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A Sustainable Philosophy—The Work of Bryan NortonProceduralism and Expertise in Local Environmental Decision-Making

A Sustainable Philosophy—The Work of Bryan Norton: Proceduralism and Expertise in Local... [Among Bryan Norton’s most influential contributions to environmental philosophy has been his analysis and evaluation of democratic processes for environmental decision-making. He examines actual cases of environmental decision-making in their legal, political, ethical and scientific contexts, and, with contextual constraints and goals in mind, he theorizes concerning what they accomplish and how they can be improved. Informed by the political theories of both John Dewey and Jürgen Habermas, Norton’s pragmatist approach holds that appropriate democratic decision procedures will generate broadly defensible decisions. Thus, his view of environmental decision-making is based in—and requires—inclusive, democratic, empirical inquiry. While accepting these criteria, I examine how, in practice, it is difficult to identify when these conditions have been adequately met. I investigate the limitations of Norton’s proceduralist approach through a case study in community-based forest management in a New York State urban old-growth park. I argue that Norton’s procedural priorities are too rigid given the contextual constraints of local decision-making. While they are useful for guiding an ideal, high standards sense of the decision-making process, less rigid Deweyan considerations of social learning and community engagement often provide sufficient guidelines for evaluating success.] http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png

A Sustainable Philosophy—The Work of Bryan NortonProceduralism and Expertise in Local Environmental Decision-Making

Part of the The International Library of Environmental, Agricultural and Food Ethics Book Series (volume 26)
Editors: Sarkar, Sahotra; Minteer, Ben A.
Brister, Evelyn
A Sustainable Philosophy—The Work of Bryan Norton — Jul 17, 2018
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Publisher
Springer International Publishing
Copyright
© Springer International Publishing AG, part of Springer Nature 2018
ISBN
978-3-319-92596-7
Pages
151 –165
DOI
10.1007/978-3-319-92597-4_10
Publisher site
See Chapter on Publisher Site

Abstract

[Among Bryan Norton’s most influential contributions to environmental philosophy has been his analysis and evaluation of democratic processes for environmental decision-making. He examines actual cases of environmental decision-making in their legal, political, ethical and scientific contexts, and, with contextual constraints and goals in mind, he theorizes concerning what they accomplish and how they can be improved. Informed by the political theories of both John Dewey and Jürgen Habermas, Norton’s pragmatist approach holds that appropriate democratic decision procedures will generate broadly defensible decisions. Thus, his view of environmental decision-making is based in—and requires—inclusive, democratic, empirical inquiry. While accepting these criteria, I examine how, in practice, it is difficult to identify when these conditions have been adequately met. I investigate the limitations of Norton’s proceduralist approach through a case study in community-based forest management in a New York State urban old-growth park. I argue that Norton’s procedural priorities are too rigid given the contextual constraints of local decision-making. While they are useful for guiding an ideal, high standards sense of the decision-making process, less rigid Deweyan considerations of social learning and community engagement often provide sufficient guidelines for evaluating success.]

Published: Jul 17, 2018

Keywords: Environmental pragmatism; Proceduralism; Deweyan inquiry; Community decision-making; Adaptive management

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