Environmental justice: The issue of disproportionality

Environmental Ethics

Volumn 21, Issue 1, 1999, Pages 81-91

  Perhac Jr , Ralph M ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF TENNESSEE   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 0002661020     PISSN: 01634275     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.5840/enviroethics199921143     Document Type: Review

References (30)

1. United States Environmental Protection Agency, A Guidebook to Comparing Risks and Setting Environmental Priorities, EPA 230-B-93-003 (1993).
2. Troy Hartley, "Environmental Justice: An Environmental Civil Rights Value Acceptable to All World Views," Environmental Ethics 17 (1995): 277-88.
3. Robert Bullard, "Overcoming Racism in Environmental Decisionmaking," Environment 36 (1994): 10-16.
4. An anonymous referee questioned the possibility of analytically separating disproportionate risk from other issues such as unjust political processes, unequal enforcement of laws, etc. But surely they can be analytically separated; they mean different things. The more appropriate question may be whether, as a contingent matter, disproportionality ever exists without (causative) unjust processes, etc. Plausible examples can be readily cited. For instance, lead exposure is disproportionately borne by the poor simply because they tend (disproportionately) to live in older homes with lead-based paint. One would be hard pressed to argue that unjust political processes or the unequal enforcement of laws account for this phenomena. Questions about equating disproportionality with unjust processes are also raised by the economic analysis of "locally undesirable land use" sites (LULUs). One such analysis (Vicki Been, "Unpopular Neighbors: Are Dumps and landfills Sited Equitably?" Resources 115 [Spring 1994]: 16-19), concludes that "analysis of the sites in Bullard's study . . . indicates that market dynamics may play a significant role in the distribution of the burden LULUs impose. This finding suggests that even if siting processes can be improved, market forces would be likely to create a pattern in which LULUs become surrounded by people of color or the poor." It might also be noted that, to date, courts have widely rejected claims that disproportionate risk from hazardous waste facility siting is the result of an intent to discriminate. Carroll Bastian, ed., Toxics Watch 1995 (New York: INFORM, 1995), p. 374.
5. An anonymous referee questioned the possibility of analytically separating disproportionate risk from other issues such as unjust political processes, unequal enforcement of laws, etc. But surely they can be analytically separated; they mean different things. The more appropriate question may be whether, as a contingent matter, disproportionality ever exists without (causative) unjust processes, etc. Plausible examples can be readily cited. For instance, lead exposure is disproportionately borne by the poor simply because they tend (disproportionately) to live in older homes with lead-based paint. One would be hard pressed to argue that unjust political processes or the unequal enforcement of laws account for this phenomena. Questions about equating disproportionality with unjust processes are also raised by the economic analysis of "locally undesirable land use" sites (LULUs). One such analysis (Vicki Been, "Unpopular Neighbors: Are Dumps and landfills Sited Equitably?" Resources 115 [Spring 1994]: 16-19), concludes that "analysis of the sites in Bullard's study . . . indicates that market dynamics may play a significant role in the distribution of the burden LULUs impose. This finding suggests that even if siting processes can be improved, market forces would be likely to create a pattern in which LULUs become surrounded by people of color or the poor." It might also be noted that, to date, courts have widely rejected claims that disproportionate risk from hazardous waste facility siting is the result of an intent to discriminate. Carroll Bastian, ed., Toxics Watch 1995 (New York: INFORM, 1995), p. 374.
6. John Rawls, A Theory of Justice (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1971), pp. 83-90.
7. Michael Greenberg, "Proving Environmental Inequity in Siting Locally Unwanted Land Uses," Risk-Issues in Health & Safety 235 (1993): 235-52.
8. Bastian, Toxics Watch 1995, pp. 377-78.
9. Theodore Glickman, "Measuring Environmental Equity with Geographical Information Systems," Resources (Summer 1994): 2-6.
10. U.S. EPA Environmental Action Agenda. EPA540/R-95/023 (1995); 1996 Waste Programs Environmental Justice Accomplishment Report, EPA540/R-97/008 (1997); William Reilly, "Environmental Equity: EPA's Position," EPA Journal 18 (1992): 18-22.
11. U.S. EPA Environmental Action Agenda. EPA540/R-95/023 (1995); 1996 Waste Programs Environmental Justice Accomplishment Report, EPA540/R-97/008 (1997); William Reilly, "Environmental Equity: EPA's Position," EPA Journal 18 (1992): 18-22.
12. U.S. EPA Environmental Action Agenda. EPA540/R-95/023 (1995); 1996 Waste Programs Environmental Justice Accomplishment Report, EPA540/R-97/008 (1997); William Reilly, "Environmental Equity: EPA's Position," EPA Journal 18 (1992): 18-22.
13. Ibid., p. 21.
14. Ibid., p. 20.
15. Ian Savage, "Demographic Influences on Risk Perception," Risk Analysis 13 (1993): 413-20.
16. Hartley, "Environmental Justice," p. 284.
17. Bunyan Bryant and Paul Mohai, The Michigan Conference: A Turning Point, EPA Journal 18 (1992): 9.
18. Larry Arnhart, Political Questions: Political Philosophy from Plato to Rawls (New York: Macmillan Publishing Co., 1987), pp. 220-24.
19. Vernon van Dyke, "Collective Entities and Moral Rights: Problems in Liberal-Democratic Thought," in Julia Stapleton, ed., Group Rights: Perspectives Since 1900 (Bristol, England: Thoemmes Press, 1995), pp. 180-200.
20. Chandran Kukathas, "Are There any Cultural Rights?" in Julia Stapleton, ed.. Group Rights, Perspectives Since 1900, (Bristol, England: Thoemmes Press, 1995), pp. 258-98.
21. Peter Singer, "Not for Humans Only: The Place of Nonhumans in Environmental Issues," in K. E. Goodpaster and K. M. Sayre, eds., Ethics and Problems of the 21st Century (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1979.), pp. 191-206.
22. Thomas Regan, The Case for Animal Rights (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983), pp. 359-61.
23. Joel Feinberg, "The Rights of Animals and Unborn Generations," in William Blackstone, ed., Philosophy and Environmental Crisis (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1974), pp. 43-68.
24. Regan, The Case for Animal Rights, p. 359.
25. Norman Bowie and Robert Simon, The Individual and the Political Order: An Introduction to Social and Political Philosophy (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1986), pp. 202-30.
26. John Rawls, A Theory of Justice.
27. Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, and D. D. Raphael, ed., British Moralists 1650-1800 (London: Oxford University Press, 1969), pp. 18-60.
28. John Locke, Two Treatises of Government (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1960).
29. David Lewis Schaefer, Justice or Tyranny? A Critique of John Rawls' Theory of Justice (New York: National University Publications, 1979), p. 32. The assumption of risk aversion can be questioned on two levels. First, it is clearly not an accurate portrayal of human nature. Many human beings are willing to accept risks for the possibility of gains. Second, given that Rawls characterizes his theory as "justice as fairness," what reason is there to think that a social contract that issues from (hypothetically) risk averse individuals is more fair than one than issues from risk neutral or risk-taking individuals? It is (more) clear why we might make individuals behind the veil ignorant of their individual traits from the perspective of fairness (e.g., because justice should be colorblind); but what fundamental notion of fairness is embodied in the assumption of risk aversion? It has been widely charged that Rawls makes this assumption for the sole purpose of ensuring that his preconceived notion of fairness (egalitarianism) is favored by those behind the veil; and in so doing, Rawls strips those behind the veil of true self-determination and autonomy, which are supposed to be hallmarks of social contract theory.
30. Herman Leonard and Richard Zeckhauser, "Cost-Benefit Analysis Applied to Risk: Its Philosophy and Legitimacy," in Douglas MacLean, ed., Values at Risk (Totowa, N.J.: Rowman and Allanheld, 1986), pp. 31-48.