Environmental Citizenship as Reasonable Citizenship

Abstract

This article is an exercise in theoretical reconciliation of two points of view often thought to be opposed; that of liberal political theory and that of a green, non-instrumental attitude, towards non-human nature. The reconciliation of these views is attempted here via the concept of citizenship, especially that of the ‘reasonable’ citizenship associated with recent political liberalism. It is argued that a certain form of non-instrumentalism towards nature, what is called ‘the otherness view’ of nature's value, has sufficient affinity to reasonable citizenship to be considered a further exercise of it. Some implications of this claim are explored and some objections to it considered.