Showing papers on "Environmental health ethics published in 2003"

Equity, environmental justice and sustainability: incomplete approaches in climate change politics

Abstract: The diversity of the different takes on the ethical concepts of equity and environmental justice in the environmental literature requires that a unifying framework, to properly map their theoretical and conceptual loci in environmental ethics, is defined. Specifically, the concepts of equity and environmental justice have often been conflated into one even though they rest on different philosophical foundations and have different denotations, connotations and implications. The inconsistent use of these constructs is perverse in both scholarly discussions and global environmental policy formulation and detracts from conceptual clarity and their analytical usefulness. The aim of this paper, therefore, is to provide a mapping of the different takes to the moral aspects of global environmental decisions. Attempt is made to clarify the conceptual and philosophical denotations of environmental justice and equity from the point of view of philosophy, law and moral ethics. Our analysis leads to the construing of environmental justice as a broad overarching concept encompassing all justice issues in environmental decision-making, including both procedural and distributive justice, which is what is usually meant by equity. The resulting framework allows us to grasp the competing, conflicting and incomplete approaches to environmental justice as captured in the North–South conceptions of the construct more effectively. It is our hope that our conclusions would be valuable to researchers of global environmental change and politics.

Environmental Ethics: An Overview for the Twenty-First Century

Abstract: Acknowledgements. List Of Abbreviations. Author's Preface. 1. Environmental Problems And Humanity. Introduction: Environmental Problems And The Global Environment. Local And Global Environmental Problems. Animal Welfarism And Environmentalism. Theories Of Value. Environmental Ethics And Its Neighbours. Theories Of The Genesis Of The Problems. Human Stewardship Of Nature. But Is Caring About The Environment Really Possible?. 2. Some Central Debates. Dominion And Stewardship. A Recent Critique. The Emergence Of Environmental Ethics In The Early 1970s. Holism, Anthropocentrism And Biocentrism Compared. Biocentric Consequentialism. Alternative Theories. Meta--Ethical Debates. 3. Some Critiques Of Environmental Ethics. Environmental Ethics, Motivation And The Good Life. There Is More To Ethics Than These Promising Approaches Allow. There Is More To Human Motivation Too. Can Environmental Ethics Make A Difference?. Can Values Contribute To Change?. Does A Consequentialist Environmental Ethic Have Unacceptable Implications?. Would Biocentric Consequentialism Preserve Enough Species?. 4. Taking The Future Seriously. The Scope And Limits Of Future--Related Responsibilities. Some Bases For Future--Related Responsibilities. Some Grounds For Restricting Future--Related Responsibilities. Restricting Future--Related Responsibilities By Discounting. Do Human Interests And Environmental Responsibilities Converge?. Saving The Future From Environmental Injustice. Representing The Future In Present Decision--Making. 5. Sustainable Development, Population And Precaution. The Concept Of Sustainable Development. Debates About Sustainable Development. Sustainable Development And The Debate About Sustainability. Sustainable Development Policies And Sustainable Development. Population, Neo--Malthusianism, Justice And Sustainability. The Precautionary Principle. Sustainable Development And Liberal Democracy. 6. The Global Community And Global Citizenship. Global Citizenship And A Cosmopolitan Ethic. Varieties Of Global Citizenship And Cosmopolitan Ethic. The Common Heritage Of Humankind. Issues Of Global Governance. Global Warming: Principles For A Possible Agreement. Global Problems, Global Ethics And Global Decision--Making. Glossary Of Key Terms. Bibliography. Index.

Environmental Issues and the Criminological Imagination

Abstract: This article provides an exploration of how the criminological imagination can provide particular insights into the nature of environmental issues. To illustrate the contribution of criminology to such discussions, the article provides a case study of the social, political and economic dynamics surrounding the provision of drinking water. The article demonstrates the complexities in determining the character, extent and impact of environmental harm. It furthermore identifies diverse and at times competing approaches to environmental regulation and to the prevention of environmental harm.

Moral and Political Reasoning in Environmental Practice

Abstract: What role can philosophers play in helping to resolve the moral and political dilemmas faced by environmental activists and policymakers? Moving away from environmental philosophy's usual focus on abstractions such as nonanthropocentrism and the intrinsic value of nature, this book focuses on environmental practice as the starting point for theoretical reflection. Philosophical thinking, it argues, need not be divided into the academic and the practical. Philosophy can take a more publicly engaged approach.The authors combine a deep understanding of the environmental ethics literature with a sympathetic sociological and political examination of environmental activists and their reasoning. The book is divided into three parts: Political Theory and Environmental Practice, Philosophical Tools for Environmental Practice, and Rethinking Philosophy through Environmental Practice. Case studies are included from Canada, Denmark, India, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Topics range from the specific, such as fox hunting and leaded gasoline, to the more general, such as biodiversity in India, biomedical ethics, and crop biotechnology.

Public Health Ethics: Asylum Seekers and the Case for Political Action

Abstract: This paper is a case study in public health ethics. It considers whether there is a basis in ethics for political action by health professionals and their associations in response to inhumane treatment. The issue arises from Australia's treatment of asylum seekers and the charge that this treatment has been both immoral and inhumane. This judgement raises several questions of broader significance in bioethics and of significance to the emerging field of public health ethics. These questions relate to the role of health professionals in response to inhumane treatment of people in their charge; to the discipline of public health in light of a growing recognition of its ethical basis; and the role of public health and bioethical associations in response to ethical issues arising in a political context. It is argued that, in serious cases of humanitarian and human rights abuses affecting health and well-being, there is a case for political action by health professionals, academic and professional institutions, and associations of public health and ethics.

Occupational and Environmental Health Nursing: Concepts and Practice

Abstract: 1. Work and Health: Trends and Challenges 2. Historical Perspectives in Occupational and Environmental Health Nursing 3. The Nature and Practice of Occupational and Environmental Health Nursing 4. Roles of the Occupational and Environmental Health Nurse 5. Epidemiology 6. Developing Occupational and Environmental Health Services and Programs: A Conceptual Model 7. Using Interdisciplinary Knowledge to Assess Work and the Work Environment 8. Environmental Health NEW! 9. Assessing the Organization 10. Workers as Clients: Health Assessment and Surveillance 11. Clinical Practice in Occupational and Environmental Health Nursing 12. Case Management NEW! 13. Health Promotion and Health Protection 14. Management Concepts, Principles, and Applications 15. Legal Responsibility in Occupational and Environmental Health Nursing Practice 16. Research in Occupational and Environmental Health Nursing 17. Ethical Perspectives in Occupational and Environmental Health Nursing Practice 18. International Occupational Health NEW! 19. Professionalism in Occupational and Environmental Health Nursing Practice NEW! 20. Future Perspectives in Occupational and Environmental Health Nursing

Values at sea : ethics for the marine environment

Abstract: The human impact on vast areas of the oceans remains relatively unregulated. Sometimes, in fact, the only controls over our conduct that affects marine resources lie in our environmental consclousness. However, while the field of environmental ethics has explored rights and duties for land use, stewardship, and policy, relatively little attention has been given to comparable issues of marine environments. Values at Sea constitutes an important step toward moving environmental ethics discussions into such a broader framework. Gathered here are fifteen papers by an interdisciplinary group of scholars, including ethicists, marine scientists, anthropologists, economists, geographers, lawyers, and activists. From the Great Lakes to the Pacific Islands, from the open sea to coastal areas, the papers cover a broad array of ethical issues and policy matters related to such topics as valuation of marine life, indigenous people's knowledge and environmental stewardship, endemic and exotic species, aquaculture, oil spills, and species protection. Values at Sea will refocus environmental ethics, enrich its literature, and guide policy makers and academics toward improving decisions that can affect over 70 percent of the earth's surface.

Public health ethics: the voices of practitioners.

Abstract: Public health ethics is emerging as a new field of inquiry, distinct not only from public health law, but also from traditional medical ethics and research ethics. Public health professional and scholarly attention is focusing on ways that ethical analysis and a new public health code of ethics can be a resource for health professionals working in the field. This article provides a preliminary exploration of the ethical issues faced by public health professionals in day-to-day practice and of the type of ethics education and support they believe may be helpful.

Frameworks for ethics in public health

Abstract: This paper constructs a conceptual framework for the normative study of public health. It argues that to develop discussions of ethics in public health without paying attention to the broader theoretical and ideological context of public health controversies and social conflicts will be of limited value. In defining that context, the author distinguishes three main types of ethical theory-utilitarianism, contractarianism, and communitarianism; and several varieties of political theory -liberal welfarism, liberal egalitarianism, libertarian liberalism, deliberative democracy, civic republicanism, and cultural conservatism. The meanings and interconnections of these theory formations are discussed. Illustrations to particular public health programs and issues are given. The paper also distinguishes four different types of applied ethical discourse in public health-professional ethics, advocacy ethics, applied ethics, and critical ethics. Each of these modes of ethics is important, but the development of work in critical ethics is the most important priority within the normative study of public health at present.

Ethical perspectives for public and environmental health: fostering autonomy and the right to know.

Abstract: In this paper we develop an ethical perspective for public and environmental health practice in consideration of the "right to know" by contrasting consequential and deontological perspectives with relational ethics grounded in the concept of fostering autonomy. From the consequential perspective, disclosure of public and environmental health risks to the public depends on the expected or possible consequences. We discuss three major concerns with this perspective: respect for persons, justice, and ignorance. From a deontological perspective, the "right to know" means that there is a "duty" to communicate about all public health risks and consideration of the principles of prevention, precaution, and environmental justice. Relational ethics develops from consideration of a mutual limitation of the traditional perspectives. Relational ethics is grounded in the relationship between the public and public/environmental health providers. In this paper we develop a model for this relationship, which we call "fostering autonomy through mutually respectful relationships." Fostering autonomy is both an end in public health practice and a means to promote the principles of prevention, precaution, and environmental justice. We discuss these principles as they relate to practical issues of major disasters and contaminants in food, such as DDT, toxaphene, chlordane, and mercury.

Public health ethics: tradition, profession, and values

Abstract: This article asks the difficult questions- what is public health? and what is public health ethics? The article also recognizes that even though public health and biomedical ethics overlap, they have distinct aspects. The article examines the unique population-based perspective of public health and how it can be distinguished from patientcentered biomedical ethics. Additionally, public health scholars and practitioners often use ethical analyses with other forms of reasoning, particularly law and human rights. The article, therefore, explores the relationship among public health ethics, public health law and human rights. The various meanings of each form of reasoning are discussed, as well as the similarities and differences among them. The article concludes with a proposal for reconciling the inherent tradeoffs between public health and civil liberties. Prior to exercising compulsory powers, public health officials should examine the risk to the public; the likelihood that the intervention will be effective; the opportunity costs; the burdens on human rights and the policy's fairness.

Ethical issues in environmental health research

Abstract: Environmental health research encompasses a wide range of investigational topics, study designs, and empirical methodologies. As that arm of public health research concerned with understanding the health effects of the many environments in which humans live and work, the field is intimately connected with social concerns about environmental quality and disparities of power and privilege that place differential burdens upon members of underserved communities. Environmental health researchers thus engage many ethical and social issues in the work they do. These issues relate to the choice of research topics to study, the methods employed to examine these topics, the communication of research findings to the public, and the involvement of scientific experts in the shaping of environmental policy and governmental regulation. These and other topics are reviewed in this article. These ethical, legal, and social issues are becoming increasingly more complex as new genetic and molecular techniques are used to study environmental toxicants and their potential influence on human and ecologic health.

In Search of an Environmental Ethic

Abstract: A preliminary analysis of several core environmental provisions suggests that the mix of values embedded in our environmental statutes is substantially similar to the values found in the common law and non-environmental statutes. That is, the environmental statutes tend to reflect human concerns that predate any dawning of environmental awareness -- with only a modest introduction of new values or reasons for caring that are uniquely attributable to concern for the human relationship to the environment. If this is true, it seems to undermine a tenet of the public debate. It may call into question the very naming of these as "environmental" laws and their easy identification with "environmentalism" and environmental ethics. Apart from this, my goal is to focus attention on the nature of the values included and those excluded from consideration under our various laws. I envision a study of the process by which our law and our values evolve. This study should enhance our understanding of the law and of the role of various institutions in the development of both the law and its ethical content.This article suggests that despite impressive consensus and legacy, it is not clear that environmental laws do reflect any clearly articulated ethic that should be called environmental. The aim of this article is to explore whether and how we can know if our laws relating to the environment accurately reflect values held by a majority of people. This article posits the value of a concerted effort by legal scholars to articulate more clearly the values and ethics that underlie our environmental laws and that are promoted by them.

The environment as a cornerstone of public health.

Abstract: ubiquity of toxic substances in the environment continues to be a significant public health concern. Body burdens of chemicals such as dioxins, methyl mercury, PCBs, and a range of the \" usual suspects \" are the increasingly represented norm rather than the exception in the U.S. population. In the recently released National Exposure Report (National Center for Environmental Health 2003), which provides an inventory of 116 chemicals commonly encountered in the U.S. population, it appears that the levels of these key chemicals have declined over time. Although this constitutes a key success in primary pollution prevention, serious concerns remain regarding the exposure of the population to a wide spectrum of chemicals in the environment. Many chemicals are persistent toxic substances that bioaccumu-late and biomagnify and are thus expected to be detectable in the human population. Others, however, cannot be detected long after the period of exposure. For the majority of chemicals, there is a paucity of environmental population, monitoring, and health effects data. At current funding levels, it would take 1,000 years to adequately document the health effects of the chemicals commonly encountered in commerce and industry. In contrast, a limited number of substances are among the most intensively studied (i.e., the usual suspects). The literature in the broad areas of exposure, toxicity, and epidemiology for these chemicals, as summarized in the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry's (ATSDR) toxicologic profiles , approaches 1,000 pages of peer-reviewed information. Despite this wealth of data for each of these chemicals, significant uncertainties remain regarding the overall health impact of these chemicals. Although uncertainties exist with respect to health effects for well-characterized chemicals, even more daunting is the issue of documenting environmental exposures in the human population. Exposure data represent the weak or missing link in our efforts to characterize human health hazards due to chemical exposures. Environmental human exposures are much more complex and generally even less well defined than are associated health effects. Limited data exist that reliably characterize the range of human exposures, the number of chemicals involved in such exposures, both in combination and temporally, and the fact that these exposures occur across different and/or multiple routes and durations. This is further complicated by limitations of analytical technology. These issues led the National Research Council to conclude in 1991 that \" critical information on the distribution of exposure and health effects associated with hazardous wastes [is] still lacking …

Bioethics: Are Our Priorities Right?

Abstract: Neither biologists nor nonbiologists in today's society are paying adequate attention to the escalating ethical issues raised by the human predicament, and the expertise of biologists seems to demand they make additional contributions to environmental ethics, broadly defined. Massive environmental destruction and the development of biological and nuclear weapons have changed the world; cultural evolution of ethics has not kept pace. “Bioethics” must be expanded from its focus on medical issues to consider such things as the ethics of preserving natural capital for future generations and those of dealing with overconsumption. Bioethics should examine issues as diverse as the ethics of invading Iraq to increase the role of the rich in generating climate change and the ethics of the Lomborg affair. Achieving a sustainable global society will require developing an agreed-upon ethical basis for the necessary political discourse, and the time to start is now.

Public health ethics: towards a research agenda

Abstract: Public health ethics, as distinct from clinical/medical bioethics, is an emerging field of study in academic settings. As part of a larger effort to address what the conceptual and content boundaries of this field are, or ought to be, a group at the University of Toronto hosted an international working symposium to discuss and outline a research agenda for public health ethics. The symposium, which took place in May 2002, was organized into four major areas of ethical concern central to public health: individual rights and the common good; risk and precaution; surveillance and regulation; and social justice and global health equity. This paper will provide an overview of some of the main themes and issues that emerged from the key papers that were developed from the symposium and discuss their importance in the emerging field of public health ethics. Significant issues were identified, such as the importance of distinguishing public health ethics from traditional bioethics; the development of the notion of common interests; broad definitions of public health, that include upstream sources of health inequities, and an understanding of the theoretical landscape from which public health ethics has emerged.

Health, Environmental and Social Justice

Abstract: Health is a basic human right. Improving health requires social and environmental justice and sustainable development. The 'health for all' movement embraces principles shared by other social movements—in sustainable development, community safety and new economics. These principles include equity, democracy, empowerment of individuals and communities, underpinned by supportive environmental, economic and educational measures and multi-agency partnerships. Health promotion is green promotion and inequality in health is due to social and economic inequality. This paper shows how health, environmental and economic sustainability are inextricably linked and how professionals of different disciplines can work together with the communities they serve to improve local health and quality of life. It gives examples of how local policy and programme development for public health improvement can fit in with global and national policy-making to promote health, environmental and social justice.

Implementing ethics in the professions: examples from environmental epidemiology.

Abstract: The need to integrate ethics into professional life, from the grassroots up, has been recognized, and a comprehensive ethics program has been proposed as a model. The model includes the four dimensions of: consensus building, ethics guidelines development and review, education, and implementation. The activities of the International Society for Environmental Epidemiology (ISEE) are presented as examples and compared with the proposed model. Several innovative activities are described and incentives for ethical professional conduct are highlighted. The examples are provided for emulation by other professional organizations in the hope that, thereby, greater protection of the public interest will be achieved.

The Scope of Latino/a Environmental Studies

Abstract: This article surveys the development of Latino/a environmental studies over the past decade of research and activism. It addresses issues, concepts, and controversies in four major areas of research including (1) theories and concepts of environmental racism and environmental justice, (2) environmental history and ecological politics, (3) case studies of Latino/a environmental justice movements, and (4) the political ecology of sustainable development. It describes Latino/a contributions to the environmental justice discourse and presents an overview of studies of rural and urban-based social movements. The article identifies gaps in the literature and outlines areas for future research. There is a need for critical studies on the nature of the Latino/a environmental justice movement, on the spatiality of social life, the environmental history of groups other than Chicano/as, and the dialectics of globalization and re-localization.

On Ethical, Social and Environmental Management Systems

Abstract: There are three types of solutions to the problems deriving from companies' ethical, social and environmental responsibilities: those based on regulation by an authority or agency; those designed to create market incentives; and those that rely on self-regulation by companies themselves. In the specific field we are concerned with here, regulation has significant costs and drawbacks that make it particularly desirable that companies should set up their own ethical, social and environmental management systems or programmes. The purpose of this article is twofold. On the one hand, it explains how implementing voluntary ethical, social and environmental management systems or programmes may help to develop and sustain ethical behavior in organizations, overcoming the conflict between compulsory regulation and occasional ethical practices. On the other, it shows what conditions must be met for an ethical management programme to be effective.

Can Environmental Ethics 'Solve' Environmental Problems and Save the World? Yes, but First We Must Recognise the Essential Normative Nature of Environmental Problems

Abstract: What is the nature of environmental problems? This article attempts to illuminate this question by exploring the relationship between environmental ethics, environmental problems and their solution It does this by examining and criticising the argument contained in a recent issue of Environmental Values asserting that environmental ethics does not have a role to play in solving environmental problems The major point made in this rebuttal article is that environmental problems are essentially normative in nature Therefore, normative discourse, and environmental ethics in particular, do have a crucial role to play in environmental thought and action The discussion concludes with the judgment that a failure to recognise this essential contribution of normative discourse to environmentalism by committing to a conservative empirical reductionism of environmental problems is detrimental to the necessary ethical and social change required to save the world

Our complex world : understanding it, living in it, sustaining it

Abstract: We live in a complex world. We have questions and face problems that defy conventional reductionist approaches to finding answers and solutions. This is because we find ourselves dealing with complex systems that are dynamic, self-organizing and adaptive, while maintaining a balance between static order and chaotic change. The Earth, or Gaia, is such a system. So is the biosphere, and so is an ecosystem, an economy, a business and any living organism, including homo sapiens. By concentrating on the connections and interactions between entities, and not things in themselves, complexity research is enabling us to grasp a better understanding of the spontaneous, self-organizing dynamics of our world. Complexity studies can have an enormous impact on the conduct of economics, business and politics. This thesis describes the characteristics of complex systems, analyzes the Earth and its evolutionary story as a complex adaptive system, discusses how we can harness complexity, and how through cooperating and caring we can survive and even prosper in the world of today. A pluralistic moral 'world vision' is argued for, founded on an ethics of universal compassion for all living things, that can lead to responsible and pragmatic action. As human beings, if 'He are to uplift the poor and restore and preserve the ecology of the Earth, what will be required is a major transformation of our environmentally destructive world economy into one that can sustain progress and human flourishing. This will entail a change of mind and heart, a sense of global interdependence and universal responsibility. The challenges we face are immense. However, there are encouraging signs that worldwide people are becoming increasingly aware of what is called for. More and more people are showing their willingness to rise to the occasion. It is a time of transition. It is complex, daunting, yet exciting. Stellenbosch University http://scholar.sun.ac.za

Building an Environmental Ethic from the Ground Up

Abstract: There has been a remarkable theoretical flourishing in the field of environmental philosophy. The resulting literature explores the intellectual and moral causes for the environmentally destructive practices of the dominant western industrial and economic culture, and proposes alternatives that might avoid these consequences. This essay proceeds from the assumption that environmental philosophy has a crucial role to play in the development of environmental law, yet it questions the extent to which these theories and the academic discourse have had practical impact Part I contends that the American public lacks a coherent account of the values we are pursuing under our current environmental laws. There is an unexamined assumption that environmental laws embody some defined set of “environmental” values. The assumption that our laws are “environmental” in the sense that they reflect purely environmental values is dangerous and arguably incorrect. The essay suggests how the conceptual work done by philosophers can be deployed to advance public thinking about environmental values, ethics, and law. Part II suggests that philosophers and legal scholars can help bring philosophy down to earth by developing stepping stones – concepts that represent marginal or gradual change from the dominant human-centered utilitarian ethical framework, as opposed to coherent theories of environmental ethics, such as a biocentric intrinsic value theory. Enlightened variants of human-centered utilitarian ethics may bridge the realms of philosophy and law and provide an important tool to enable transformation of the ethics of the American public. As an example, the essay explores how sustainability, while not a coherent environmental ethic, shows promise as a stepping stone. I outline five attributes of sustainability that lend it potential to highlight key ethical issues and to act as a logical step for those dissatisfied with the ethics embedded in current law and policy. Involvement by philosophers and legal scholars in shaping concepts like sustainability can help ensure that these concepts reach their potential and do not become meaningless slogans. Work at the intersection of environmental law and philosophy may fill an important gap that will ensure that law and philosophy both reach their potential.