Social Ethics for Ecological and Community Resilience

Abstract

Abstract As much as, or perhaps more than, any other American pragmatist, Jane Addams was committed to using her philosophic work to increase the quality of life of local and global stakeholders and to solve the great problems of her time. Perhaps the most impactful, global, and insidious problems of our time are the effects, often inequitable, on social and natural communities from climate change and other environmental disasters. This chapter examines Addams’ social ethics, pragmatist feminism, proto-ecofeminism, and community activism and her potential influence on environmental values and practice in strengthening community and ecosystem resilience, including in concepts such as ecofeminist, land ethic, and wicked problems approaches, and practices such as movements and organizations that motivate and mobilize people to act in the interest of environmental goods. This chapter argues that we can fruitfully apply Addams’s theoretical work to reimagining our connection with and commitment to the more-than-human world, and her social work and community organizing to promoting environmental justice and equality, and preventing and mitigating environmental catastrophes, such as the effects of climate change, on our communities and planet.