Environmental Pragmatism: An Environmental Ethics Proposal Facing Climate Change

Abstract

This article is divided into three sections. In the first one, we review the origin of environmental ethics and how it was expanded to achieve a transition from the limited anthropocentric vision to a broader one that integrated all living things (biocentric ethics) and ecosystems (ecocentric ethics) into its axiological criteria, also from very particular perspectives such as deep ecology and ecofeminism. Subsequently, we review how environmental pragmatism arises, the result of critical work regarding what happened with the little social and political impact of environmental ethics in its first two decades. In the second part, the origin of the study of climate change, climate denialism and the impact of fossil fuels on the Environment is reviewed, and then it is proposed to use the criteria of environmental pragmatism to stop its increase. In the third section, the poor progress made in the Climate Summits to curb climate change is discussed and how this objective should become the basis for the construction of a public good.