Peter Wenz

Who is Peter Wenz?

Peter Wenz is Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at the University of Illinois at Springfield, University Scholar of the University of Illinois, and Adjunct Professor of Medical Humanities at the Southern Illinois University School of Medicine. He received his B.A. in philosophy in 1967 from Harpur College of the State University of New York at Binghamton and his Ph.D. in philosophy in 1971 from the University of Wisconsin–Madison. He taught at the University of Wisconsin–Stevens Point from 1971 to 1976 before moving to Springfield. He has also taught at Polytechnic of the South Bank in London, England; at Aberdeen University in Scotland; at Oxford University in England and at The University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand. He teaches regularly at the Chautauqua Institution in New York State. He is best known for work in environmental justice, being among those who simultaneously coined the term in the mid-1980s. His most widely reprinted articles are "Just Garbage" and "Minimal Moderate and Extreme Moral Pluralism." His specialties include environmental ethics, political remedial philosophy, and medical ethics.