Ethics for Environmental Professionals

摘要

The following presentation was given by the Rev.Dr.J.Philip Wogaman on June 25,2003,at the National Association of Environmental Professionals' (NAEP) 28th Annual Conference,held in San Antonio,Texas.I am grateful for the opportunity to address this significant gathering of environmental professionals.As an ethicist,I can only applaud your renewed interest in professional ethics.While I am not myself an environmental professional,most of my career has been as a professor of ethics and,more recently,as pastor of a church with many members who are interested in both ethics and the environment.I offer these observations as an "interested outsider." I believe it was the military historian Karl von Clausewitz who observed that war is too important to leave to the generals.Perhaps,in like spirit,we might agree that environmental issues are too important to leave to the professional environmentalists and,I have to add,ethics is too important to leave to those of us who are professional ethicists.We're all in all of this together.So,while I am not a professional environmentalist,I can venture some observations about ethics for your consideration.And,while you are not professional ethicists,you can and must reflect seriously on ethics as it applies to your work as environmentalists.