Going beyond Rawls to ensure Ecological Justice

1. Goingbeyond Rawlsto ensureEcological Justice ROUX Guilhem Lameta ESEE 2011

2. Introduction • Which Theories of Justice for Sustainability? • Literature: - Dobson 1998 (Justice and the Environment) - Pelletier (Ecological Economics, 2010) • Problematic: Why Rawls’ framework isn’t adapted to Ecological Justice?

3. Structure • Three approaches to Justice in the work or Rawls • Justice as Fairness and the concept of distributive justice • Apolitical conception of Justice and the idea of an overlapping consensus • The original position and justice as the outcome of a procedure of deliberation • Are those perspectives adapted to the environmental and intergeneration dimensions of sustainable development?

4. The sense of Justice as Fairness • The two senses of the word « Just » for Aristotle - justice as lawfulness (universal justice) - justice as fairness (particular justice) • The modern abortion of justice as lawfulness

5. The modern circumstances of Justice • Hume’s Circumstances of Justice (Barry, 1978: Circumstances of Justice and Future Generations) • The idea of society as cooperation for mutual advantages (Rawls, 1993) • The problem of the social justice: the distribution of the social advantages • Not all the goods are concerned by such a problem (Aristotle, Hume) • Things concerned by Justice as Fairness are: • Produced by the human industry and work • Divisible

6. Sustainability and Justice as Fairness • The Earth and the Biosphere: • Aren’t produced by the human word • Aren’t divisible • Sustainability is not a question of particular justice • First conclusion: If Justice = Particular Justice, Then, Sustainability is not a matter of justice.

7. The Political Conception of Justice • The treatment of Liberty as a matter of Justice • The Primary Goods • Liberty as a primary good • Why the environmental goods wouldn’t be a primary good too?

8. Why Liberty is a matter of Justice? • In the occidental philosophical tradition: • Hobbes (Leviathan) • Locke (TwoTreatise of Governement) Justification thanks to Natural Law theory (return to Aristotleuniversal justice…) • For Rawls: • Justification by the political culture of the democratic society (Rawls, 1985) • Overlapping Consensus

9. Can we apply this method for the ecological question? • There is no Unanimity The Earth isn’t recognize in our tradition as a Primary Good • Adverse common Ideologies in the occidental culture • Second Conclusion If we try to avoid any value judgment Then we can’t say the Earth is a primary good And sustainability isn’t a matter of fundamental Justice

10. Justice as the outcome of a fair procedure of deliberation • Experience of thought • Original Position • Deliberation on the Limits to Growth • Rationality of the partners (individual preferences, trade-off between industrial and environmental goods) • Reasonable outcome: a mean consensus

11. Can the limits adopted enforce a sustainable development? • Where are the interests of the future generations? • The limit chosen by such a social contract only take the interest of the present inton account

12. The limit of this procedural conception of justice • The absence of the future generations in the procedure of deliberation • The Social Contract Theory can’t be extanded to the intergeneration dimension (Gardiner, 2009; Heyd, 2009) 3e Conclusion: Inefficiency of the Social Contract Myth to found Intergeneration Equity

13. Response to our problematic - Specificity of the goods in question - Novelty of the stake; no unanimity of the public opinion - Intergeneration dimension • The classical definitions of justice of Ralws (distributive justice, overlapping consensus, social contract) are adapted to treat Sustainability as a matter of justice.

14. Conclusion • We need to look for another Political and Moral Philosophy • The example of the fundamental concepts of Environment Law • Exploring next Virtue Ethics and Communautarianism (Becker, 2006, Ecological Economics; Pelletier, 2010, Ecological Economics)