Session 9: Other Perspectives on Enironmental Pragmatism

Reading Assignment: Joel Mintz (2004) "Some Thoughts on the Merits of Pragmatism as a Guide to Environmental Protection;" Andrew Light (1969) "Ecological Restoration and the Culture of Nature: A Pragmatic Perspective;" Kelly Parker (1996) (You will have to rotate this pdf file to read it) "Pragmatism and Environmental Thought."

Video Assignment: Justin Smith (2014) "From Idealist to Environmental Pragmatist;" Dory Ganes (2015) "Pragmatic Idealism."

Homework Assignment:

1. According to William James: "Pragmatism asks its usual question. "Grant an idea or belief to be true," it says, "what concrete difference will its being true make in anyone's actual life? How will the truth be realized? What experiences will be different from those which would obtain if the belief were false? What, in short, is the truth's cash-value in experiential terms?" The moment pragmatism askse this question, it sees the answer: True ideas are those which assimilate, validate, corroborate and verify. False ideas are those that we cannot." By contrast John Dewey wrote: "Truth is a collection of truths and these constituent truths are in the keeping and testing as to "matters-of-fact"." After reading the Mintz assigned reading explain what Dewey and James have in common regarding their notions of truth realized through pragmatism.
2. What does Dory Ganes mean by "pragmatic idealism?"
3. How did Justin Smith evolve from an idealist to an environmental pragmatist? What forces were at work in this transformation?
4. Explain what Andrew Lilght means by the term environmental pragmatism.
5. Explain how Andrew Light employs environmental pragmatism to adress environmental policy issues and concerns.
6. Why does Light claim that "a responsible and complete environmental philosophy includes a public component with a clear policy emphasis?" What is pragmatic about this perspective?
7. Kelly Parker has written "Pragmatism maintains that no set of ethical concepts can be the absolute foundation for evaluating the rightness of our actions. Instead, the aim of ethics is not perfect rightness but rather creative mediation of conflicting claims to value, aimed at making life on the planet relatively better than it is." What is the problem with "absolute foundations" of value and ethics?
8. Ethicist Keith Hirakowa has asserted that "The challenge is to continue the progress and find better environmental solutions that both effect a change in the way we treat the environment and are practical enough to be adopted by our legal system. In taking up this challenge, it is imperative that loyalties to the goals of environmental protection include a willingness to modify, or even discard, radical environmental theories in an effort to secure far-reaching result." What about this perspective is "pragmatic?"