Environmental Pragmatism and the Revision of Values

Abstract:Environmental pragmatism grew out of dissatisfaction with the inefficaciousness of environmental philosophy in influencing environmental decision-making and policy. Its most central proponent, Bryan G. Norton has provided an extended account of ecological management as a process of revision of the beliefs and values of a community through experience and deliberation. In this article, two lines of criticism of Norton’s view are examined. The first maintains that environmental pragmatism offers limited tools for dealing with major, global environmental crises such as climate change. According to the second, environmental pragmatism cannot provide a viable account of how social learning improves our values rather than that it merely changes them. It is argued that, while the first criticism largely misses its mark, the second points to an important issue that has broad relevance to pragmatist accounts of inquiry and democracy. Norton’s position—like that of many other pragmatists —oscillates between a constructivist and a realist approach to inquiry; it is only the latter approach, however, that can offer an account of the revision of values that can meet this criticism.