"The Wisdom of the Owl at Dusk": Cultural Conflict and Moral Disagreement Over the Oregon Forests
Dissertation, Emory University (
1996)
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Abstract
This study joins interpretive sociology and descriptive ethics to identify the crucial moral and cultural ideals that inform citizens' views of the role of the forests in Oregon. It relates these ideals to the institutional and social situation of the key constituencies at odds over the forests. They draw on multiple cultural traditions to justify their views in terms described and analyzed with reference to four of the major institutional spheres involved in the dispute--economic, nonprofit environmental, legal-political, and religious--through social and ethical analysis of interviews and public documents. The study argues that the terms of the debate over the forests in Oregon are predominantly utilitarian. This primacy tends to screen out other moral perspectives on the meaning and value of the national forests. Making clear the forest dispute's cultural dimension to explicate these contested visions of the social and natural worlds, the study concludes, is vital to move the dispute toward mutual understanding and democratic resolution