Fellow at the Center for the Study of Ethics and the coordinator for the Environmental Studies Minor. He is involved with various sustainability efforts on campus such as the sustainability committee and the planning of UVU's yearly Sustainability Week.
His research agenda is overall characterized by a concern with inclusive, just and sustainable communities. Specifically, he investigates the possibility of norms and practices that allow for reciprocal relationships between and among humans and non-humans (including so-called inanimate beings). To pursue this project, he relies on research in environmental philosophy & ethics, phenomenology, deconstruction, disability theory, feminist theory as well as North American Indigenous philosophies. He is currently working on a book project tentatively called "Animism as a Humanism" that aims to show that animism - pace the strong anti-animistic commitments of most Western outlooks and institutions - provides a strong form of practical rationality.
Apart from teaching introductory level courses such as Introduction to Philosophy and Ethics and Values as well as Modern and Ancient Legacies courses for the Honors program, he also teaches a variety of upper-division courses. He teaches the following classes on a regular basis_ Environmental Ethics, Environmental Aesthetics and Ethics of Human/Animal Relationships. He has also taught topics courses on Political Ecology as well as Climate Change_ Human Effects, and is currently working on a course on Food Philosophy and (North) American Indigenous Philosophies.

Teaching