ABSTRACT
For many people the wrong of pollution is self-evident. Take any natural and pristine environment, introduce a deleterious additive, and this additive, by dint of the harm that it does to this natural and pristine environment, is rightly considered a pollutant. Call this the “harms view” of pollution. Roughly speaking, the harms view proposes that the wrong of pollution consists in the harm
or damage caused by the pollution. Pollution is wrong because it damages the environment. For instance, water with high dioxin levels, say, is said to be polluted by virtue of the damage done to the water, whereas water that otherwise may carry pathogens but that has been “treated” with chlorine (an otherwise toxic chemical) is said not to be polluted. It is the disutility of the water, in this case, that accounts for the wrong of pollution. By contrast, water with ostensibly healthy levels of fluoride is generally not thought to be polluted. Fluoride, for instance, is an additive conferring health benefits, though it does not “treat” the water per se. Fluoride improves upon water. In other words, it is the utility of the water, and the purpose to which the water is being put, that will establish whether the additive is harmful or beneficial, and thus pollution or not. At its base, the harms view is a deeply consequentialist position, mostly utilitarian in origin, locating the wrong of the polluting action fundamentally in the bad consequences brought about from the action. On one hand, the problem with polluting seems obvious and uncontroversial: polluting
degrades the environment. Closer examination, however, reveals that there are several possible views in play. At least three familiar alternatives present themselves:
The harms view: pollution devalues the environment, either intrinsically or extrinsically. The trespass view: pollution disrespects and/or trespasses on the rights of others. The vice view: pollution is a vice and not the sort of thing that a person of upstanding or
virtuous moral character would do.
