Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Pragmatic Paths to Environmental Sustainability

  • Published:
Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

After summarizing what I take to be the main contribution of Norton’s book––his proposal for a new vocabulary for public discourse as it pertains to environmental stability––I attempt to locate his work among some of the current debates regarding sustainability and public policy. I detail some of the ways in which this work constitutes a further development of themes he presented in 1991 in Toward unity Among Environmentalists. I discuss his prescriptions for defusing confrontations regarding environmental policy by functionalizing issues in ways that cut across historically entrenched interest groups. From the standpoint of method, I␣argue that Norton has stacked a Habermas- type proceduralism on top of a pragmatic experimentalist platform (and I add that if he had constructed his method the other way around it would not have worked.) In all this I find Norton’s proposals both imaginative and full of promise.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Bimber, B. The Politics of Expertise in Congress: The Rise and Fall of the Office of Technology Assessment (New York: State University of New York Press, 1996)

  • Dewey, J. The Collected Works of John Dewey, 1882–1953. Vol 2 of The Later Works (Edited by Jo Ann Boydston, Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press, 1984)

  • Hook, S. Pragmatism and the Tragic Sense of Life (New York, Basic Books, 1974)

  • Mooney, C. The Republican War on Science (New York, Basic Books, 2005)

  • Norton, B. G. Sustainability: A Philosophy of Adaptive Ecosystem Management. (Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 2005)

  • Norton, B. G. Toward Unity Among Environmentalists (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991)

  • Revkin, A. C. “Climate Expert Says NASA Tried to Silence Him.” New York Times,␣January 29, 2006. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/29/science/earth/29climate.html

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Dewey Studies, Southern Illinois University Carbondale, Carbondale, IL, 62901, USA

    Larry A. Hickman

Authors
  1. Larry A. Hickman
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Larry A. Hickman.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Hickman, L.A. Pragmatic Paths to Environmental Sustainability. J Agric Environ Ethics 20, 365–373 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10806-007-9039-8

Download citation

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10806-007-9039-8

Keywords

Search

Navigation