environmental justice course developmentDear Jim and others
I have never taught Environmental Justice so anybody affronted by bold assertions based on ignorance should look away now.
I have to agree that a sense of justice (used in the second sense) that includes the natural world stretches definitions too far especially since in the notional court, where the justice is deliberated upon, the judge, jury, defence and prosecution are all human (one assumes). The natural world does not have a voice and a human proxy can only represent a human perspective even if the intention is to mount a defence. 'Fair' treatment of the natural environment is a construct that refers to human values.
However environmental justice that makes judgements between people in relation to the use and misuse of the wider environment makes much more sense. The analogies 'food justice' and 'clothes justice' are not really comparable since clothes and food are not held in common. The environment is held in common and damage to it is an infringement of my equal right to enjoy it. Of course the wealthy may choose to buy cleaner air. Perhaps even the less well off, may choose to spend their resources on the quality of their environment rather than a plasma screen TV. That is their right. The Justice argument applies not to how fairly the environment is divided between us but to how an environment that we wish to share is defended against those who degrade it. It is a case of protecting existing entitlements.. It is not as Beckman and Pasek suggest (in the extract) a problem of 'distribution'.
Best
PK
----- Original Message -----
From: Jim Tantillo
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: Wednesday, March 05, 2008 11:55 PM
Subject: environmental justice course development
Hi everyone,
I have been asked by my department to develop a new course on environmental justice for the 2008-2009 school year. I have posted a similar query on the ISEE list, but I would also appreciate hearing from others on this list who have taught courses on EJ and learning what has worked, what hasn't, receiving copies of syllabi, suggestions about texts, etc.
I'm wrestling with the concept itself. Does the concept of "environmental justice" even make sense? I would be interested to hear what list members have to say in response to the following passage from Wilfred Beckerman's book, Justice, Posterity, and the Environment (Oxford U Pr, 2001). While I take it Beckerman is well-known to be an EJ skeptic, his points below seem to me to be important to present to students in a basic EJ course.
Beckerman and Pasek write:
" . . . [W]e do not think that the concept of 'environmental justice' makes much sense. In our view, 'environmental ethics' makes sense since it refers merely to those ethical considerations that arise in the analysis of environmental problems, in the same way that, say, the term 'medical ethics' would describe the ethical issues arising in medicine. But the term 'environmental justice' has no such clear meaning and is probably a confusing misnomer. It tends to be used to mean two different things, both of which are misleading.
"The first is a reference to the fact that poorer people tend to suffer more from environmental pollution, or from measures to reduce it, than do rich people . . . . For example, the people living near smelly factories tend to be poorer than others. But it happens that rich people tend to enjoy more of all sorts of 'goods' and less of 'bads' than do poorer people. It is consequently inevitable that they will also tend to have fewer 'bads', such as pollution. Indeed, there is no conceptual difference between, say, the 'bad' of living near a smelly factory and the 'good' of living in an environment free of smells. The rich also tend to have better food, bigger cars and houses, better health care, smarter clothes, and so on. But one does not talk about 'food justice', or 'clothes justice', and so on. We may well have views concerning what is a 'just' distribution of incomes, or welfare, or whatever, between people. This will then determine how we think that environmental goods and 'bads', like other goods, should be distributed among people. But this will not require any special theory of 'environmental justice.'
"The second common usage of the term 'environmental justice' is a reference to justice between human beings, on the one hand, and 'nature'--animals or trees or mountains and so on--on the other hand. But the conception of justice to which we subscribe refers to relationships between people. After over two thousand years of scrutiny of the concept of justice, philosophers have made some progress in clarifying the main serious theories of 'just' relationships between human beings. For example, useful distinctions have been made between those theories of justice that are in terms of mutually advantageous contracts that people may make, or have inherited, and theories based on notions of 'fairness' or 'impartiality.' But we find it difficult to conceive of a serious theory of justice in terms of a contract between human beings and animals, or in terms of how 'unfair' it is on mountains if too many people are allowed to ski down them. Of course, it may well be that theories of justice should be interpreted more widely to encompass the relationship between humans and other species or cherished natural features. But, meanwhile, we prefer to leave such relationships to that part of morality that lie outside the domain of 'justice.' " (Beckerman and Pasek, 5-6)
any thoughts??
thanks in advance,
Jim
--
Jim Tantillo
Department of Natural Resources
101-A Rice Hall
Cornell University
Ithaca, NY 14853
phone: 607-255-2821
fax: 607-255-0349
email: [log in to unmask]
http://www.dnr.cornell.edu/people/staff/profiles/tantillo.html
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This incoming email to UWE has been independently scanned for viruses by McAfee anti-virus software and none were detected
This email was independently scanned for viruses by McAfee anti-virus software and none were found
