ABSTRACT
Certainly, the professions being found to be worthy of being sanctioned by the state do have ethical obligations, but do those obligations extend to acting sustainably? That is to say, can the long-standing obligation to protect public health and safety be seen to include concern with the environment, with nature, and with the future? Traditionally, our ethics have been essentially humanist in nature, and our obligations are limited to impacts on people; extending our obligations to include sustainability requires much broader view. An obligation to produce sustainable outcomes necessarily takes a long view in time in its concern for people and includes a basic concern with nonhuman impacts such as climate, environmental quality, soil health, and the integrity of natural systems as a whole.
Chapter 3 discusses ethics to explore whether such an obligation can be said to exist and where the foundation for such an ethic might be found in traditional ethical theory. Kantian, virtue, and utilitarian ethics are considered in turn and then applied to the ethical acts of design professions. The discussion also considers whether our professional obligation can be seen to extend to nonliving things—an essential element of sustainable natural systems. The subject of speciesism is briefly discussed.
Chapter 3 then asks the question “who owns the environment?” that leads to a discussion of value, property, and the environment. Traditionally, environmental impacts have been accepted as a way of life, the cost of doing business, and so on. Natural values have been those that are most easily converted into economic value. But can economic value be found in nature, and if so, how is that evaluated in terms of impact and harm? Ultimately, how are these things evaluated in a sustainable system?
Finally, the role of professional standards is discussed as a way for the individual designer to evaluate performance as sustainable. The standard of care and the importance of the community of professional designers acting as a self-regulating profession that has pertinent knowledge and perspective beyond that of clients or the public are seen as critical to the acts of individuals and professions alike.
