Sustainability and property rights in environmental resources

Environmental Ethics

Volumn 29, Issue 4, 2007, Pages 389-401

  Sheard, Murray ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF AUCKLAND   (New Zealand)

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EID: 38749122029     PISSN: 01634275     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.5840/enviroethics200729441     Document Type: Review

References (24)

1. Since these criticisms are familiar to Locke scholars, I do not explore them in detail, but see Murray Sheard, "Preserving Common Rights within Private Property: A Lockean Reconciliation" Philosophy in the Contemporary World 12, no, 2 (2005): 1-15.
2. For much greater - even too much - detail, see Murray Sheard, "Property Rights in Environmental Resources" (Ph.D. diss., University of Auckland, 2006), chaps. 2 and 3. The argument is seen as unilateral (since performance of the required acquisitive actions by the agent is sufficient to bring about a change in the moral relation of others to objects), as overplaying its hand as to what rights it can generate, and as incoherent. The proviso is said to be unnecessary, bogus, superseded, and too (but also insufficiently!) restrictive.
3. See Will Kymlicka, Contemporary Political Philosophy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990), pp. 107-24,
4. and Sheard, "Property Rights in Environmental Resources," for extended discussions of this point.
5. Robert Nozick, Anarchy State and Utopia (New York: Basic Books, 1974), p. 176.
6. Clark Wolf, "Contemporary Property Rights, Lockean Provisos, and the Interests of Future Generations," Ethics 105 (1995): 804. I draw on Wolf's approach here and in the following section.
7. Ibid., p. 795.
8. The non-identity problem concerning future people arises tangentially but not fatally here. While it may be irrational for future people to claim they were harmed by current choices, since they may not otherwise be alive, whichever people exist in future will have a vital interest in inheriting a livable environment and it is this interest that we must engage with. From the non-identity problem, Parfit concludes not that we have no responsibilities to future people, but that current moral theories have difficulty explaining why we do them. See Derek Parfit, Reasons and Persons (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984).
9. Wolf, "Contemporary Property Rights," p. 809.
10. Ibid., p. 810.
11. My major focus is on rights over land and ecosystems; however, as I show below, the stewardship conception can also be applied to goods the use of which affects such land and ecosystems.
12. Wolf, "Contemporary Property Rights," p. 817.
13. See Gillian Brock, "Future Generations, Natural Resources and Property Rights" Ethics and the Environment 3, no. 2 (1998): 123.
14. Ibid., p. 124
15. Nozick, Anarchy State and Utopia, p. 180.
16. Clark Wolf, "Property Rights, Human Needs, and Environmental Protection: A Response to Brock," Ethics and the Environment 4, no. 1 (1999): 110.
17. The incentive argument, however, should not be overstated. How large exactly must profits be to encourage vital research? Scientists are not entirely mercenary in their research interests. Further, a significant portion of research is government funded and in this sector, can be arranged to suit non-commercial priorities.
18. Of course, almost any object of property could be used in harmful ways. We must restrict attention to uses which, were it not for the threat of environmental disaster, would normally be regarded as innocent.
19. If we think it important to preserve values and opportunities for future generations beyond their mere survival, then the definition of this class will depend not merely upon our technical ability to replace goods, but also upon whether doing so is consistent with those values and opportunities we wish to preserve. We could imagine an artificial respirator, as a substitute for trees, acting as a carbon sink and oxygen producer; yet, we may value forests for other reasons. In this case, the class of "non-fungible resources" will also be a function of the values and opportunities we think it good to preserve and would include some technically fungible resources that are nevertheless deemed to be non-fungible with respect to higher values. While this point could be pressed, it goes beyond preservation for basic needs.
20. Julian Simon, The Ultimate Resource (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981).
21. On the surface, this approach suggests that a market model of valuation may implement such a scheme. The market is sensitive to resource scarcity, tracking the importance people place on them. So why not let the market determine which resources are to be candidates for stewardship? Those most scarce will become expensive, alerting legislative bodies of their need for protection. This can take us some way, yet it would be foolish to rely exclusively upon it. Among its weaknesses, the market may fail to pick up scarcities when the needs affected by such scarcities are those of future generations, and when the market records willingness to pay (a function of wants) and ability to pay (a function of wealth) rather than needs. Current preferences are doubly blind to future needs. First, as current they register what is currently valued, not what will be valued in future. Second, as preferences they register wants, not needs.
22. For a useful starting point for conditions under which preservation may be efficient if the interests of future generations are taken into account, see Richard Norgaard, and Richard Howarth, "Environmental Valuation under Sustainability" American Economic Review 82, no. 2 (1990): 473-77.
23. Differing views of Locke's intention would require either enough land or sufficient substitutes.
24. Of course, there are ways of destroying land and creating pollution that will not leave enough and as good and this proviso will rule those out. If those polluting industries render the remaining land impossible to inhabit, then there may not be enough, and it certainly will not be as good. But for many other cases of harm (e.g., particulates that cause fetal deformities) the harm does not stem from the appropriation itself. An "enough and as good" proviso fails to rule out these activities.