Civic Environmentalism, Plural Values, and Judgment: Reflections on Rowe's 'Civic Environmentalism's Search for Identity'.

In his paper "Civic Environmentalism's Search for Identity: Reconciling Democracy and Environmental Protection" Kevin Rowe shows that civic environmentalism has some work to do to reconcile its two fundamental values. After briefly reviewing three broad critiques he offers, I address his proposal that civic environmentalism ought to strike a balance between its two main commitments. I observe that he has identified in civic environmentalism the more general problem of sustaining commitments to plural values. I then suggest that rather than speaking of balancing these commitments, we ought instead to focus on judgment as the faculty for determining courses of action that fulfill multiple values in light of circumstances. I then argue that civic environmentalism encourages institutions whose participants will exercise, and cultivate, their judgments in just this way, hence will be able to carry out the balancing Rowe proposes. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]