The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) requires that an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) be prepared whenever a proposed federal project will significantly harm the environment. The EIS must include an analysis of the environmental impacts of the project and an evaluation of alternatives. Federal regulations implementing NEPA mandate that an EIS include an evaluation of “reasonable” alternatives. Unfortunately, the regulations do not specify what constitutes a “reasonable” alternative. The courts have attempted for more than thirty years to come to grips (...) with the problem of what makes an alternative “reasonable.” In this paper, I discuss court decisions that have significantly influenced our understanding. I offer my own interpretation, relying on a distinction between the “essential” purposes of a project and the non-essential, merely desirable, purposes. An alternative that satisfies the essential purposes of a project is reasonable and must be given an in-depth evaluation in the EIS. If adopted, my interpretation would enable NEPA to be more effective in promoting environmental values in the actions of federal agencies. (shrink)

Putnam presents a Peircean characterization of truth in an attempt to avoid relativism, which he argues is incoherent. I argue that Putnam has not avoided relativism. According to Putnam's theory of understanding, we must understand all claims concerning a Peircean community in terms of our own experiences and in terms of our own standards of rational assertability. Truth simply collapses into warranted assertability. At this point Putnam appeals to the objectivity of our standards of assertability. But Putnam's notion of "objectivity (...) for us" is a notion of objectivity which the relativist can happily adopt. Putnam's failure to provide more than a superficial distinction between internal realism and relativism means that internal realism faces the same problems which Putnam directs at "self-refuting" relativism. (shrink)

In this paper I intend to discuss difficulties which face Hilary Putnam’s internal realism, difficulties which involve issues in semantics. I hope to show that Putnam has not presented a viable theory of truth. Putnam wishes to avoid relativism, which he claims is incoherent. My argument against Putnam’s theory of truth will be that Putnam has avoided relativism at only a very superficial level. On a deeper analysis we will see that Putnam has in fact not avoided relativism.Putnam has abandoned (...) the correspondence theory of truth since he can make no sense of the claim that our words, thoughts, images, sensations, etc. correspond to external objects. Considerations of human psychology (1983a, p.viii), as well as problems concerning reference (1981; 1983a, pp.vii-xviii; 1983b), have led Putnam to adopt the view that truth must be analyzed in terms of justification. (shrink)

In the Second Analogy, Kant argues that we must presuppose, a priori, that each event is determined to occur by some preceding event in accordance with a causal law. Although there have been numerous interpretations of this argument, we have not been able to show that it is valid. In this paper, I develop my own interpretation of this argument. I borrow an insight offered by Robert Paul Wolff. In Kant's argument, our need to presuppose that the causal determination of (...) each event rests not upon our need to impose a 'necessary' and 'irreversible' temporal order upon representations of the states of an object, as Kant is usually interpreted, but upon our need to generate a comprehensive representation that includes a certain a priori conception of events in the world around us. Although the argument I attribute to Kant is valid, it cannot compel the Humean skeptic to accept the necessity of presupposing the causal determination of each event: Kant has not successfully responded to Hume in the Second Analogy. (shrink)

A mitigation bank is a large wetland or wetland complex that is developed for the sake of selling credits to private developers or government agencies to compensate for the destruction of natural wetlands. The United States Army Corps of Engineers often sets as a condition for issuing a Section 404 permit the purchase of a certain number of bank credits. Mitigation banking is now emphasized within Corps’ policy, and it has become big business within the United States. Arguments for mitigation (...) banking stress the efficiency in permitting and monitoring that banking makes possible. Proponents of banking claim that banking is ecologically beneficial to wetland plants and animals, but recent studies have shown that mitigation banking threatens biodiversity. The problem, generally, is consolidation. Underlying mitigation banking, and embedded within Corps policy, is the assumption that preservation of wetland functions must accommodate to a large extent desired levels of economic development and efficiency in the development process. (shrink)

SummaryPutnam claims that the objects we experience are “mind‐dependent” and “theory‐dependent”. He also writes that they are “constructed within our theories”. It is difficult to say what he means by these claims. I conclude that, according to Putnam, “empirical objects” do not really exist. But I attempt to show the sense in which he can be considered a realist about these objects. Putnam has adopted an idealism which allows for the correctness of realist claims within appropriate contexts. I also discuss (...) Putnam's solution to the problem of how we manage to refer to “empirical objects”. I argue that this solution, and his views concerning the nature of objects, are faced with important difficulties. (shrink)

P.F. Strawson represents a philosophical tradition in Kant scholarship. Strawson is opposed to Kant’s transcendental idealism, but he finds much of value in Kant’s metaphysical views. Strawson’s goal in The Bounds of Sense is to separate what is of value in Kant’s thought from Kant’s transcendental idealism. His dislike of transcendental idealism is based upon a certain interpretation which Henry Allison calls “the standard picture”. This picture is shared by several of Kant’s commentators, but is best exemplified in the work (...) of Strawson and H.A. Prichard. Concerning Strawson’s interpretation of Kant, R.C.S. Walker writes. (shrink)