John Rawls And Environmental Justice

"Using the principles of John Rawls' theory of justice, this book offers an alternative political vision; one which describes a mode of governance that will enable communities to implement a sustainable and socially just future. Rawls described a theory of justice that not only describes the sort of society in which anyone would like to live but that any society can create a society based on just institutions. While philosophers have demonstrated that Rawls's theory can provide a framework for the discussion of questions of environmental justice, the problem for many philosophical theories is that discussions of sustainable development open the need to address questions of ecological interdependence, historical inequality in past resource use and the recognition that we cannot afford to ignore the limitations of growth. These ideas do not fit in comfortably in standard discourse about theories of justice. In contrast, this book frames the discussion of global justice in terms of environmental sustainability. The author argues that these ideas can be used to develop a coherent political theory which reconciles cosmopolitan arguments and the non-cosmopolitan or nationalist arguments concerning social and environmental justice. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of environment philosophy and ethics, moral and political philosophy, global studies and sustainable development"--

Using the principles of John Rawls’ theory of justice, this book offers an alternative political vision, one which describes a mode of governance that will enable communities to implement a sustainable and socially just future. Rawls described a theory of justice that not only describes the sort of society in which anyone would like to live but that any society can create a society based on just institutions. While philosophers have demonstrated that Rawls’s theory can provide a framework for the discussion of questions of environmental justice, the problem for many philosophical theories is that discussions of sustainable development open the need to address questions of ecological interdependence, historical inequality in past resource use and the recognition that we cannot afford to ignore the limitations of growth. These ideas do not fit in comfortably in standard discourse about theories of justice. In contrast, this book frames the discussion of global justice in terms of environmental sustainability. The author argues that these ideas can be used to develop a coherent political theory that reconciles cosmopolitan arguments and the non-cosmopolitan or nationalist arguments concerning social and environmental justice. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of environmental philosophy and ethics, moral and political philosophy, global studies and sustainable development.

Environmental sustainability and social, or distributive, justice are both widely regarded as desirable social objectives. But can we assume that they are compatible with each other? In this path-breaking study, Professor Dobson, a leading expert on environmental politics, analyses the complex relationship between these two pressing objectives. Environmental sustainability is taken to be a contested idea, and three distinct conceptions of it are described and explored. These conceptions are then examined in the context of fundamental distributive questions such as: Among whom or what should distribution take place? What should be distributed? What should the principle of distribution be? The author critically examines the claims of the `environmental justice' and `sustainable development' movements that social justice and environmental sustainability are points on the same virtuous circle, and concludes that radical environmental demands are only incompletely served by couching them in terms of justice.

The liberal political theorist John Rawls, despite remaining largely silent on ‘green concerns’, was writing during a time of increasing awareness that the ecological stability of the earth is being compromised by human activity. Rawls’s reluctance to engage with such concerns, however, has not stopped several scholars attempting to ‘extend’, or ‘expand’, his works to incorporate this newfound fear for the ecosystems that support human life. But why Rawls? What is to be gained from developing the ideas of a theorist whose primary aim was to establish a system of justice for contemporaneous, rational, and reasonable citizens of a liberal polity? This research monograph offers a critical consideration of the contextual framework within John Rawls’s Political Liberalism and considers its compatibility with the conceptual process of ‘greening’. Rawls and the Environmental Crisis argues that Rawls’s perceived neutrality on green concerns is representative of a widespread societal indifference to environmental degradation and describes the plurality of methodological and ethical approaches undertaken by green political theorists in analyzing the contribution Rawls’s theory makes to environmental concerns. Addressing a series of key debates within contemporary political philosophy regarding a wider frustration with liberal theory in general, Rawls and the Environmental Crisis will be of great interest to researchers in contemporary political philosophy, environmental ethics, green political theory, stewardship theory, and those interested in renewing existing conceptions of deliberative democracy.

This book will appeal to anyone interested in environmental politics, environmental movements, and justice theory. The basic task of this book is to explore what, exactly, is meant by 'justice' in definitions of environmental and ecological justice. It examines how the term is used in both self-described environmental justice movements and in theories of environmental and ecological justice. The central argument is that a theory and practice of environmental justice necessarily includes distributive conceptions of justice, but must also embrace notions of justice based in recognition, capabilities, and participation. Throughout, the goal is the development of a broad, multi-faceted, yet integrated notion of justice that can be applied to both relations regarding environmental risks in human populations and relations between human communities and non-human nature.

Shrader-Frechette offers a rigorous philosophical discussion of environmental justice. Explaining fundamental ethical concepts such as equality, property rights, procedural justice, free informed consent, intergenerational equity, and just compensation--and then bringing them to bear on real-world social issues--she shows how many of these core concepts have been compromised for a large segment of the global population, among them Appalachians, African-Americans, workers in hazardous jobs, and indigenous people in developing nations. She argues that burdens like pollution and resource depletion need to be apportioned more equally, and that there are compelling ethical grounds for remedying our environmental problems. She also argues that those affected by environmental problems must be included in the process of remedying those problems; that all citizens have a duty to engage in activism on behalf of Environmental Justice; and that in a democracy it is the people, not the government, that are ultimately responsible for fair use of the environment.

This book contributes to the discussion about obligations to future generations by arguing that a principle of justice, according to which we must share the environmental resources of the planet with future generations, must be considered to be part of the just basic structure of society. The argument is based on a close study of Rawls' theory of justice and particularly of its treatment of the future generations issue. But the author claims that the affirmation of a principle of justice towards future generations must be accompanied by the attempt to articulate the motives that shape a concern with the fate of future persons in the first place. In order to consider, and further, its real chances, we must put the perspective of justice between generations, with its very detached character, within the context of our view from the present such as it is situated in historical time. This opens a fascinating but difficult field of inquiry about inter-generational value and its different aspects. Although it is centred on the theory of justice and on general ethics, the book also pays attention to the legal issues raised by the notion of a future-oriented just basic structure of society.