Transcript Integrating Sustainability into Construction Programs

Social Justice,
the Global Community,
and the
Distributional Principle
Ethics of Sustainability
Class 7
Leslie Paul Thiele, Ph.D.
Department of Political Science
University of Florida
Overview
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
The Meaning of Social Justice
Environmental Racism/Injustice
Ecological Shadows and Interdependence
Spaceships and Lifeboats
The Distributional Principle
Sharing Power
Transparency
Autonomy
Social justice
• the fair allocation of burdens, risks,
benefits, and opportunities within society
• the just distribution of advantages and
disadvantages of social life
• Logic of extending intergenerational justice
to intragenerational justice
• Self-interest and social justice
The Ethics of Reciprocity
• Concerns relationships of mutual exchange,
equal treatment, and reciprocal rights and
duties
The golden rule
• Confucious: “Do not impose on others what
you yourself do not desire.”
• Hillel: “What is hateful to you, do not do to
your neighbor, that is the whole Torah,
while the rest is the commentary.”
• New Testament: “Always treat others as
you would like them to treat you.”
How do our neighbors
want to be treated?
• basic needs for physical security, health,
nutritious food, decent housing, education, a
meaningful livelihood, and a lifesupporting, beautiful, and biologically
diverse planet.
• the right and opportunity to participate in
decision-making processes that will
determine how basic goods and risks are
defined and distributed
Environmental Racism/Injustice
-the disproportionate burdening
of certain races or classes with
environmental hardships or
risks
Ecological Shadows
•
•
•
•
•
Pollution
Poverty and Hunger
Overconsumption
Resource depletion
Climate Change
Pollution
Poverty & Hunger
Overconsumption
Resource Depletion
Climate Change
Interdependence
• Norman Myers: "Not even the most
advanced nation can insulate itself from
[global] environmental impacts, no matter
how strong it may be economically or how
advanced technologically or how powerful
militarily.”
I. T..
IT
E. T.
Spaceship Earth and Globalism
• Adlai Stevenson: "We travel together,
passengers on a little spaceship, dependent
upon its vulnerable reserve of air and soil;
all committed for our safety to its security
and peace; preserved from annihilation by
the care, the work, and I will say, the love
we give our fragile craft.”
Spaceship Earth and Globalism
• Global Green Dictatorship?
• Globeocracy?
• McWorld?
• Glocalism
Think tomorrow act today
Think Globally, act locally
• Wendell Berry: "The real work of planetsaving will be small, humble, and humbling,
and (insofar as it involves love) pleasing
and rewarding. Its jobs will be too many to
count, too many to report, too many to be
publicly noticed or rewarded, too small to
make anyone rich or famous."
The Global Haves & Have Nots
• Stevenson: "We cannot maintain [the
spaceship] half fortunate, half miserable,
half confident, half despairing, half slave to
the ancient enemies of mankind and half
free in a liberation of resources undreamed
of until this day. No craft, no crew, can
travel safely with such vast contradictions.
On their resolution depends the security of
us all."
Lifeboat Ethics
• Hardin: Tragedy of the Commons
– Swamping the commons
– “Freedom in a commons brings ruin to all.”
Managing the Global Commons
•
•
•
•
•
•
Privatize everything
Green Dictator
Multilateral agreements (e.g. Antarctica)
NGOs
Traditional Practices
Combinations?
Collective Action Dilemmas
• The problem of free riders
• Fostering sense of identity, agency and
empowerment, injustice
– Ultimatum game
Lifeboat or Spaceship?
• Egalitarian and socially just countries better
protect their environments
• Economic development stimulates
environmental values
• Green technology requires economic means
• Economic development and gender justice
stems population growth
Global Community
Distributional Principle
• Fair distribution of rights, duties and social
advantages
•
•
•
•
Economic benefits
Risks
Power
Decision making abilities…
What is fair?
The “Difference Principle”
-basic rights
-equality of opportunity
-inequalities benefit the
disadvantaged
Sharing Power
• Marshall McLuhan: “There are no
passengers on Spaceship Earth; everybody's
crew."
• Need for democratic governance
• WCED: “The pursuit of sustainable
development requires ... a political system
that secures effective citizen participation in
decision making.”
Transparency
• Democracy and transparency: elections,
lobbying, parliamentary procedure
• Right to know legislation
• Ecolabeling
• Life-cycle analysis
• Technology, expertise, and the public
Autonomy
• Self-governance
• Voluntary and involuntary risk
– GMOs, nanotechnology
Who decides?