Pollution and Natural Rights

Abstract

This essay outlines the way in which natural rights theory regards pollution and on what basis it will say that pollution violates persons’ rights. I will also outline some key objections that have been made to its response to pollution, but argue that these are surmountable. More serious ontological objections can be made—unfortunately I present these without offering any way out for the natural rights theorist. However, these ontological objections also raise surprisingly interesting insights about the relationship between how we determine that a purported pollutant constitutes a rights violation, and the social context in which it is purported to occur. The self-understanding that social groups have of their activities is essential to determining what counts as a harmful interference in them, and therefore what counts as rights violating pollution. These are important issues worthy of discussion even in lieu of a full solution.

I am grateful to the other contributors to this volume, especially Jonathan Adler, for their very helpful comments and suggestions on an earlier draft of this essay.