ABSTRACT
The modern environmentalist movement has a tradition of respect for those indigenous cultures that are widely perceived to have lived in harmony with nature prior to the disrupting impact of Western industrialism. Many environmentalists believe that there are important ecological lessons to be learned from studying the traditional life styles of indigenous people, even models of environmental thought that industrialized societies might do well to adopt. The distinction between local justice and global justice is supposed to mark a contrast between the proper resolution of such allocative issues within a particular nation, as opposed to across nations. Justice requires social arrangements that diminish disparities of freedom to choose and achieve. The capability approach importantly recognizes that inequality between persons can be defined either in terms of attainment or in terms of shortfall. The capability approach to justice requires that people seek to maximize attainments, while also trying to minimize inequalities in shortfalls.
