In its simplest form, the principle of fairness tells us the following. If a number of people are producing a public good that we benefit from, it is not morally acceptable to free ride on their backs, enjoying the benefits without paying the costs. We owe them our fair share of the costs of the production of that good. The principle of fairness, defended by Rawls in A Theory of Justice and widely discussed subsequently, is sometimes invoked in various areas (...) of applied ethics, such as environmental ethics, social ethics, etc.As it stands, the principle of fairness offers an account of a particular type of moral obligation that obtains if certain conditions are satisfied. For example, the good produced must be a particular type of good, the scheme in which it is produced must itself be fair, and so on. This account inspired a wave of discussions, which set the tone for the debate on the principle of fairness, about two decades ago. (shrink)

Thirty years ago the American philosopher Holmes Rolston published a seminal article in Ethics announcing the birth of a new sub‐discipline in philosophy: environmental ethics. However, while environmental ethicists focused on meta‐ethical questions, the public needed answers to many political questions and dilemmas. This gave rise to some fascinating works in environmental political theory. This essay analyses their achievement – what has been solved and what still remains to be studied – focusing on three main topics: justice and the environment, (...) democracy and the environment, and globalism and the environment. (shrink)

Resource development takes place through the transformation of social institutions. The moral dimension is of crucial importance in the evolution of associated management regimes. More than just a code of ethics, moralities are predicated on what is understood to be 'the good'. Recognition of the good requires a rhetoric beyond those of power and interest. This paper proposes a rhetoric of love. Within this conception of morality, the management of human relationships becomes understood as an unfolding cycle of choice among (...) tragic choices and management of the non-human environment is accomplished through the realisation of the gift relationship. (shrink)

Resource development takes place through the transformation of social institutions. The moral dimension is of crucial importance in the evolution of associated management regimes. More than just a code of ethics, moralities are predicated on what is understood to be ‘the good’. Recognition of the good requires a rhetoric beyond those of power and interest. This paper proposes a rhetoric of love. Within this conception of morality, the management of human relationships becomes understood as an unfolding cycle of choice among (...) tragic choices and management of the non‐human environment is accomplished through the realisation of the gift relationship. (shrink)

How much responsibility ought a professional engineer to have with regard to supporting basic principles of sustainable development? While within the United States, professional engineering societies, as reflected in their codes of ethics, differ in their responses to this question, none of these professional societies has yet to put the engineer’s responsibility toward sustainability on a par with commitments to public safety, health, and welfare. In this paper, we aim to suggest that sustainability should be included in the paramountcy clause (...) because it is a necessary condition to ensure the safety, health, and welfare of the public. Part of our justification rests on the fact that to engineer sustainably means among many things to consider social justice, understood as the fair and equitable distribution of social goods, as a design constraint similar to technical, economic, and environmental constraints. This element of social justice is not explicit in the current paramountcy clause. Our argument rests on demonstrating that social justice in terms of both inter- and intra-generational equity is an important dimension of sustainability (and engineering). We also propose that embracing sustainability in the codes while recognizing the role that social justice plays may elevate the status of the engineer as public intellectual and agent of social good. This shift will then need to be incorporated in how we teach undergraduate engineering students about engineering ethics. (shrink)

What do the living owe those who come after them? It is a question nonsensical to some and unanswerable to others, yet tantalizing in its persistence especially among environmentalists. This article makes a new start on the topic of intergenerational justice by bringing together human rights and environmental justice arguments in a novel way that lays the groundwork for a theory of intergenerational environmental justice based in the human rights to clean air, water, and soil. Three issues foundational to such (...) a theory are explored here. First is the broad question of whether justice is applicable to future (or past) generations in any real sense, or do such issues fall under the rubric of superogation. Second, can environmental goods properly be contained in a theory of distributive justice at all, since, superficially at least, they seem different in kind than the usual objects of justice? I will discuss them as “emergent” goods in fact central to contemporary justice distributions. Third, what is the relationship of justice to rights, and how can environmental human rights be included in justice distributions? (shrink)

Existing accounts of public-goods distribution rely on the existence of solidarity for providing non-universal public goods, such as the humanities or national parks. There are three fundamental problems with these accounts: they ignore instances of social fragmentation; they treat preferences for public goods as morally benign, and they assume that these preferences are the only relevant moral consideration. However, not all citizens unanimously require public goods such as the humanities or national parks. Public-goods distribution that is based only on citizens’ (...) preferences, therefore, means that non-universal public good are at a constant risk of under-provision, and has negative implications for human flourishing. The paper, therefore, develops a complementary justification for the distribution of public goods, that decouples the distribution of public goods from ad hoc preferences, and grounds the distributive justification in the intrinsic value of these goods. There are three reasons to include intrinsic-value considerations in public-goods distribution: responding to crowding-out effects; promoting shared heritage and cross-fertilization. Finally, the intrinsic-value justification may indirectly promote solidarity. Thus, the intrinsic-value and the solidarity justifications need not be mutually exclusive, rather they can be mutually reinforcing. (shrink)

The book kicks off by remarking that the year 1972 must have been a very special year indeed. The Club of Rome published its report 'The Limits to Growth', the Ecologist published its 'Blueprint for Survival', and the United Nations held its first environmental conference in Stockholm. These three occasions were the first to use the notion of sustainable development with its current connotations. However, sustainable development only received its lasting status as a meta-objective for national and international environmental policy-making (...) with the publication of the WCED-report 'Our Common Future' in 1987. This report defined sustainable development as "development that meets the needs of the present generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs". Subsequently, the debate on sustainable development reached a new climax with the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. This conference introduced the idea that sustainable development asks for adjustments of lifestyles and patterns of consumption, apart from adjustments in the sphere of production. UNCED emphasised the need for government intervention in non-sustainable lifestyles, and the second Dutch National Environmental Policy Plan (NEPP2) translated this emphasis to the Dutch context.UNCED and NEPP2 initiated an extensive public debate on government intervention in non-sustainable lifestyles, which was dominated by communicative and economic strategies. Unfortunately, these strategies hitherto failed to reconcile government intervention in non-sustainable lifestyles and respect for people's freedom to follow their own lifestyles. Therefore, this book's objective is to provide this very reconciliation by drawing an outline of a green third way for government intervention in non-sustainable lifestyles. This green third way presents itself as an alternative for the first (communicative) and second (economic) ways in the Dutch public debate. The book aims to articulate people's concerns about the deterioration of nature and the environment, materialised in the worldwide support for the notion of sustainable development, within a largely political liberal frame of reference.Chapter 2 maps the Dutch public debate on government intervention in non-sustainable lifestyles. This analysis shows that although communicative and economic strategies dominate the debate, these strategies are seriously flawed in their attempts to evade the principled question of whether government intervention in non-sustainable lifestyles implies an intolerable infringement of people's freedom to follow their own lifestyles, visions of the good life or consumptive preferences. Communicative and economic strategies are thus criticised on three accounts: 1) their failure to recognise the inextricable interconnectedness between attitudes and behaviour in people's lifestyles; 2) their evasion of the question of how government intervention in non-sustainable lifestyles could respect the individual freedom of choice; and 3) their unwillingness to investigate whether sustainable development could offer sound reasons to restrict this freedom of choice. Both strategies are, therefore, incapable of providing a meaningful interpretation of all key terms in the phrase 'government intervention in non-sustainable lifestyles'. It is not much of a surprise then that they cannot reconcile government intervention and respect for people's freedom to follow their own lifestyles. Therefore, the chapters 3,4 and 5 subsequently set out to remedy these three flaws of communicative and economic strategies. Luckily, lately a third strategy dawned in the Dutch public debate. This third strategy provides some of the materials to develop an outline of a green third way for government intervention in non-sustainable lifestyles.Chapter 3 argues, mainly inspired by Giddens's theory of structuration, his and Beck's accounts of reflexive modernisation and Douglas's grid-group analysis, for a narrative conceptualisation of the notions of lifestyle and self-identity. This conceptualisation 1) emphasises the inextricable interconnectedness of practices and narratives of self-identity in people's lifestyles, 2) stresses the duality of individual and society in the constitution of lifestyles, 3) changes the modernist distinction between citizen and consumer for the public-private hybrid of the citizen-consumer, and 4) maps the plurality of lifestyles in contemporary globalising, individualising and detraditionalising societies. The narrative conceptualisation of lifestyles implies that it is no longer possible to evade the question of whether government intervention in non-sustainable lifestyles necessarily entails an intolerable infringement of people's freedom to follow their own lifestyles. It will not do to emphasise some remaining freedom in either practices or narratives of self-identity, since these practices and narratives are inextricably interconnected in people's lifestyles.Chapter 4 argues, mainly informed by Berlin's and Rawls's political liberalism, Raz's liberal perfectionism and Habermas's notion of a deliberative democracy, that most government intervention in lifestyles is indeed an intolerable infringement of the individual freedom of choice. This liberal point of view 1) argues that respect for the individual freedom of choice implies that the government should take a neutral and anti-perfectionist stance, 2) holds it that directive, communicative and economic, strategies for government intervention would only be justified if certain choices harmed others, caused injustice, or were obviously irrational, 3) accepts, in the second instance, that the political liberal argument is not neutral and anti-perfectionist at all, but believes that this perfectionist turn only strengthens the need to respect the individual freedom of choice, and 4) advocates extensive public deliberation on the objectives and instruments of environmental policy-making. The political liberal emphasis on the need to respect the individual freedom of choice implies that directive strategies for government intervention in non-sustainable lifestyles generally do not show enough respect for people's freedom to follow their own lifestyles, unless it is obvious that certain lifestyles harm others or cause injustice.Chapter 5 argues, mainly on the basis of Rawls's savings principle, Wissenburg's restraint principle, Passmore's chains of love, and De-Shalit's transgenerational communities, for a double interpretation of sustainable development as a principle of intergenerational justice and a future-oriented green ideal. This double interpretation 1) embraces the restraint principle and the argument that no individual can claim an unconditional right to destroy environmental goods as a baseline that could justify directive strategies for government intervention in non-sustainable lifestyles, 2) suggests that people's concerns about the deterioration of nature and the environment articulate future-oriented narratives of self-identity that could fuel non-directive strategies to develop further responsibilities towards nearby future generations, 3) prefers to draw a list of primary environmental goods instead of quantifying some environmental utilisation space as a practical guideline for day-to-day environmental policy-making, and 4) concludes that the uncertainty of scientific knowledge about the unintended environmental repercussions of consumptive choices casts serious doubt about attempts to justify directive strategies for government intervention in non-sustainable lifestyles beyond the requirement of sustaining the baseline of the restraint principle and the list of primary environmental goods. Sustainable development, thus, provides sound arguments to restrict people's freedom to follow their own lifestyles, when these lifestyles transgressed the baseline of the restraint principle and the list of primary environmental goods. However, the individual freedom of choice should not be restricted for any further environmental considerations. Non-directive strategies are thus to stimulate the development of such further responsibilities towards nearby future generations. The challenge for a green third way of government intervention in non-sustainable lifestyles becomes to search for adjustments of social and material conditions that could tempt people to develop sustainable lifestyles.Chapter 6, finally, returns from these rather unearthly reflections to the more mundane issues in the public debate on government intervention in non-sustainable lifestyles by presenting an outline of a green third way. This green third way offers an alternative to the overly directive communicative and economic strategies for government intervention in non-sustainable lifestyles, and broadens the prevailing political landscape with a strategy that promises superiority in addressing the intricacies of environmental policy-making in liberal-democratic societies. Although this green third way leaves ample room to use communicative and economic instruments to secure the environmental baseline of the restraint principle and the list of primary environmental goods, these instruments are framed in a quite different perspective or set of premises now. A short discussion of the Schönau Energy Initiatives serves to illustrate the kernel of an alternative strategy. This green third way offers a non-directive strategy for government intervention in non-sustainable lifestyles in which the government hopes to stimulate the development of sustainable lifestyles by adjusting the social and material conditions that surround people in following their lifestyles. The green third way, thus, reconciles government intervention in non-sustainable lifestyles and respect for people's freedom to follow their own lifestyles to a satisfactory degree. It accepts that the requirement to secure the environmental baseline of the restraint principle and the list of primary environmental goods justifies the use of directive strategies for government intervention in non-sustainable lifestyles in a limited set of conditions. However, it also emphasises that non-directive strategies should do the majority of the job. In this non-directive strategy the government should provide the social and material conditions in which a plurality of sustainable lifestyles could flourish. (shrink)

Suppose the present generation leaves future ones with a world depleted of all the natural resources required for many valuable human pursuits. Has the present generation acted unjustly? According to contemporary theories of liberal egalitarian intragenerational and intergenerational justice, the answer, it appears, is no. The explanation for this verdict lies in the liberal commitment to remaining neutral between different ways of life: many value-laden environ- mental sites and species are not an all-purpose means to any reasonable human end and (...) so their existence is not directly relevant in an assessment of whether justice obtains. Against this view, I argue that a commitment to neutrality and its underlying justification – the idea that individuals should be equipped to live lives of their own design – in fact supports the opposite conclusion. If justice requires that citizens can pursue whatever way of life they do or might value, then it will also demand the continued existence of the natural resources necessary for those pursuits. (shrink)

Articulating an account of food justice in isolation from broader questions about sustainability would leave many important normative issues unaddressed. This chapter explores the reasons for thinking that questions of food justice need to be framed within the context of the broader set of social and environmental goals that comprise sustainability. An initial difficulty faced by this proposal is that many philosophers (among others) have viewed the concept and norm of sustainability with suspicion. Reasons for this range from concern about (...) sustainability being hopelessly vague and hence useless for policy, to concern that interest in sustainability is just the latest cover for business as usual and thus a kind of betrayal of the environmental cause. While I believe such concerns are unconvincing, there is no question that sustainability is a contested concept—one that needs careful specification and defense if it is to do any work helping to frame discussions of food justice. This chapter maps three types of sustainability view, ranging from a minimalist to a very demanding view. Depending on the view of sustainability one adopts, there can be significantly different implications for how we should think about, and try to realize in practice, food justice. Some of these implications are explored with respect to each type of sustainability view sketched. (shrink)