Ingeniører og naturetik

Engineers and environmental ethics.Environmental ethics is in this article dealt with as a concept of practice: It questions what guides professionals in action with nature (engineers, agronomists, farmers and the alike) when deciding which solution is preferable regarding sustainability.Engineers are for example more or less unconscious about what kind of views of nature they carry as individuals and as professionals.

The article presents different examples of the relation between views of nature and practices - especially from the organic farming. As distinctive views of nature are embedded or embodied in any practice or separate technology, the goal of sustainability also involves the choice of view of nature. This is where the ethical dimension comes into sight as knowledge about nature which include values.

I argue theoretically for such a concept of environmental ethics and give empirical examples of environmental ethics understood as knowledge about nature including values.