RHETORIC, ENVIRONMENTALISM, AND ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS

The growth of environmental ethics as an academic discipline has not b een accompanied by any cultural movement toward sustainability. Indice s of ecological degradation steadily increase, and many of the legisla tive gains made during the 1970s have been lost during the Reagan-Bush anti-environmental revolution. This situation gives rise to questions about the efficacy of ecophilosophical discourse. We argue (1) that t hese setbacks reflect, on the one hand, the skillful use of rhetorical tools by anti-environmental factions and, on the other, the indiffere nce (even hostility) of the ecophilosophical community toward rhetoric , (2) that since the linguistic turn in philosophy, no rigid line of d emarcation can be maintained between rhetoric and philosophy, and (3) that rhetoric offers resources to the ecophilosophical community that increase its potential to effect change in society.