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Rawlsian justice: a philosophical justification for conservation?

University of British Columbia

The natural environment is commonly managed in order to maximize economic returns; a criterion that is seldom consistent with conservation of nature or natural resources. Yet, it is common for people to claim that conservation constitutes a legitimate constraint on economic returns. More specifically, authors commonly apply political theory in support of the claim that it is unjust not to conserve. This thesis evaluates a) the adequacy of particular attempts to justify conservation using applications of John Rawls' A Theory of Justice and b) the general ability of Rawls' framework to support conservation. The theory fails to provide a strong justification of conservation policies and practices because of both questionable efforts to extrapolate from the theory, and certain fundamental limitations of the theory itself.

Thesis/Dissertation

application/pdf

2009-05-26

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http://hdl.handle.net/2429/8260

Forestry

University of British Columbia

UBCV

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