Pragmatism in the Columbia Basin: Laws, values, and the emergence of a regional river ethic (Oregon)

This study examines the question, “What is the value of upper Columbia Basin salmon runs, relative to the value of (human) activities known to harm them?”; The question is pivotal to ongoing debates about watershed policy in the Basin. The region's ecological crisis is mirrored by a deepening crisis in watershed management. On its surface, the watershed management crisis is a crisis over policy options; at a deeper level, it is an ethical crisis, a crisis over values in and responsibilities to the river.; The question has two aspects. First, it calls for a description of two major types of values that invariably come into play in regional watershed policy decisions—salmon-related values and values related to salmon-harming activities. Next, it asks about the value of salmon runs in relation to the value of these activities; it asks for appropriate evaluative standards.; This study begins with a prologue, in which river-related values are situated in the context of a series of 1970s-era protectionist laws. My next step, in chapter one, is to postulate that these values always appear as elements within a larger narrative. Where the larger narrative has disintegrated, the values it supports will disintegrate as well. The watershed management crisis, under this hypothesis, is rooted in the fact that our society has no narrative for making sense of the values implicit in existing protectionist laws.; In chapters two and three I develop a comprehensive picture of river-related values. This is done using two distinct valuative frameworks—conservationism and ecocentrism. Together, these frameworks provide a panoramic vision of most of what is commonly valued in the river. Yet neither conservationism nor ecocentrism is able to offer acceptable criteria for determining what ought to be valued in the river. Appropriate criteria, I argue in chapter four, are better uncovered within the valuative framework of environmental pragmatism, through a critical inquiry into the conditions and consequences of the values we aim to protect in the river. My final chapter consists of an effort to illustrate and apply these criteria within the context of a specific river-related value conflict.*; *Originally published in DAI Vol. 62, No. 12. Republished here with corrected author name.