In a time when the ozone is shrinking, countless species of animals are in danger of extinction, and the world's supply of natural resources is being tested, the ideas of environmental and ecological justice are relatively novel. In his Thursday evening lecture in the Science Center's Kennedy Auditorium, Northern Arizona University Professor David Schlosberg focused on the use of the "capabilities approach" in environmental and ecological policy-making. The lecture, which was titled, "From Environmental Justice to Ecological Justice: Human Communities and Natural Systems," was sponsored by the Diversity and Social Justice Project as part of its Environmental Justice series.
Schlosberg prefaced his lecture by emphasizing to the audience that he is "not a nature boy." Rather, his area of expertise lies in social problems, making him familiar with the capabilities approach to policy debate. The capabilities approach was originally designed by as an attempt to understand welfare economics, and founds itself on the belief that people have the capabilities necessary for fully functioning lives. Political philosopher Martha Nussbaum outlined 10 capabilities necessary in all democracies, including life, bodily health, emotions, and play.
Schlosberg believes that the capabilities approach can be taken in examining the problems of ecological and environmental justice, or rather, the principles that animals and even ecosystems in the natural world have the intrinsic right to flourish and realize their full potentials.
Liberal political theorists, explained Schlosberg, often have a hard time focusing on the community rather than the individual. That is a central problem in modern day environmental justice, because a population cannot flourish if each organism is looked at as one individual. Justice is not defined in terms of the individual, but if the capabilities approach can be used to quantify the potential population of an ecosystem, then real results can be achieved with governmental support.
It is in this area, however, that the capabilities approach can branch off in multiple directions. Schlosberg pointed to one example about a tiger in a zoo. Martha Nussbaum, the political theorist, was happy to find, on a visit to the zoo, that the tigers were entertained with large balls hanging from the roofs of their enclosures. Since the tigers have the capability of predation, she thinks, it is appropriate that they are exercising that capability on a ball rather than on another live creature that has the same right to life as the tiger.
The other side of the debate is that the tiger's capability of predation should be conserved in its natural state. A gazelle, (an animal that would be hunted by a tiger), has a capability, almost an obligation, to become food for animals that are higher than it in the food chain. In this belief, a tiger in a zoo should be allowed the privilege of killing its meals itself.
Schlosberg, however, dismissed both of these arguments as irrelevant, emphasizing that if any real change is to take place in the field of environmental justice, the individual must be deemphasized in comparison to the community as a whole. "The functioning of the system," he said, "is at the heart of the problem." Environments and habitats are systems and cycles in which each group of organisms plays a decisive role. That is not to say that the individual is not important, but rather that more can be achieved by looking at the broader picture.
This idea of the capabilities approach as it relates to ecological and environmental justice is, right now, primarily operating on a hypothetical level. Schlosberg would like to see it implemented in public policy, but believes that the only way the idea can gain political momentum is through public discourse. He stressed how it will be necessary to support the capabilities approach with empirical evidence from ecological and environmental standpoints, and impressed the importance of flexibility and plurality among policy-makers.
-- by Pat Dunn '12
Schlosberg prefaced his lecture by emphasizing to the audience that he is "not a nature boy." Rather, his area of expertise lies in social problems, making him familiar with the capabilities approach to policy debate. The capabilities approach was originally designed by as an attempt to understand welfare economics, and founds itself on the belief that people have the capabilities necessary for fully functioning lives. Political philosopher Martha Nussbaum outlined 10 capabilities necessary in all democracies, including life, bodily health, emotions, and play.
Schlosberg believes that the capabilities approach can be taken in examining the problems of ecological and environmental justice, or rather, the principles that animals and even ecosystems in the natural world have the intrinsic right to flourish and realize their full potentials.
Liberal political theorists, explained Schlosberg, often have a hard time focusing on the community rather than the individual. That is a central problem in modern day environmental justice, because a population cannot flourish if each organism is looked at as one individual. Justice is not defined in terms of the individual, but if the capabilities approach can be used to quantify the potential population of an ecosystem, then real results can be achieved with governmental support.
It is in this area, however, that the capabilities approach can branch off in multiple directions. Schlosberg pointed to one example about a tiger in a zoo. Martha Nussbaum, the political theorist, was happy to find, on a visit to the zoo, that the tigers were entertained with large balls hanging from the roofs of their enclosures. Since the tigers have the capability of predation, she thinks, it is appropriate that they are exercising that capability on a ball rather than on another live creature that has the same right to life as the tiger.
The other side of the debate is that the tiger's capability of predation should be conserved in its natural state. A gazelle, (an animal that would be hunted by a tiger), has a capability, almost an obligation, to become food for animals that are higher than it in the food chain. In this belief, a tiger in a zoo should be allowed the privilege of killing its meals itself.
Schlosberg, however, dismissed both of these arguments as irrelevant, emphasizing that if any real change is to take place in the field of environmental justice, the individual must be deemphasized in comparison to the community as a whole. "The functioning of the system," he said, "is at the heart of the problem." Environments and habitats are systems and cycles in which each group of organisms plays a decisive role. That is not to say that the individual is not important, but rather that more can be achieved by looking at the broader picture.
This idea of the capabilities approach as it relates to ecological and environmental justice is, right now, primarily operating on a hypothetical level. Schlosberg would like to see it implemented in public policy, but believes that the only way the idea can gain political momentum is through public discourse. He stressed how it will be necessary to support the capabilities approach with empirical evidence from ecological and environmental standpoints, and impressed the importance of flexibility and plurality among policy-makers.
-- by Pat Dunn '12
