Pragmatism

Environmental philosophy and environmental policy were both rooted in the same rationale, that is, the growing care and concern about environmental problems from the 1960s on. Environmental philosophy dealt with ethics and concentrated mainly on the intrinsic value of nature and the dichotomy of anthropocentrism versus nonanthropocentrism. Environmental policy, on the other hand, focused on problem solving and preventing. Thus, both evolved within different premises, the first focusing on a philosophical grounding of what is thought to be at the root of environmental problems, and the latter aiming to solve and prevent those in the short and medium term.

Some environmental philosophers became increasingly worried about this disconnection between environmental philosophy and policy. Inspired by the American pragmatists, they proposed “environmental pragmatism” as a new strategy ...