Faculty Scholarly Dissemination Grants
What Ought We to Sustain? A Pragmatic Framework for the Question
Department
Philosophy
College
College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
Date Range
2011-2012
Abstract
Environmental pragmatism proposes sustainability as the basis for environmental ethics. With its reference to future-oriented criteria that are in principle measurable and predictable, sustainability appears to many pragmatists to be a promising basis for environmental ethics and for public policy. This paper argues that sustainability is an inherently normative concept, and illustrates how one widespread application of triple bottom line sustainability, in the Global Reporting Initiative's Sustainability Reporting Guidelines, Version 3.1, may fail to adequately address this normativity. As the sustainability movement reaches a more global application, and incorporates indicatorsEnvironmental pragmatism proposes sustainability as the basis for environmental ethics. With its reference to future-oriented criteria that are in principle measurable and predictable, sustainability appears to many pragmatists to be a promising basis for environmental ethics and for public policy. This paper argues that sustainability is an inherently normative concept, and illustrates how one widespread application of triple bottom line sustainability, in the Global Reporting Initiative's Sustainability Reporting Guidelines, Version 3.1, may fail to adequately address this normativity. As the sustainability movement reaches a more global application, and incorporates indicators such as human rights and gender equity, it will be necessary to engage issues of social value and concepts of justice with more philosophical deliberation than has occurred in the past. such as human rights and gender equity, it will be necessary to engage issues of social value and concepts of justice with more philosophical deliberation than has occurred in the past.
Conference Name
The Nature of Justice: Poverty, Development, and the Environment
Conference Location
Pennsylvania State University
ScholarWorks Citation
Parker, Kelly, "What Ought We to Sustain? A Pragmatic Framework for the Question" (2011). Faculty Scholarly Dissemination Grants. 334.
https://scholarworks.gvsu.edu/fsdg/334
