What’s in a Name? Pragmatism, Essentialism, and Environmental Ethics
Author(s)
Michael, Mark A.
Abstract
In this paper I show that pragmatists and essentialists are arguing past one another because they fail to note two crucial points. First, they often propose different accounts of which principles constitute an environmental ethic and so they disagree about which principles must be justified. Second, essentialists and pragmatists often overlook the distinction to be made between the adequacy of a justification and its epistemic or rhetorical preferability.
