ABSTRACT
If William James’s moral vision still offers wisdom or sustenance, nowhere is the need more urgent than in the global crises impacting nonhuman animals and the environment. Scholarship on pragmatism and environmentalism is heavily weighted toward John Dewey, and when James is credited with a unique contribution to environmental ethics, it is often located in his call to be open to the significance of other beings’ experiences, which encourages broader moral consideration of animals and the environment. Yet with scientists warning that we have perhaps a decade to act decisively if we hope to avoid the worst consequences of climate change, James’s contribution may lie less in justifying why increased consideration of animals and the environment is merited, and more in the practical question of how the idea of such moral obligation – like Aldo Leopold’s “land ethic” – can become effective in people’s lives. The types of reforms necessary to address our environmental crises will require people to make significant changes in their lives, but the political will for such reform is still lacking. From a Jamesian perspective, the challenge is one of cultivating the “strenuous mood,” the strength to pursue a difficult ideal in a situation of tragic choice – which James saw as the paradigmatic act of moral will. Putting James into dialogue with Leopold, I explore how Jamesian perspectives on the moral life – the necessity of the strenuous mood; the role that ideas, habits, and social conditions play in making difficult moral choices; and, most broadly, the power of melioristic hope – offer insights into the challenge of achieving meaningful reform to address our environmental crises.
