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Evaluating Climate Change Action for Sustainable Development 1st Edition Juha I. Uitto
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The Quest for the Gesamtkunstwerk and Richard Wagner 1st Edition Hilda Meldrum Brown
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To: Johanna and Auri, and Konsta—the next generation
Joyce
For the past, the present, and the future
Acknowledgments
Juha is grateful to the Academy of Finland for Award 253750. Daniel is grateful to the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation of Germany for the Reimar Lüst Prize that supported some of the work reported here.
Several of the chapters here are modified versions of the following papers
Chapter 4: Bromley, Daniel W. 2012. Environmental Governance as Stochastic Belief Updating: Crafting Rules to Live By. Ecology and Society, 17(3): 14. [online] URL: http:// www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol17/iss3/art14/
Chapter 5: Hiedanpää, Juha, and Daniel W. Bromley. 2013. The Stakeholder Game: Pleadings and Reasons in Environmental Philosophy. Journal of Speculative Philosophy 27(4): 425–441.
Chapter 7: Hiedanpää, Juha, and Daniel W. Bromley. 2014. Payments for Ecosystem Services: Durable Habits, Dubious Nudges, and Doubtful Efficacy. Journal of Institutional Economics10(2): 175–195.
Chapter 8: Hiedanpää, Juha, and Daniel W. Bromley. 2012. Contestations over Biodiversity Policy: Considering Peircean Semiosis. Environmental Values 21: 357–378.
Chapter 9: Hiedanpää, Juha, and Daniel W. Bromley. 2011. The Harmonization Game: Reasons and Rules in European Biodiversity Policy. Environmental Policy and Governance 21: 99–111.
Chapter 11: Bromley, Daniel W. 1999. Deforestation: Institutional Causes and Solutions. In World Forests, Society and Environment, ed. by Matti Palo and Jussi Uusivuori. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer.
List of Figures
Fig. 8.1. A Peircean sign process
Fig. 8.2. The first phase of the sign process
Fig. 8.3. The second phase of the sign process
Fig. 8.4. The third phase of the sign process
Fig. 8.5. The fourth phase of sign process
Fig. 8.6. The fifth phase of the sign process 155
Fig. 8.7. The sixth phase of the sign process
The Consequences of Pragmatism
1 The Importance of Understanding Each Other
Grasping a concept is mastering the use of a word (Brandom 2000, p. 6).
I understand pragmatism to be a method of ascertaining the meanings, not of all ideas, but only of what I call “intellectual concepts”…those upon the structure of which, arguments concerning objective facts may hinge (Peirce, CP 5.467)
The emergence of environmentalism gave rise to a number of ideas and concepts that now frame discussions of environmental policy. Examples include sustainability, biodiversity, global warming, the land ethic, stakeholder, the tragedy of the commons, tropical deforestation, commandand-control, payments for ecosystem services, maximum sustainable yield, and resource rent. Notice that these terms are what the philosopher F.S.C. Northrop (1967) calls concepts by postulation. That is, such concepts—words and phrases—have very explicit meanings that emerge from, and are central to, a specific community of scientific practitioners. By way of contrast, concepts by intuition are immediately apprehensible to
everyday discourse. The color blue is a concept by intuition—we know something is blue because we have been taught that the sky and lakes are “blue.” A child will then declare, with obvious delight, that a robin’s egg is also blue. We come to know blue as a word to be applied to objects of a certain familiar color. But blue is also a concept by postulation to a physicist who understands blue by its very specific light absorbing attributes. Those physical properties give off reflected light that physicists, well aware of naming conventions, call blue.
Unlike concepts by intuition, concepts by postulation are the purposeful creation of disciplinary practitioners (an epistemic community) who then invoke those concepts to convey a very specific intellectual idea. These postulations (stipulations) play a very specific and purposeful role in all disciplinary discourse (Wittgenstein 2001). These concepts by postulation become how an epistemic community carries on a conversation. Wittgenstein insisted that language is simply a tool for doing necessary work, and this reminds us that particular disciplines are epistemic communities united by a shared set of linguistic stipulations and conventions. Those conventions are concepts by postulation. As members of a discipline carry on their work, new linguistic conventions (postulations) will emerge as the need arises. A black hole is just such an emergent concept by postulation. Who would have imagined, a few decades ago, the need for such terms as “payments for ecosystem services” or “biodiversity”?
Clearly, individuals outside of a particular epistemic community cannot be expected to grasp the precise meaning of concepts such as biodiversity, common property, stakeholder, or sustainability. Interestingly, that rarely prevents them from invoking those concepts in a contentious environmental discourse. When this happens, such terms can become pivotal aspects of policy debates—with the unfortunate result that participants inevitably hold quite divergent understandings of the issues under discussion. In practical terms, these concepts are often introduced as trumps—conversation stoppers. Who can possibly be against sustainability? Who can oppose biodiversity? Who can object to a land ethic? Who can possibly support policies that are characterized as commandand-control? In other words, many environmental debates are language games purposely designed to obfuscate and to deceive by the artful use of language.
The emphasis here on language and concepts arises because of the urgent need to engage the general public—including government officials—in the necessary quest for clarity about the language and concepts central to environmental policy discussions. Progress on policy debates is impossible in the absence of this shared understanding. This careful attention to the exact meaning of intellectual concepts may seem overly pedantic to those who believe that certain environmental problems— climate change—represent urgent existential threats. Such individuals may grow impatient with efforts to clarify vague language. Ironically, this reluctance to be precise about language is one reason why many serious environmental disputes persist and remain contentious. Climate change is an exemplar in this regard.
At a local level, when a speaker declares that cities or other jurisdictions must become more “sustainable,” the intuitive response is certainly to affirm this claim. But the obvious problem here is what exactly does the speaker mean by “sustainable”? Pragmatism asks us to understand sustainability as some state of affairs that matters. Then the practical state of affairs places constraints or conditions on successful signification—what is sustainability in this particular situation. Perhaps then sustainability policies can be articulated so that others might come to understand precisely what the speaker intends. Charles Sanders Peirce’s insistence that the primary contribution of pragmatism is its commitment to an honest epistemology suddenly can be seen in a very different light. There is nothing quite as practical as being clear about what is being said. Pragmatism brings a commitment to good-faith efforts to agree on what is being discussed and debated. Here Peirce stands with Wittgenstein who insisted that all philosophical problems are nothing but the problems of meaning making. What, exactly, is the meaning—in practical terms—of claims on behalf of sustainability?
Our purpose here is to demonstrate that pragmatism provides a way out of the inevitable tendency toward conflict. This promising effect emerges because pragmatism pushes antagonists to focus on the reasons being advanced for particular declarative assertions—save this wetland, impose a tax on carbon emissions, preserve more wolves. In the face of such normative demands, pragmatists insist on hearing reasons why these declarative claims should be taken seriously. Why save this wetland rather
than another one over there? Why is this wetland more valuable than that one? How shall the optimal carbon tax be computed? What shall be done about the other sources of carbon that are not so easily taxed? Why is it necessary for more wolves to be protected? What, exactly, is the minimum viable number of wolves in this area? How do you know—and here we mean really know—that specific environmental policies will work as alleged? Pragmatism enriches and elaborates the nature of environmental discourse by promoting the asking for and giving of reasons. Richer discourse reduces the tendency to fight.
Depending on the context, reason giving works in several important ways. Notice that there are several classes of “truth claims” in the above assertions. First, there is a normative declaration—a desired end or goal (save this wetland). Restated, the truth claim becomes “it would be good to save this wetland.” We call such assertions “truth claims” because they are offered with the aspiration—the hope—of being found true. If the wetland is indeed saved from destruction then a pragmatist would say that the discourse around saving that particular wetland resulted in an outcome in which the truth of the claim—“it would be good to save this wetland”—was affirmed. The truth claim is revealed to be true. But the truth claim could, with a different outcome for the wetland, be false. If the speaker is unable to bring enough others to her side, and the wetland is eventually paved over, then the truth claim—“it would be good to save this wetland” is obviously not true. Not all truth claims are true—they merely aspire to be true. The disappointed speaker and her allies may still regard the truth claim to be true. However, they were unable to convince enough others of its truth content. Environmental policy is not about everyone getting their way. Democracy is about affirming those normative claims that manage to bring a sufficient number of others to a winning side. Public policy produces winners and losers. Second, the truth claim “it would be good to save this wetland” could be offered as a consequentialist assertion. Here, the meaning of “good” is that if the wetland is not saved, a number of undesirable consequences might result—loss of critical bird habitat, or diminished nutrient filtration that would then increase pollution of downstream lakes and rivers. Once again, if the speaker is able to bring enough others to her side, then her truth claim is indeed revealed to be true. But she may fail.
A third version seen above is an instrumental truth claim—a tax on carbon is the best means to reduce carbon emissions. This truth claim is also aspirational in nature. The instrumental truth claim—“a carbon tax is the best means to reduce carbon emissions”—most likely emerges from a disciplinary specialist, but it could also be advanced by a non-scientist who is merely reporting what other experts have said. An economist is the most likely source of this particular truth claim. But just as above, the truth content of this assertion is only as good as the collective decision concerning carbon emissions. If the political process rejects the idea of a carbon tax, then quite clearly the truth claim about a carbon tax is not true. The economist who advanced the particular claim may remain convinced of its wisdom, but enough others found it insufficiently compelling that the policy advice was rejected. The truth claim turns out not to be true in the eyes of the larger political community. Regardless of what the specific advocate of that policy option may think, the proffered truth claim is not true.
A fourth variety of truth claims combines all three versions—it is normative, it is consequentialist, and it is instrumental. Consider the truth claim—“we should adopt an agenda of sustainability in this city.” The speaker probably believes in the innate goodness of sustainability, the speaker apparently believes that becoming more sustainable will have agreeable consequence for environmental outcomes, and the speaker seems to believe that those improved environmental outcomes will arise because of a reduction in energy use, garbage, and water consumption— among other changes in local behaviors. We might call this fourth variety perspectivism. It is easy to imagine that others in the local community might hold different views on these matters. The task of democracy is to arrive at settled belief about the truth content of contending truth claims—different perspectives.
Indeed, all environmental discourse entails a wide range of contending truth claims. Regardless of the specifics of any particular dispute, all contestations eventually come down to understanding the practical consequences of reasons offered for a particular choice. Why must that wetland be saved? Why do you prefer carbon taxes? Why do you refer to regulations as “command-and-control”? Do you really believe that there is much “command” or “control” in a democratic market economy? The
profound contribution of pragmatism, with its emphasis on asking for and giving reasons, is that in the course of contestation over specific environmental issues, extended discourse will reveal that not all reasons are found to be equally good. The obvious advantage of democratic discourse is that reasons, to be accepted as compelling, must be considered good by a significant proportion of individuals engaged in a debate. Reasons cannot just be good to the person advancing such reasons—reasons must be found good by a sufficient number of others pertinent to the ultimate decision. All speakers use reasons to bring others to their side. In a democracy, citizens fight each other with their reasons.
The scope—the discursive possibility space—of reason giving is necessarily bounded by what seems reasonable to others. Richard Bernstein insists that “all reason functions within traditions (1983, p. 130)”—and traditions are simply mental habits. Each of us is embedded in specific customary livelihoods, practices, and language games. The reason individuals engage in reason giving is to find reasons for a specific problematic situation and how to bring about necessary change. And the only reasons that individuals find sufficient for action are those reasons that they come to regard as reasonable. Few people knowingly act on unreasonable reasons. And there you have the reason for our subtitle—we are interested in what is found to be “reasonable.” Throughout what follows we will come back to the idea of what it would be reasonable to do about wolves, about ocean fisheries, about biodiversity, about climate change, about tropical deforestation—indeed about any environmental standoff.
It is to be expected that strict moralists will object that pursuing the reasonable is being too soft on those who wish to cover wetlands with asphalt. And some economists might denounce “the reasonable” as being insufficiently devoted to the pursuit of economic efficiency. But of course it is precisely here that the fighting inevitably gets started. Pragmatists challenge the standard accounts of “good” or “correct” environmental policy precisely because those accounts pay insufficient attention to reason giving—not just particular reasons offered up in serious efforts to persuade, but those contrary reasons advanced by others with different interests. One of the important consequences of pragmatism is the empowerment of many speakers, not just experts. Pragmatists insist that good processes are the necessary precursors to good decisions.
Our focus on reasons and reason giving calls attention to several additional issues. First, we come to the question of what constitutes knowing. What does it mean to know something? In other words, how do people “know” what they claim to know? This question concerns what people believe to be the case.
2 On Knowing
We can only know what it makes sense to doubt (Grayling 1988, p. 94, on Ludwig Wittgenstein’s philosophy of “knowledge.”)
When it comes to knowing, why is less interesting than how. It is common to be asked: “How do you know that?” We doubt that anyone has been asked “Why do you know that?” The state of knowing something automatically shifts attention to the question of how—by what means— that claimed knowledge was acquired. Did the knowing person read it somewhere? Did someone whisper the alleged knowledge in her ear? Is her knowing the result of some factoid retained since grammar school? Knowing comes from before—it is backward looking as it builds on and adds to understanding, character, and, perhaps, wisdom. Regardless of the origins of that alleged knowing, once something is thought to be “known” it is famously difficult to abandon that “knowledge” in favor of something else. To know something—as with diamonds—“is forever.” We see ample evidence that individuals hang on to what they think they know with alarming tenacity. Even scientists are not immune to this devotion to particular habits of mind. Max Planck, the famous German physicist, observed that:
An important scientific innovation rarely makes its way by gradually winning over and converting its opponents: it rarely happens that Saul becomes Paul. What does happen is that its opponents gradually die out, and that the growing generation is familiarised with the ideas from the beginning.1
1 http://hypertextbook.com/physics/modern/planck/, accessed May 10, 2015.
The ironic characterization of Planck’s aphorism is that scientific progress occurs academic funeral by academic funeral. It is often said that habits die hard. Since the condition of knowing something is but a habit of mind, knowing also dies hard. And here we see why Peirce insisted that the mind tends to take habits. Indeed, pragmatists stress the practical significance of the habituated mind—habituation. To Peirce, life in general has a tendency to take habits. As above, consider a variation of knowing—believing. It is common to hear someone say: “Why do you believe that?” Notice that one is rarely asked “How do you believe that?” Again, we see that no one ever asks why we know something, or how we believe something. It is always how we know something, and why we believe something. This is so because believing is a forward-looking activity. The purpose of believing is to bring about something that is still to be done—it is now absent. Indeed, knowing (knowledge) and believing (beliefs) are two very different modes of awareness. One draws on the past, while the other looks to the future.
It seems that many people imagine there to be a progression from ignorance, through believing, and then finally arriving at knowing. To “know” something can often seem like the final step in the acquisition of certitude—knowing is more secure than mere believing. In an environmental dispute, believing that carbon taxes are the preferred policy instrument is a weaker position than knowing that carbon taxes reduce emissions. And since policy disputes often push people to make stronger claims than they are justifiably capable of defending, it is common to see few claims about believing, and an abundance of claims about knowing. We see that habituation encourages a certain laziness of action—it is easier to know something than it is to undertake change in the face of some inconvenient problem. It is no surprise that many environmental debates entail competing knowledge claims. As a counterfactual, imagine environmental policy debates in which contending interests presented what they believed to be the case? Would it make a difference? Pragmatists suggest that it would.
Consider Wittgenstein’s famous argument with G.E. Moore over Moore’s claim that he “knew” he had two hands because he could see (and count) them. Wittgenstein objected to this claim of “knowing” on the grounds that to observe something is not the same as knowing something. In Moore’s case, since it was impossible for him to reach any other conclusion about the number of his hands, it was wrong for him to use the word “know.”
The impossibility of being wrong about the number of hands undermined Moore’s claim that he “knew” that he had two hands. He only saw that he had two hands. Knowing, Wittgenstein insisted, required more than mere observation. Real knowing must start with doubt, and in Moore’s case, it was silly to suppose that inquiry as to the number of his hands began with doubt. Everyone could see two of them.
Notice the difference between observing and informed diagnostics— alone by which understanding and knowledge can emerge. Only if it makes good sense to investigate something, motivated by doubt and surprise, will we be able to come to know or understand it. And once our investigations have settled down to a consistent set of results, it will no longer be reasonable to doubt what we have produced. In other words, to “know” something we must first hold it in doubt. Once we have investigated the matter thoroughly, and conducted our investigations with an abundance of serious challenges, we are then—and only then—justified in claiming to know (understand) the topic of interest. As Peirce put the matter:
The opinion which is fated to be ultimately agreed to by all who investigate, is what we mean by the truth, and the object represented in this opinion is the real. That is the way that I would explain reality (Peirce, CP 5.407). (emphasis added)2
In practical terms, when members of an epistemic community, after much study, have arrived at settled belief about a particular matter, they are often called upon to offer public statements on specific matters of interest to the rest of us—smoking is a plausible cause of lung cancer, second-hand smoke can be hazardous, chlorinated fluorocarbons are plausible causes of the depletion of atmospheric ozone, surface temperatures of the earth do seem on an upward trajectory. When a discipline speaks with “one voice” on such matters, the rest of us, not experts, will generally regard their statements as warranted. That warrant comes from the fact that a specific epistemic community has investigated a particular matter, and now that community seems to have arrived at settled belief— the matter is no longer in doubt. We will usually regard these announcements as constituting warranted assertions (Dewey 2008).
2 Charles Peirce’s Collective Papers are conventionally cited by volume and paragraph number.
It was not until the twentieth century, with the increased role for governments in large-scale investments and policy initiatives, that the role of secular experts—scientists—grew to the level we now take to be the norm. The role of such experts is to bring warranted assertions to the discussion about what would be the better thing to do. However, pragmatists remain skeptical and insist that not all assertions from an epistemic community (a scientific discipline) are warranted assertions. Only those assertions based on beliefs that enjoy widespread agreement within that specific scientific discipline can be regarded as warranted assertions. John Dewey considered such claims to have warranted assertability (Dewey 2008).
When warranted assertions are projected into the public arena— beyond the confines of disciplinary practitioners who produce those assertions—the central issue becomes whether or not those assertions fi nd wide agreement. It is common that the warranted assertions often meet considerable resistance. The long-standing denial of climate change by a segment of the general public is an example of this (Chap. 6). For a variety of reasons, some segment of the general public chooses to doubt the warranted assertions of particular epistemic communities. We also see this phenomenon at work in the area of genetically modified foods where repeated assurance from scientists that such foods are safe is not sufficient reason for many individuals to welcome their presence in the food system. Not all scientifically warranted belief is valuable belief.
This suggests that a valuable belief is a warranted belief that is found compelling to a community of sapient agents actively contemplating a particular action (Bromley 2006). A valuable belief is one that will put me in a receptive mental state such that I am now prepared to act on that belief. A belief disposes me to act. As Peirce put the matter: “Belief does not make us act at once, but puts us into such a condition that we shall behave in a certain way, when the occasion arises. Doubt has not the least effect of this sort, but stimulates us to action until it is destroyed (Peirce, CP 5.373).”
To summarize the matter of knowing and believing, arrival at this point is the necessary condition for taking the next step—urging others to act on those results. As above, we call such assertions truth claims,
not because they are true—though they may be—but because they are advanced and advocated on the presumption that they are in fact true. Few individuals urge others to act on false claims. It is the allegedly true claims that command attention and devotion.
3 The Problem of Should
The fundamental problem of ethics is not, therefore, What is right, but, What am I prepared deliberately to accept as the statement of what I want to do, what am I to aim at, what am I after?... It is ethics which defines this end (Peirce, CP 2.198).
In the face of assertions about what people should do, we come to the inevitable imposition of one view of the correct, right, or good on others. There can be no surprise that here is where policy disputes get underway. And this also exactly where the governance of various “shoulds” is initiated (Vatn 2015, p. 5).
Consider a declaration like “I love opera, you should too.” It seems simple enough—the speaker is expressing a pro-attitude toward opera, and, perhaps, a wish that others within hearing range will come to hold the same view. As idle conversation, the declaration is innocent. In a legislative chamber where public subsidies to the arts are under discussion, the statement relinquishes its innocence to the realization that the speaker wishes to make others the instruments of her desires. Her love of opera will be rewarded if she is able to bring others to her side.
Of course the secondary clause—the “should” part—can be quite unnecessary. When the speaker holds a position of authority over others, it is generally unnecessary to elaborate her hopes concerning the views of others. A corporate CEO, in the days leading up to an annual meeting at which company philanthropy will be discussed, need not elaborate her love of opera by urging others to share her affinity. It is quite enough that they have heard her seemingly idle comment that she “simply loves opera.” But of course her declaration of love for opera was not idle at all—it was normative with instrumental motivation. Had she been heard to declare her love for the local Shakespearean theater, we should not be
surprised to see some effect on the ultimate allocation of corporate giving as between opera and a local Shakespeare company. Purposeful language suffuses daily life.
Notice that the above two-part declaration entails quite different justificatory implications. The first part—the “I love” part—can be expected to elicit at least three possible responses from those for whom the declaration is intended. One response is, “How very nice, do you go often?” A variation of this would be “I do not much care for opera, nor am I fond of musicals.” The third response demands more of the speaker. Suppose the listener responded with: “Interesting, why do you love opera?” As we saw above, the questioner is treating this declaration of love for opera as a belief and not as knowledge.
At this point, the speaker might offer a long list of reasons why she loves opera. Notice that these reasons constitute explanations as to why the speaker loves opera. Each sentence might start with: “I love opera because” though that formality might be short circuited to a list of the “because” variety. We see that a reason is an answer to—or an explanation for—a “why” question. The reasons offered by the speaker may or may not satisfy the listener—that is of no interest here. Few of us ever challenge a statement that someone loves opera. After all, this is a matter of taste. We take it as a personal preference and of little moment—unless the speaker shifts from a declarative mode to an imperative mode of discourse. Then things may become awkward.
Notice that when the speaker announces that “you should too” there is a profound shift in the language game. Now the speaker is no longer content to tell of her love for opera, or to explain her reasons for loving opera. She now wants others to share that love. At this point the listener has been transformed from an idle and perhaps largely silent participant into someone expected to produce reasons. The listener, with no previous stake in the language game concerning the speaker’s love of opera, now finds herself a player in that game.
It should now be apparent that the transition from knowing—or believing—to declarations of what is held to be true or real, and then into assertions about what others should do, moves the language game into a realm where disagreements can arise. Most of us willingly grant others their confident claims about what they know, what they believe, and
what they love—or simply prefer. Even their expressed dislikes are passed over so as not to provoke disagreeable moments. We are not threatened or imposed upon by that part of the language game. We generally wish to get along with others. But when words such as should, ought to, or must arise, many individuals stiffen just a little. It depends on who is asserting the obligation. Friends seldom use that sort of language. The same applies to those in voluntary networks. The reason is obvious—it is important to sustain such communities. But the position of authority, and the need to redirect collective action, tends to foster normative demands. And such assertions are usually met by hesitance and resistance. Perhaps humans are wired to resist imperatives coming from others—even when the purpose is shared. This brings us back to reasons. Upon hearing imperatives, friends, partners, and subordinates generally wish to know why you insist that they too should love opera.
4 On Reason Giving
a reason makes an action intelligible by redescribing it (Davidson 2001, p. 695).
Pragmatism offers the opportunity to escape the grip of scientism— the belief that the physical sciences have epistemology right, and that the methods of the physical sciences are the only path to “truth.” The official epistemology of the natural sciences is the deductive-nomological method (DNM). According to the Stanford Dictionary of Philosophy, the term nomology springs from two Greek words. Nomos for “lawful” or perhaps “law-like” and logos for “systematic knowledge.”3 To follow the DNM is to leverage explanations from a set of accepted and unexamined laws that play the role of prescientific truths. In economics, these laws can take the form of: “people are self-interested rational maximizers.” From this nomological springboard, a large number of deductions about human action can be offered. The difficulties of scientism in the public
3 http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/scientific-explanation/#pagetopright, (accessed August 23, 2015).
policy realm is that there is a need for reason giving in the face of contending truth claims for which prior laws have not been agreed upon. For instance, the claim “This wetland must be preserved against development” cannot be leveraged by some prior unexamined nomological truth. Normative claims have no role in scientism.
The speaker who makes such an assertion can of course appeal to a law-like claim that is nothing more than “I love this wetland, because of its biodiversity and landscape values.” Doing so places the speaker on weaker ground then the developer who can claim that the enormous market value of a developed wetland clearly trumps the mere personal values of the environmental community. After all, the claimed economic value is leveraged (underwritten) by the deductive-nomological model of economics. The market value is advanced as an objective “fact”—derived from law-like properties of human rationality—while the expressed views of the local inhabitants are mere “value judgments.” Then environmentalists appear with their “ecological judgments” about the essential properties of the wetland. We see that a fight over wetlands gets diverted into a fight over epistemology and competing truth claims derived from two different ways of knowing.
If there is a city council that must decide between the “mere normative preferences” of the environmentalist and the “objective data” of the developer the decision will be cast in familiar terms—economics versus the environment. It will never be analyzed as a contest between two disparate and incompatible ways of “fixing belief” about what would be good to do with that particular wetland—drain it or leave it alone.
Pragmatism would enter this debate by insisting that each side present not their preferred outcome, but the reasons for their preferred outcome. To follow Joseph Raz (1997), human deliberations concern the quest for what seems to be the best reasons to hold a particular belief. As above, this comes down to the purpose of a particular activity. For the sake of what reason—why—is a particular belief held and acted upon? Reasons and beliefs point at the admired end of activity.
The environmentalist might then appeal to a concept of “intrinsic value” attributable to the wetland. In fact, the environmentalist may wish to invoke the concept of “intrinsic value” as a nomological trump. The developer has the results of cost-benefit analysis (self-interested rational
agents) on his nomological side, while the environmentalist has intrinsic value. The developer will dismiss intrinsic value as a contrived post-hoc trick, while the environmentalist will dismiss the rational maximizing agent as a scientific fiction. Bewildered members of the city council will quickly give up and turn to their own reasons for favoring the developer, or the environmentalist.
We are back to reasons. Pragmatists are particularly interested in the reasons that will be offered in support of particular actions. Notice the connection between reasons and explanations. When a speaker can offer plausible reasons for her current or likely future actions, she has explained those actions. An explanation of an action is simply a re-description of the reasons for that action. When we say why we are really saying, for what reasons.
In the wetland dispute, aside from the dramatically different nomological premises, notice that both parties to this dispute are making competing claims about the future. The developer will make claims about how, with her project, a range of very desirable direct effects will emerge, soon to be followed by even more indirect and induced effects. Jobs will be created, incomes will arise, and other beneficial results are quite assured. The environmentalist will make claims about what will happen if the wetland is destroyed. A certain number of very valuable species will be lost, the water quality of a contiguous lake will be degraded, and storm runoff will inundate the developer’s new project. Notice that neither party offers assertions about the aspirational truth claims of the other. The environmentalist is unlikely to be qualified to challenge the predicted results of the development, though of course a pro-environmental financial expert might be called in. At the same time, the developer will be unlikely to challenge the claims of the environmentalist. Both parties generally prefer to emphasize what they know best, and to ignore the reasons and assertions of the other. The pragmatist, as above, will be inclined to focus on reasons offered by both sides—challenging the optimistic predictions of the developer, and the pessimistic predictions of the environmentalist. Rhetoric is a necessary part of the argumentation in a game of reason giving. Rhetoric is not some perverse game of blather intended to misinform. Rather, rhetoric is the art of persuasion. And it is abundantly clear that all policy debates, environmental or otherwise, are nothing but
rhetorical undertakings with the purpose of changing habits of mind and behavior. These conversations seek to create new appropriate ends and means. That is the purpose of policy debates. Democracy is the essence of a rhetorical community. And rhetoric as public deliberation and persuasion is democracy’s defining purpose.
But of course rhetorical discourse must be carried on with a clear understanding of—and agreement on—the concepts (the linguistic tools) in action. The central constituents of the language game must not be in doubt. As the above quote from Robert Brandom makes clear, understanding the specifics of a concept requires mastery of the language in which that concept is expressed. If physicists were vague or conflicted in their understanding of “entropy” it would be impossible for physicists to do their work.
5 Arriving at Settled Belief
The object of reasoning is to find out, from the consideration of what we already know, something else which we do not know (Peirce, CP 5.365)
We have stressed that pragmatism places extraordinary importance on reason giving. We also suggest that reasons advanced by participants in a particular policy dispute, whether concerning environmental policy or some other public issue, must be understood as aspirational hypotheses. That is, statements such as “this wetland must be saved” is a short-hand version of “I want this wetland to be saved for the following reasons.” In this form, the emotive commitment of the speaker—usually called a value judgment—is offered in the hope of bringing others to her side. She wants their support, and if the speaker is pressed to give reasons, those offered reasons will be most effective if they resonate with others she wishes to persuade. This matter is spelled out in great detail in Chap. 5 where we discuss the “stakeholder problem.” At this point, we merely wish to highlight the role of reason giving in the context of understanding the reasons for advancing particular claims. In other words, why are specific reasons advanced in a quest to garner support for a particular environmental policy?
First, notice that an assertion “I want that wetland to be saved” is a want statement resting on a single reason—the speaker is advancing a hope, a wish, an aspiration that the wetland will not be covered over. For some listeners that wish may well be a sufficient reason to support the speaker. If the speaker is admired, respected, or a charismatic local figure, her wants may be reason enough to preserve the wetland. However, other listeners may insist on more elaborate reasons. They will wonder, “Why should I do what she wants me to do?” When this is the case, pragmatism offers abduction as a means of considering additional reasons. Aristotle called abduction diagnosis—abduction offers explanations for particular phenomena or want statements. Charles Sanders Peirce called abduction the method of hypothesis. Abduction takes the following form (Peirce, CP 5.189):
The surprising fact C is observed. If A were true, C would be a matter of course, Hence, there is reason to suspect A is true.
When a speaker says: I want that wetland preserved because it is good for the environment, some listeners may be surprised (as in the “surprising fact C ” above). Perhaps these individuals have been led to believe that wetlands are mere swamps where mosquitos like to reproduce. So the speaker is obliged to off er support— reasons —for her want statement. Th ese reasons must be understood not as truths but as maintained hypotheses (the vector A from above) that the speaker believes will be found true. If that is the case, they may support her wish that the wetland be preserved. If, on the other hand, these hypotheses or educated guesses are found not to be true, her hopes are reduced to her own private commitment. We see that the hypotheses of her abductive argument (the initial surprise above) are the central pillars of her truth claim about the importance of wetlands in general, and “that” wetland in particular. For Peirce (CP 5.189) abduction is a capacity for “the operation of adopting an explanatory hypothesis .” But abduction is not only about adopting the hypothesis . It is also about coming up with novel hypotheses. As Th omas Alexander ( 2013 , p. 163) reminds us, abduction is “an imaginative eff ort of understanding.”
Peirce (CP 5.181) went so far in emphasizing the role of imagination that he used the metaphor of a fl ash in describing the emergence of a hypothesis or a tentative reason: “Th e abductive suggestion comes to us like a fl ash. It is an act of insight, although of extremely fallible insight.” Peirce (CP 5.171) explained further:
Abduction is the process of forming an explanatory hypothesis. It is the only logical operation which introduces any new idea; for induction does nothing but determine a value, and deduction merely evolves the necessary consequences of a pure hypothesis. (emphasis added.)
Abduction does not emerge ex nihilo. It springs from experience, a doubting situation, an epistemic community, and educated guesses. Peirce (CP 5.145): “All the ideas of science come to it by the way of Abduction. Abduction consists in studying facts and devising a theory to explain them. Its only justification is that if we are ever to understand things at all, it must be in that way.”
We stress throughout that pragmatism represents a comprehensive redefinition of the quest for reasonable decision making in a complex, indeterminate, opaque, and unruly world. Pragmatism teaches us that the future is not amenable to the sort of prescriptive consequentialism that dominates public policy debates in the modern era. The world is not putty in the hands of wise omniscient sculptors, and the world certainly does not submit itself to us in that way. There can be environmental policy, but there cannot be coherent management—purposeful control— of human interaction with the natural world. Clarity in policy goals and declarations does not automatically map into unique coherent actions. And if they did, “coherent actions” would be quite unlikely to bring forth the specific attainment of particular desired environmental outcomes that formed the basis of the policy decisions in the first instance. The world does not work that way.
Pragmatists understand this and insist that a better strategy is to create policy process es and particular agendas that fi t the world, rather than convoluted and contested policy agendas for the dreamy world of idealized thought experiments. If this were better understood,
the immediate salutary eff ect would be that environmental policy debates would become less contentious. Th is would follow because now, under the false consciousness of imagined control , public policy debates degenerate into battles with no practical signifi cance. In more practical terms, environmental policy debates—indeed all policy debates—are often about fi ctitious tractability and conjured implications. Modernism has bequeathed a false sense of operational agency that then leads to confl ict fueled by the mistaken belief that such contestation will actually make a diff erence. Environmental policy can indeed aff ect general directions and tendencies, but it does this by focusing discussion on general goals, and careful reasons for accepting or rejecting those suggestive commitments.
6 Implications
We have argued above that policy debates entail the coming together of contending linguistic commitments, individual embeddedness in dramatically different lifeworlds, and most profoundly, quite disparate visions for the future. We have also insisted that the contentious process of working out the most desired futures entails the consideration of deeply held yet conflicting truth claims—only some of which are true. Aside from the social practice of reason giving, there is no way to know the “truth.” The on-going conversation—contestation—over reasons with other people (scientists, decision makers, developers, environmentalists, local inhabitants) is the only reliable way of learning how things are and how they should be. This reminds us that environmental policy can be thought of as an exercise in pleading, resistance, persuasion, cautious acquiescence, and eventual emergence of a consensus. We must keep in mind Richard Rorty’s (1989, p. 84) advice: “We shall call ‘truth’ and ‘good’ whatever is the outcome of free discussion—if we take care of political freedom, the goodness and truth will take care of themselves,” The gradual emergence of that consensus will signal that after all the disputation, a community of reason givers has arrived at settled belief. It has ever been thus.
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