how to pollute ethically

North American Philosophical Publications

How to Pollute EthicallyAuthor(s): D. W. HaslettSource: Public Affairs Quarterly, Vol. 20, No. 3 (Jul., 2006), pp. 205-217Published by: University of Illinois Press on behalf of North American Philosophical PublicationsStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40441438 .

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Public Affairs Quarterly Volume 20, Number 3, July 2006

HOW TO POLLUTE ETHICALLY

D. W. Haslett

does it take to pollute ethically? Consider, for example, the following case.

New-Clear Energy: New-Clear Energy, Inc., is a corporation that mines, processes, and transports nuclear fuels to its nuclear power plant. Like many such plants throughout the world, New-Clear provides many homes and businesses with reli- able, relatively inexpensive electrical power. It is an established fact, however, that during the mining, processing, and transporting of nuclear fuels, and the normal operations of nuclear power plants, small amounts of radioactive materials are emitted into the environment. And during a twenty-five-year period, at least one thousand people will die of cancer throughout the United States from these routine emissions.1 Thus New-Clear knows that, even though it currently has in place, and strictly observes, every known safety measure available to the nuclear power industry, people will nevertheless die from its operations.

Let us assume that, with respect to this pollution, New-Clear is under no legal constraints. What is meant by this is that (1) the pollution is not prohibited, or regulated, by any statutory law; and (2) a successful civil suit against New- Clear for damages from this pollution, or an injunction, is, either in principle or practice, impossible. Let us assume also that New-Clear is under no promissory or contractual obligation to discontinue its pollution. Given these assumptions, does New-Clear nevertheless have a moral obligation to discontinue, on its own initiative, exposing the public to this lethal pollution?2

I. The Principle of Consent

Morally speaking, to harm, or contribute to harming, others without any justification or excuse is morally wrong. Clearly New-Clear and many other polluting agents are, by polluting, harming, or contributing to harming, others. Indeed, if New-Clear's behavior does not fall under some excusing or justifying condition, then New-Clear, by killing innocent people against their will, is blameworthy for having committed wrongful homicide no less. Excusing conditions are conditions, such as insanity and innocent mistake of fact, that negate blameworthiness for doing what is morally wrong. Justifying conditions are conditions, such as

205



206 PUBLIC AFFAIRS QUARTERLY

defending against a wrongful attack, that, if met, justify doing what otherwise would be morally wrong.

But exactly what, if anything, excuses or justifies the harm from pollution? Perhaps consent justifies it. Through consent, what would otherwise be morally wrong may indeed become permissible and justified. Although it would otherwise be morally wrong to take tomatoes from another's garden, consent makes doing it permissible. The principle underlying justification by consent - call it the "principle of consent" - is roughly as follows.

THE PRINCIPLE OF CONSENT: Anything, S, that some person, A, does to, or with, some other person, B, to which B has, expressly or by implication, consented is morally permissible if (1) B's consent is genuine, and (2) S does not violate the legitimate moral, or legal, rights of third parties.

For purposes of this principle, a party's consent is to count as "genuine" if and only if the party is (a) mentally competent, (b) not coerced into consenting, and (c) adequately informed.3 Exactly what constitutes being adequately informed for purposes of condition (c) is a tricky question we need not go into here. But we may be sure about this much. For a party's consent to count as genuine, that party must be informed about any hidden dangers from that to which he or she is consenting. Finally, "third parties" are individuals who have neither given nor denied consent to the behavior in question.

A strong case can be made for concluding that the principle of consent - perhaps as qualified in certain ways not relevant here - is indeed a sound principle of morality, one that specifies exactly what it takes for consent to justify doing what otherwise would be morally wrong. Presenting this case is not, however, the purpose of this investigation. We shall instead, for the sake of argument, assume that this principle is sound, and explore what follows from it about the morality of pollution.

It may appear that, from the principle of consent, nothing at all follows about the morality of pollution. This principle is applicable when the dangers from a product fall exclusively on those who purchase and use the product. If they have adequate information and the like, the purchasers of the product may, merely by having purchased it, be said to have, by implication, genuinely consented to its dangers, thereby relieving the manufacturers and sellers of the product from responsibility for harm to the purchasers from these dangers. But in the case of pollution, the dangers from a product may, for example, lie in breathing air that has been polluted from producing it. A person cannot very well, merely by pur- chasing the product, be said to have consented to these dangers, since the person will be exposed to these dangers whether he or she purchases the product or not. So it appears that, with respect to the dangers from pollution, we are all third parties, thereby making the principle of consent inapplicable.

Yet let us not be too hasty in concluding that, with respect to the dangers from pollution, the principle of consent is in fact inapplicable. What if a certain



HOW TO POLLUTE ETHICALLY 207

organization were generally recognized as having the authority to look after the interests of third parties, an organization, in other words, with the authority to consent to dangers from pollution, or withhold consent, on behalf of third parties? There is indeed such an organization; it is the government. Since the pollution resulting from business and consumer activities can have terrible costs, government must have the authority to prohibit it. Yet without the continuation of many polluting activities - ones such as producing energy, heating businesses and homes, manufacturing and driving automobiles and trucks, and many other activities too numerous to mention - a modern industrial economy could not exist. In short: if we are to continue realizing the vast benefits of our modern industrial economy, government must not prohibit absolutely all polluting activities. So with the government's authority to prohibit certain polluting activities, must come the authority to consent to some as well.

Moreover, for determining whether to consent to a polluting activity, government must be authorized to pursue the general welfare through a balancing of interests, thereby sacrificing some interests for the sake of other interests. Many other vital governmental activities, ones unrelated to pollution, are made possible only by government's interest-balancing authority as well. Consider, for example, what are, in effect, mandatory vaccinations of children against terrible diseases such as polio and diphtheria.4 Whether or not to require such vaccinations can only be determined through balancing the interests of thousands whose lives will be saved by these vaccinations against the interests of a handful whose lives will, we know, be lost by allergic reactions to them. Taxation policies, public aid for the poor, and innumerable other governmental policies, although not always matters of life and death, also require a governmental pursuit of the general welfare through a balancing of interests.

But, as is generally recognized, the government's pursuit of the general welfare through a balancing of interests should be constrained in two crucial ways. First, the government must never take the well-being of those within some special- interest group to be any more important than the well-being of anyone else. It must instead always take the well-being of everyone within its jurisdiction to be equally important; that is, in calculating which alternative is in the general welfare, the government must, from among those within its jurisdiction, always give equal weight to equal degrees of well-being, no matter whose well-being it may be. The second way in which the government's pursuit of the general welfare should be constrained is that there are rights that people have against the government - including fundamental "human" rights such as freedom of speech and freedom of religion - which are always to be given priority over the pursuit of the general welfare. This priority of rights over the general welfare is a fundamental principle of political morality. It is also called for by the principle of consent's requirement that the behavior to which there is consent not violate the legitimate moral, or legal, rights of third parties.5




So far it has been suggested here that perhaps companies, such as New-Clear Energy, which knowingly kill innocent people through their lethal pollution avoid being guilty of unethical behavior by means, and only by means, of governmental consent to their lethal pollution on behalf of the general public. And the government is to determine whether or not to give its consent by balancing interests. Whether governments really should be authorized to give such consent is an important and controversial question. But this is not the question upon which this investigation focuses. This investigation focuses instead upon another important question: What exactly constitutes genuine governmental consent to pollution? And let us broaden this investigation somewhat by focusing not just on negative externalities in the form of pollution, but on any negative externalities from the

production or sale of commodities. A negative externality from the production or sale of a commodity is any harm from its production or sale to which those harmed have not consented, and for which they are not fully compensated. Harm- ful pollution is always a negative externality, but not all negative externalities are harmful pollution. Consider the Ford Pinto, with its infamous exploding gas tank. The injuries to innocent third parties resulting from use of this product - and thus, indirectly, from its production and sale - have nothing to do with pollution, yet they are negative externalities. Finally, in what follows let us refer to businesses or companies as "agents," meaning moral agents.

II. Express Consent

As a preliminary account about what it takes for companies such as New- Clear to pollute ethically - a working hypothesis generated from the principle of consent - consider the following. For any negative externality regarding which an agent, A, is under no legal, promissory, or contractual constraints, A may expose the public to that negative externality if and only if the government has

expressly consented to this exposure. And a government expressly consents to a negative externality by a decision not to prohibit it, a decision in the form of, say, legislatively voting a prohibition down.

But not all express governmental consent should count as "genuine" consent for purposes of condition (1) of the principle of consent. To count as "genuine" consent, the decision to consent must be a bona fide one. And for an alleged governmental decision to be bona fide, three conditions must be met. First, the decision must originate not merely from, say, some gang of generals who seized power illegally, or from politicians who gained power by falsifying vote totals, but from a legitimate government, one duly empowered to make such decisions on behalf of the public. Moreover, for any such decision, to be "duly empowered" to have made it, not only must the government be legitimate, but the decision must not have been beyond the scope of the government's constitutional powers; it must not, for

example, have been in violation of rights that are constitutionally protected.




Next, a politician's positions on the issues should generate the politician's campaign funds rather than the politician's campaign funds generating the politician's positions on issues. It is true that businesses in the United States and other countries are prohibited by law from contributing directly to politicians or political parties. But as is well known, if a business really wants to help a politician financially, there are ways - some direct, some indirect, some legal, some illegal - that financial help nevertheless can be given.6 Now suppose that the only reason the government decides not to prohibit exposure to some negative externality is that legislators have been promised campaign funds by lobbyists for not prohibiting the externality. This decision is not a bona fide one. The second condition that a governmental decision must meet to qualify as "bona fide" is that it must be based not upon irrelevant factors such as pay back for campaign funds, but upon the merits of the case. And a governmental decision is based upon the "merits" of the case only if it reflects what the governmental decision-makers genuinely believe to be in the general welfare, as delimited by rights against the government.7

Consider, for example, a governmental decision about whether to ban products containing chlorofluorocarbons, commonly known as CFCs. These products include certain spray cans, coolants for refrigerators and air conditioners, and blowing agents for making plastic foam. Studies show that the use and disposal of these products release CFCs into the atmosphere that destroy the ozone layer around the earth. Among the effects of destroying the ozone layer are increased skin cancers, cataracts, weakened immune systems in humans and animals, and serious damage to plants. But if a ban on CFC products were to take effect be- fore feasible substitutes had been developed, then some people would die from food poisoning due to inadequate refrigeration, and still others would die of heat related problems due to the absence of air conditioning. In deciding, on behalf of the public, whether to ban CFC products, the government must balance our interests in not being harmed by the effects of destroying the ozone layer against our interests in not being harmed by inadequate refrigeration and the absence of air conditioning. Only a decision that is based upon a careful balancing of all such interests qualifies as being based upon the merits. A decision based instead

upon threats and promises from lobbyists does not qualify. Obtaining a favorable

governmental decision by threats and promises from lobbyists is, ethically, on a

par with obtaining sex from an employee by threatening to fire her otherwise. But according to the principle of consent, to count as genuine not only must

consent not reflect illegitimate threats and promises - that is, not be coerced - but it must also be given in light of adequate information. If, for example, a smoker's consent to the dangers of cigarettes is to count as genuine, it must be given in light of what is known about the dangers from cigarettes. Likewise, for a governmental decision on a negative externality to qualify as bona fide, the third condition that must be met is for the decision to be made in light of what is known about the




dangers from that negative externality. In sum, for a governmental decision to consent to a negative externality to count as genuine consent, the decision must a bona fide one. And a governmental decision about something, N, is "bona fide" if and only if (1) the government has been duly empowered to make such a decision, (2) the decision is based only on the merits of the case, and (3) the decision is made in light of adequate information about N.

Finally, for mentally competent consumers to have genuinely consented to the dangers from a product, thereby making it ethical, according to the principle of consent, for business to expose them to these dangers, it is not necessary for the consumers to have calculated correctly whether the product is in their best interests. For example, for a woman to have genuinely consented to the dangers from cigarettes, thereby making it ethical for the tobacco industry to expose her to these dangers, she need not have calculated whether cigarettes are in her best interests correctly. Given that she is mentally competent, all that is necessary is that her consent be made in light of information about these dangers and not be coerced. Likewise, for a government to have genuinely consented to the dangers from a negative externality, it is not necessary for the government to have calculated what is in the general welfare correctly. Given that the government is duly empowered - the equivalent of a person's being mentally competent - all that is necessary is that the government's decision to consent be made in light of information about these dangers and not be coerced; that its decision, in other words, be a bona fide one.

III. Implied Consent

As we have seen, a governmental decision must be bona fide for it to constitute genuine express consent to a negative externality. And genuine express consent to a negative externality is, we may tentatively conclude, a sufficient condition for it to be ethical to expose the public to that externality. But is genuine express consent a necessary condition for dong so? Clearly it cannot be. The different kinds of pollution and other negative externalities throughout any modern industrial economy are innumerable, and a government has only limited time at its disposal for decision-making. Thus, at any given moment, there will always be innumerable negative externalities to which the government will not yet have expressly consented. So if genuine express governmental consent were a necessary condition, then, morally speaking, these innumerable negative externalities would all have to be discontinued. This is too harsh. The discontinuation of all these negative externalities would, contrary to the general welfare, bring any modern, industrial economy to a screeching halt. Exposing the public to a negative externality must at times count as ethical even without genuine governmental express consent. On the other hand, for it to be ethical, without genuine governmental express consent, to expose the public to just any negative externality, no matter how harmful, clearly will not do either. Some middle ground must be found.



HOW TO POLLUTE ETHICALLY 2 1 1

According to the principle of consent, genuine consent can be given either expressly or by implication. So perhaps the most satisfactory middle ground is this. An agent may, ethically, continue to expose the public to a negative externality to which the government has not yet expressly consented, provided that the government's consent may nevertheless be implied. And let us say that the government's consent to a negative externality not already subject to any legal constraints may be implied if and only if two crucial requirements are being met by the agents responsible for the externality. The first requirement is that these agents must, on their own initiative and promptly, reveal to the appropriate level of government any significant information that the government may not already have about any danger from the externality, and about any known means of preventing the danger. If the externality significantly affects even those within other nations, then the governments of these other nations and, in certain extreme cases, perhaps even an agency of the United Nations, must be informed as well. We may label this the "full-information" requirement, which is as follows:

FULL-INFORMATION REQUIREMENT: An agent that is fully or partially responsible for a negative externality must reveal to the government, promptly, any significant information that the agent, but not the government, has about this externality, and if, for any reason, the government is unlikely to make a bona fide decision about this externality within a judicious time frame, then the agent must make a reasonable attempt to reveal the information to the general public as well.

Take, for example, a hypothetical company, Chemco, a major producer of products containing CFCs, which threaten the ozone layer. The full-information requirement prescribes that, on its own initiative, Chemco present to the government any important information it may have about the dangers of CFCs, including any in-house studies. And Chemco must present this information as honestly as it can, which means that it must not manipulate figures, suppress data, place undue emphasis on studies favorable to its interests, or make use of any other potentially misleading maneuver.8 Moreover, if the government is unlikely, within a judicious time frame, to make a bona fide decision about the externality, then Chemco must make a reasonable attempt to inform the public as well.

One reason why a government may be unlikely, within a judicious time frame, to make a bona fide decision is that governmental officials are being subjected to threats and promises by lobbyists. This gives rise to the second requirement that agents must meet for governmental consent to their negative externality to be implied - the "fair-influence" requirement, which is as follows.

FAIR-INFLUENCE REQUIREMENT: An agent that is fully or partially responsible for a negative externality must not try to influence governmental decisions about that externality by any means other than the merits of the case.




According to the fair-influence requirement, an agent may never try, or permit its lobbyists to try, to influence a governmental decision by such means as threats or promises concerning campaign funds or votes.

If, by the agents responsible for a negative externality, the government is fully informed about the known dangers from it, is not being improperly influenced, and yet has placed no legal constraints upon this negative externality, if, in other words, both the full information and fair influence requirements are being met

by these agents, then, so it is argued here, we may reasonably presume that, for the time being at least, the government is satisfied with the absence of legal constraints, and so governmental consent may be implied. But now notice this. Even if the government already has indeed, by bona fide decision, expressly consented to some externality, the agents responsible for it should continue meeting both of these requirements. Any express consent is relative only to the information available at the time of the consent. So if significant new information becomes available, the continued applicability of the prior, express consent may no longer be assumed, which means that implied consent then becomes necessary. And for an agent to be entitled to assume that there is implied consent, at the very least this agent must meet both the full-information requirement and the fair-influence

requirement. Indeed, the government is authorized to reconsider and withdraw

express consent at any time, even in the absence of any new information. So, even in the absence of any new information, an agent should continue meeting these two requirements. We saw earlier that, because implied consent can also count as genuine governmental consent, having genuine express governmental consent is not a necessary condition for polluting ethically. And now we see that express consent is not even a sufficient condition; to pollute ethically an agent must, even with express consent, continue meeting these two requirements.

IV. Improperly Functioning Governments

But now suppose that the agents responsible for a negative externality are, in violation of the full-information requirement, withholding crucial information about its dangers from the government. Without that information, the government will be unable to perform properly its function of deciding whether or not to consent to this externality. Or suppose that, in violation of the fair-influence

requirement, these agents are influencing governmental officials on this matter not

by arguments on the merits, but by threats or promises. Through allowing itself to be influenced by threats or promises, the government will be choosing not to

perform properly its function. Either way the government will not be functioning properly with respect to this externality. The question then is this. When, with

respect to some negative externality, a government is not functioning properly, thereby precluding any genuine governmental consent either express or implied, what is the moral obligation of the agents responsible for this externality? They do, of course, remain, as always, morally obligated to meet the full-information and




fair-influence requirements. But consider an agent that is a company from some industry that is exposing the public to some dangerous externality such as, say, harmful air pollution. Suppose that, although this agent is indeed meeting these two requirements, some of its competitors within this industry are not meeting them, and, as a result, the government is failing to perform properly its function of determining whether consent to this externality is in the general welfare, thereby precluding any genuine governmental consent, either express or implied. Since the agent is itself meeting these two requirements, this governmental dysfunction is in no way its fault. Nevertheless this agent, like its competitors, is contributing to the dangerous externality. The agent cannot, we may assume, do anything about the contributions of its competitors. But, under these circumstances, what is this agent morally obligated to do about its own contribution? Let us consider three alternative answers.

Answer One: As soon as it becomes apparent that the government is not functioning properly, the agent must try to determine what decision the government would be most justified in making about the negative externality if it were functioning properly, and then handle its own contribution to this externality accordingly. Furthermore, the standard that the agent must use for determining what decision the government would be most justified in making is precisely that standard which the government itself should use for making decisions on these matters - namely, the general welfare. So the first alternative answer to our question is this. As soon as it becomes apparent that the government is not functioning properly, the agent must become a kind of surrogate government.

This answer should be rejected. There are good reasons why only governments, not businesses themselves, should be permitted to exercise the balancing function necessary for making crucial life and death decisions about negative externalities. First, in a democracy, governments, but not businesses, are answerable to the people through democratic vote. Thus the people as a whole can always replace government officials if they stray too far from the general welfare, but cannot replace business officials. Second, governments are subject to important checks and balances to which businesses are not subject - checks and balances in the form of having their deliberations open to the public and therefore closely scru- tinized, and checks and balances in the form of dividing up responsibilities into independent legislative, executive, and judicial branches. Third, if governments are indeed functioning properly rather than abdicating to the threats and promises of lobbyists, then governments, whose concern is the general welfare, are capable of an impartiality that businesses, whose concern is profits, may not be able to achieve. When the fox guards the henhouse, satisfactory results are unlikely.

But there is an even more compelling reason for rejecting the surrogate- government answer. Suppose that the dangerous externality in question happened to be the radioactive material emitted by nuclear power companies in general, and by New-Clear in particular. And suppose that, by putting improper pressure upon




government, nuclear power companies other than New-Clear were preventing there from being either express or implied governmental consent to these emissions. Suppose finally that New-Clear believed that, if functioning properly, the

government would require nuclear power companies to cease emitting all radioactive material. New-Clear itself would then, according to the surrogate-government answer, be morally obligated to cease emitting this material. But since there is no known way for nuclear power companies to do business without emitting this material, the only way for New-Clear to cease emitting this material would be to shut down operations and go out of business. And if New-Clear, along with the other, equally ethical nuclear-power companies were to go out of business, this would leave the entire market to the less ethical companies, the ones putting improper pressure upon government. With only these less ethical companies left, the original externality problem would likely be made even worse.

Answer Two: If the government is not functioning properly with respect to some negative externality because of the unethical behavior of an agent's com-

petitors, then, morally speaking, the agent must unilaterally discontinue its own contribution to the externality. This alternative is no better than the first. Requir- ing that the agent and other ethical agents discontinue their contributions to the

externality even though their less ethical competitors do not do so would, in effect, be "penalizing" them for the transgressions of their less ethical competitors, thereby putting these ethical agents at a competitive disadvantage. So, once

again, the bad would tend to drive out the good, most likely making the original externality problem even worse.

Answer Three: Even if the agent's competitors are not meeting both the full- information and fair-influence requirements, as long as the agent itself continues

meeting both of these requirements, then, morally speaking, it may continue

exposing the public to the externality in question. But since, under these circumstances, a bona fide governmental decision within a judicious time frame would be unlikely, meeting the full-information requirement requires a reasonable attempt to inform the general public of the dangers. This answer makes the most sense. Of the three alternatives, this is the only one that would not tend to put ethical agents at a competitive disadvantage. We saw earlier that continuing to meet the full-information and fair-influence requirements is a necessary condition for its being moral to continue exposing the public to a negative externality. We see now that it should be a sufficient condition as well. The final conclusion reached here about what it takes to pollute ethically is, therefore, this. For any negative externality regarding which an agent, A, is under no legal, promissory, or contractual constraints, A may, ethically, expose the pubic to it as long as, with respect to that negative externality, A continues to meet both the full-information and fair-influence requirements.




V. Conclusion

This discussion began with the observation that to harm, or contribute to harming, others without any excuse or justification is morally wrong. In other words, we have a prima facie moral obligation not to harm, or contribute to harming, others. Agents that expose the public to negative externalities do indeed harm, or contribute to harming, others. Therefore they violate this prima facie obligation, unless what they are doing falls under an excusing or justifying condition. We assumed here that behavior which otherwise would violate a prima facie moral obligation is indeed justified if it meets the terms of the principle of consent, and one of these terms is that the consent in question must be genuine. It was also argued that, for there to be genuine governmental consent to the negative externality, the agents responsible for this externality must, at all times, meet both the full-information and fair-influence requirements and, in the absence of genuine governmental consent, its meeting both of these requirements entitles any of these agents to act as if there were genuine governmental consent. In sum: for polluting agents to avoid violating the prima facie moral obligation to not harm others, they must, at all times, meet these two requirements, and only these two requirements. Given no legal, promissory, or contractual constraints, it is these two requirements, and only these two requirements, that, with respect to pollution, are morally obligatory.

Some people, rightly concerned about the enormous dangers from pollution facing us today, may argue that obligating polluting agents to meet only these two requirements lets businesses off too easily; moral obligations with respect to pollution should, they will say, be more severe. But all too often businesses or, to be more exact, those who manage them, refuse to meet even these two moral requirements. As a result, innocent people are dying. Yet these managers face little, if any, legal punishment. So rather than moral obligations with respect to pollution being more severe, perhaps what should be more severe is the legal punishment for these unethical managers and their accomplices.

University of Delaware

NOTES

1. U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, "Final Generic Environmental Statement on the Use of Plutonium Recycle in Mixed Oxide Fuel in Light Water Cooled Reactors," NUREG-0002, vol. 1 (August 1976).

2. We shall be concerned here only with what is, and is not, morally obligatory in the sense in which for something to be morally obligatory means for it to be morally required. Moral obligations, such as the obligation to not kill and the obligation to pay one's debts, are distinct from moral values, such as generosity and kindness. Obligations have rights




correlated with them, while values do not. We shall not be concerned here with when polluting may, and may not, exemplify bad values. Accordingly, the terms "ethical," or "moral," refer throughout not to what exemplifies good values, but to what is morally permissible, in that it does not contravene any moral obligations.

3. A justified code of morality will also contain "irrebuttable presumptions" against the consent of certain classes of people to certain things ever being genuine. Perhaps the most obvious of such irrebuttable presumptions is one against the consent of a young child to sex with an adult being genuine. We need not concern ourselves with this complication here.

4. In the U.S., the way that state governments enforce their vaccination policies is to forbid a child from attending any school at all - whether public or private - unless the child has had the "mandatory" vaccinations. Most states allow an exemption from vaccinations only for religious or medical reasons, for which few children qualify.

5. There is a problem lurking here that should at least be mentioned. Among our rights against both the government and each other is a right to life. It is presupposed here that governmental consent to New-Clear's pollution is the reason, perhaps the only reason, why New-Clear (or its management) is not guilty of violating our right to life against each other through knowingly killing innocent people by means of lethal emissions. But does our right to life against the government not preclude the government from giving others consent to do what would violate our right to life against them, others such as New- Clear or the Mafia? If so, then, since our rights against the government take priority over the government's pursuit of the general welfare, our right to life against the government would, ethically speaking, preclude the governmental from consenting to New-Clear's lethal pollution in the name of the general welfare. The solution to this problem, so it is suggested here, is in the form of an "anonymity exception" to our right to life against the government, but an explanation and defense of this solution must remain the topic for another paper.

6. That campaign contributions should never influence a politician's positions on the issues is a political ideal about which there is general agreement. But attempts to bring about a greater realization of this ideal through various campaign-finance reform laws have had only limited success at best. There is, however, a way in which this ideal can indeed be fully realized - in principle at least. It is by passing legislation that strictly prohibits politicians from ever knowing the identity of any contributors to their campaigns or their party, legislation that somehow places the identity of all such contributors permanently behind a "veil of ignorance." Without knowing their identity, politicians would be unable to reward these contributors by catering to their special interests.

7. Something has gone terribly wrong these days with many people's conception of democracy. Many people these days believe that the general welfare will somehow manage to emerge, as if by some "invisible hand," from individuals - citizens and governmental officials alike - voting to further their own special interests. What emerges instead is a huge national debt from funding these many differing special interests, funds which could instead have been used, for example, to help remedy the extreme poverty in which many citizens suffer without even the bare necessities of life. The general welfare is likely to emerge only from individuals voting for what they genuinely believe to be in the general welfare.

8. The full-information requirement does give rise to a potential problem. If businesses are morally obligated to reveal any studies they have conducted on the dangers to which they are exposing people, this may provide them with a perverse incentive to not conduct




such studies since, if the studies turned out unfavorable to their interests, they would then have to be revealed to the government. In other words, the full-information requirement may provide businesses with a reason to remain uninformed about any potential dangers, thereby reducing, rather than increasing, the overall amount of information available. But this problem is not as serious as it may appear. No business can afford to remain uninformed about the dangers to which it may be exposing people since, by remaining uninformed, the business will then be leaving itself open to unexpected, massive legal liability, devastating negative publicity, and enormous competitive disadvantages, any of which is likely to be far more damaging than the regulations that would have resulted from the information. Moreover, the full-information requirement requires that businesses reveal to the government not just any studies that they have already conducted concerning a potential danger, but even reasons they may have for believing further studies may be useful. And if they must reveal this, then, even if not by the businesses themselves, the studies will probably be conducted anyway.



how to pollute ethically

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