Environmental Justice: Creating Equality, Reclaiming Democracy

Shrader-Frechette offers a rigorous philosophical discussion of environmental justice. Explaining fundamental ethical concepts such as equality, property rights, procedural justice, free informed consent, intergenerational equity, and just compensation--and then bringing them to bear on real-world social issues--she shows how many of these core concepts have been compromised for a large segment of the global population, including Appalachians, African-Americans, workers in hazardous jobs, and indigenous people in developing nations. She argues that burdens like pollution and resource depletion need to be apportioned more equally, and that there are compelling ethical grounds for remedying our environmental problems. She also argues that those affected by environmental problems must be included in the process of remedying those problems; that all citizens have a duty to engage in activism on behalf of environmental justice; and that in a democracy it is the people, not the government, that are ultimately responsible for fair use of the environment.

Kristin Shrader-Frechette is O'Neill Family Professor in the Department of Biological Sciences and the Department of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame.