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PROLOGUE TO CHAPTER TWO - The Setting of the Problem of Pragmatism and the Environment: The Critique of Pragmatism as an Environmental Ethics in Taylor, Bowers, Katz, and Weston
- State University of New York Press
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The Setting of the Problem of Pragmatism and the Environment: The Critique of Pragmatism as an Environmental Ethics in Taylor, Bowers, Katz, and Weston In this section, critics of pragmatism from within the literature of environmental ethics will be discussed and analyzed. I will discuss the figures who originated the controversy surrounding whether pragmatism can be used as an environmental ethic. Bob Taylor argues that John Dewey’s naturalism is anthropocentric, not ecocentric, and thus cannot provide a sufficient model for environmental ethics; and that Dewey’s is an instrumental view of nature, in which nature exists primarily for human exploitation.1 Taylor argues that despite his naturalism, Dewey was really a social liberal in his approach to nature and that his naturalism was anthropocentric. C. A. Bowers argues that what Dewey took to be objective, modern science , is actually culture bound. Since Dewey gave priority to the scientific viewpoint, he did not take alternative cultural interpretations of nature and the place of humans in it seriously. Further, Dewey the progressive had little use for tradition, including traditions of native peoples who have learned how to live in an environment. Thus the outlooks of such peoples, which form valuable paradigms for an environmentally conscious age, were ignored. Eric Katz has argued2 that pragmatism in general is inherently anthropocentric and subjectively oriented in value theory, that this results in relativism . Thus pragmatism cannot provide sufficient justification for the preservation of the environment or a basis for an environmental ethic. Katz argues that pragmatism is not only subjective but that Dewey’s critique of intrinsic value undermines the entire project of extending the scope of intrinsic value PROLOGUE TO CHAPTER TWO|57| to include animals, living things, species and the biosphere. Finally, Weston defends pragmatism as the basis for an environmental ethics despite its “subjective ” theory of value. Taylor as a Critic of Dewey Taylor’s article is in response to an earlier article by Chaloupka that emphasizes the significance of Dewey’s philosophy for environmental thought.3 The reading of Dewey as a technocrat misses the mark according to Chaloupka; Dewey’s “social aesthetics” as a basis for an interrelationship with the environment is stressed. Taylor responded that Dewey is basically a social and political philosopher rather than a strict naturalist. Dewey’s “human oriented naturalism” is concerned with construction of a uniquely human environment , not being “one with nature.” “His naturalism certainly does not display an understanding of the human relationship to nature in any presocial, precultural or simply biologically oriented sense.”4 In other words, Dewey’s naturalism is anthropocentric, thus nonhuman nature is viewed instrumentally . For Dewey, according to Taylor, “we must rethink our relationship with nature, but nature continues to be thought of in instrumental, anthropocentric terms.”5 He judges Dewey “insensitive” for stating that humans should “subdue” wild nature. By way of qualification, Taylor admits that Dewey is not anti-environmental ; nature is viewed as a teacher and even as an environment. However, Dewey’s philosophy is primarily social rather than environmental, or, rather, the human environment is primarily a social one. Dewey is portrayed as a social liberal first and a naturalist second. Dewey is still within the Lockean tradition as both argue from an anthropocentric premise: “humans and their peculiarly human environment stand above the rest of creation.”6 Even if he believed that the “conventional dualisms of liberal theory” made it impossible to understand the correct relationship to the environment, he was simply unaware of environmental problems in the contemporary sense. Taylor remarks that “what is striking about both Dewey’s liberalism and the more conventional Lockean liberalism is their shared lack of sensitivity to, and interest in, the types of environmental problems facing liberal . . . societies today.”7 Environmental thought is historically new and Dewey is a challenge rather than a basis for environmental thought, especially environmental political thought. On the whole, Taylor’s criticisms are one-sided, that is, they stress one aspect of Dewey’s voluminous output while ignoring the overwhelming balance .8 In the first place, Dewey’s naturalism, by common consent, was influenced the most by Darwin. Darwin was also appealed to by Callicott, one of the more radically ecocentric figures. Dewey spends almost the entire first chapter of Experience and Nature explicating his sense of how humans and|58| John Dewey and Environmental Philosophy [44.198.169.83] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 16:53 GMT) their experience are both “in and of” nature: derived from nature in...