Turner and Feldman address an important environmental justice issue: ‘Under conditions of social and economic inequality, only some people…will have the clout and the funding to get the powers...

Several recent authors have recommended that “sense of place” should become an important concept in our evaluation of environmental policies. In this paper, we explore aspects of this concept, arguing that it may provide the basis for a new, “place-based” approach to environmental values. This approach is based on an empirical hypothesis that place orientation is a feature of all people’s experience of their environment. We argue that place orientation requires, in addition to a home perspective, a sense of the (...) space around the home place and that this dual aspect can be modeled using a “hierarchical” methodology. We propose a “triscalar,” place-oriented system for the analysis of environmental values, explore the characteristics of place-orientation through several examples, and employ these characteristics to distinguish acceptable and unacceptable aspects of the NIMBY (not-in-my-backyard) idea. (shrink)

In ‘Why not NIMBY?’, Simon Feldman and Derek Turner mount a compelling case that NIMBY claims are not intrinsically morally unjustified, despite the fact that NIMBY-claimants...

In “Why Not NIMBY?” Derek Turner and Simon Feldman fail to address that many NIMBY protesters are not just concerned with concrete decision making, but also introduce a ‘metaphysical’ issue that liberal-democracy considers an inappropriate subject for the political debate. The type of rationality dominating political discourse requires one to reason in terms of 'common good' or personal preferences that can be weighted against other preferences. NIMBY’s do neither; rather they reframe the debate, starting from a radically different approach to (...) the meaning of place that questions the very notion that particular places can be compared. (shrink)

Feldman and Turner defend the making of so-called ‘NIMBY’ claims as ethically justifiable. They do so while confronting a case—Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s opposition to the Cape Wind Project in Nantuck...

This paper examines a particularly egregious example of a NIMBY claim and considers three proposals for explaining what about that claim might be ethically problematic: The NIMBY claimant is being selfish or self-serving; The NIMBY claim cannot be morally justified, because respecting everyone's NIMBY claims leaves communities worse off; and if policymakers were to defer to people's NIMBY claims, they would end up perpetuating environmental injustices. We argue that these proposals fail to explain why there is anything wrong with the (...) NIMBY claim per se. (shrink)

Feldman and Turner defend the making of so-called ‘NIMBY’ claims as ethically justifiable. They do so while confronting a case—Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s opposition to the Cape Wind Project in Nantuck...

Turner and Feldman address an important environmental justice issue: ‘Under conditions of social and economic inequality, only some people…will have the clout and the funding to get the powers...

NIMBY claims have certainly been vilified. But, as Feldman and Turner point out, one cannot condemn all NIMBY claims without condemning all appeals to partiality. This suggests that any moral problem with NIMBY claims stems not from their status as NIMBY claims but from an underlying illegitimate appeal to partiality. I suggest that if we are to distinguish illegitimate from legitimate appeals to partiality we should look to what might morally justify the sort of agent-relative reasons that can be expressed (...) as a part of public morality. However, if this serves to distinguish legitimate from illegitimate appeals to partiality, the scope for justifiable NIMBY claims is significantly reduced. NIMBY claims require special justification, just as do appeals to the appropriate form of agent-relative reasons. NIMBY appeals to the value of a particular place may very well be morally acceptable, but not merely in virtue of being significant to someone. (shrink)

This response contributes to Feldman and Turner's interesting discussion in two ways: firstly, it provides some clarity on the definition of the term ‘NIMBY’; and, secondly, it incorporates some of...

This response contributes to Feldman and Turner's interesting discussion in two ways: firstly, it provides some clarity on the definition of the term ‘NIMBY’; and, secondly, it incorporates some of...