Even if contemporary liberal political thought fails to provide an adequate basis for environmental protection, investigating its environmental implications may be a worthy enterprise, if only to foster discussion among liberal thinkers about the obligation to protect the environment. Examination of four contemporary liberal views of distributive justice?those of Rawls, Arneson, Sen, and the libertarians?shows that in these theories, environmental protection turns either on obligations to future generations or on the rights of individuals. The extent of environmental protection the four (...) views implicitly require may be quite extensive, and is probably far beyond what proponents of each view might have imagined. (shrink)