Part I: Introduction: The Issues to be Confronted.- Chapter 1: The Normative Elements of Our Social Discourse and the Environmental Issues to be Confronted.- Part II: The Philosophy of Environmental Duty.- Chapter 2: Our Reasoned Environmental Discourse and Derived Duties: Constructivism as a Moral Process.- Chapter 3: Recognizing Environmental Duties.- Chapter 4: The Philosophy of Community and the Environmental Ethic.- Part III: The Rhetoric of Environmental Discourse.- Chapter 5: Some Rhetoric of Environmental Equity and Economic Efficiency.- Chapter 6: The Environment as an Input to Production and as a Provider of Amenities.- Chapter 7: Reaching Unbiased and Stable Environmental Decisions Through Fair and Reasoned Discourse.- Part IV: The Necessities for and Contributions of Our Environmental Organizations.- Chapter 8: Human Caused Climate Change and Its Deniers.- Chapter 9: Duty, Environmental Advocacy Organizations, andthe Commons.- Chapter 10: The Current State of Environmental Discourse: Is it “Fair” or Otherwise?.- Chapter 11: Some Environmental Organizations and Their “Fair and Reasoned” Contributions.- Chapter 12: Common Property Resources and the Making of the Global Tragedy.

This book explores the meaning and role of “fair and reasoned discourse” in the context of our institutions for environmental decision processes. The book reviews the roles of our “environmental advocacy organizations”—such as The Sierra Club, The Audubon Society, the Environmental Defense Fund—in providing and ensuring that our discourse and decisions are fair and reasoned according to the criteria of being (i) inclusive of input from all affected, (ii) informed of relevant scientific and socio-economic information, (iii) uncorrupted by direct conflicts of interest, and (iv) logical according robust review by uncorrupted judges. These organizations are described and examined as expressions of “collective imperfect duty,” i.e. the coordinated duties with environmental direction. The current state of our discourse is examined in light of this fairness criteria, particularly in consideration of the cross-border problems that threaten tragedies of the global commons.Richard M. Robinson is Professor of Business at SUNY Fredonia, USA.

Helps to define fairness in environmental discourseUses Kantian constructivism and Rawlsian extensions to provide an ethical-philosophical empirical Considers the role of environmental coalitions (NGOs) in reasoned discourse