FROM DELIGHT TO WISDOM: THIRTY YEARS OF TEACHING ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS AT CORNELL Richard A. Baer, Jr., James A. Tantillo, Gregory E. Hitzhusen, Karl E. Johnson, and James R. Skillen Abstract In this paper, the authors retrace the philosophy and method of Natural Resources 407, “Religion, Ethics, and the Environment,” which has been continuously taught at Cornell University by the lead author since 1974. The works of Iris Murdoch, Stanley Hauerwas, Reinhold Niebuhr, Joseph Sax, and Thomas Merton are discussed, culminating in an aesthetic vision of environmental ethics as “praise for all things.” The course aims more to foster a general moral maturity rather than to instill any particularly specific set of environmental behaviors in students, and the authors believe that such an aim makes a lasting contribution to environmental ethics. Keywords : environmental ethics; environmental education; environmental philosophy; Iris Murdoch Introduction In the fall of 1974 Richard A. Baer, Jr. came to Cornell University from Earlham College in Indiana to start an environmental ethics program in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. The pro- gram was housed in the Department of Natural Resources, and dur- ing its early years was funded by the Lilly Endowment, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, and several other foundations. The core undergrad- uate course in the program, designed for juniors and seniors but also open to graduate students, has been Natural Resources 407: Religion, Ethics, and the Environment (NR407). Richard Baer retires in August 2004, and it is time to look back over these thirty years and ask: What have we accomplished? “We,” because from the very beginning, this has been a collaborative effort with some incredibly talented teaching assistants, mostly graduate students of Baer’s, but also including the occasional visitor or Ithaca resident, sometimes with Ph.D. in hand, whom Baer was able to persuade to give a helping hand. Since 1974, close to twenty-five © Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2004 Worldviews 8,2-3 298-322 Also available online – www.brill.nl Wviews 8.2-3_f10_298-322 10/20/04 3:42 PM Page 298