Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-xtgtn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-23T09:08:20.119Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Property, the environment, and the Lockean Proviso

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 December 2020

Bas van der Vossen Open the ORCID record for Bas van der Vossen [Opens in a new window]
Bas van der Vossen*
Affiliation:
Philosophy Department, Smith Institute for Political Economy and Philosophy, Chapman University, Orange, California, USA
*
Email: bvanderv@chapman.edu
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

It is common to posit a clear opposition between the values served by property systems and the value of the environment. To give the environment its due, this view holds, the role of private property needs to be limited. Support for this has been said to be found in Locke’s famous ‘enough and as good’ proviso. This article shows that this opposition is mistaken, and corrects the implied reading of Locke’s proviso. In reality, there is no opposition between property and the environment. This is shown using Locke’s theory of appropriation, as well as the real-life case of instream water appropriation.

Keywords

Propertyenvironmental ethicsLockeLockean provisowater rights
Type
Article
Information
Economics & Philosophy , Volume 37 , Issue 3 , November 2021 , pp. 395 - 412
Check for updates
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Anderson, T.L., Scarborough, B. and Watson, L.R. 2012. Tapping Water Markets. London: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bovens, L. 2011. A Lockean defense of grandfathering emission rights. In The Ethics of Global Climate Change, ed. Arnold, D., 124–144. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Christmas, B. 2020. Ambidextrous Lockeanism. Economics and Philosophy 36, 193–215.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Coase, R.H. 1960. The problem of social cost. Journal of Law & Economics 3, 1–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
de Shalit, A. 2000. The Environment: Between Theory and Practice. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dolan, E.G. 2006. Science, public policy, and global warming: rethinking the market-liberal position. Cato Journal 26, 445–468.Google Scholar
Dunn, J. 1982. The Political Thought of John Locke: An Historical Account of the Argument of the ‘Two Treatises of Government. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Eckersley, R. 1992. Environmentalism and Political Theory: Towards an Ecocentric Approach. Albany: State University of New York Press.Google Scholar
Eckersley, R. 2001. Politics. In A Companion to Environmental Philosophy, ed. Jamieson, D., 316–330. Oxford: Blackwell.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Getches, D. 1997. Water Law in a Nutshell. St. Paul, MN: West Publishing.Google Scholar
Gillilan, D.M. and Brown, T.C. 1997. Instream Flow Protection: Seeking a Balance in Western Water Use. Washington, DC: Island Press.Google Scholar
Griffin, R.C. and Hsu, S.-H. 1993. The potential for water market efficiency when instream flows have value. American Journal of Agricultural Economics 75, 292–303.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Leonard, B. and Regan, S. 2019. Legal and institutional barriers to establishing non-use rights to natural resources. Natural Resources Journal 59, 135–179.Google Scholar
Liebell, S.P. 2011. The text and context of ‘Enough and as Good’: John Locke as the foundation of an environmental liberalism. Polity 43, 210–241.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Locke, J. 1988 [1689]. Two Treatises of Government, ed. Laslett, P.. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Macfarlan, S. Forthcoming. Managing Life in a Desert: Choyero Cultural Dynamics and Sustainability Challenges in Baja California Sur, Mexico.Google Scholar
Meyer, C. 1993. Instream flows: integrating new uses and new players into the prior appropriation system. In Instream Flow Protection in the West, ed. MacDonnell, L.J. and Rice, T.A.. Boulder, CO: University of Colorado School of Law Natural Resources Law Center.Google Scholar
Meyer, J.M. 2009. The concept of private property and the limits of the environmental imagination. Political Theory 37, 99–127.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mousie, J. 2019. The environmental turn in Locke scholarship. Ethics & the Environment 24, 77–107.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Neuman, J. 2000. Implementing instream flow protections in prior appropriation systems: continuing challenges. Rivers 345, 349–350.Google Scholar
O’Donnell, E.L. and Garrick, D.E. 2017. Defining success: a multicriteria approach to guide evaluation and investment. In Water for the Environment: From Policy and Science to Implementation and Management, ed. Horne, A.C., Webb, J.A., Stewardson, M.J., Richter, B. and Acreman, M., 625–645. London: Academic Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sax, J., Abrams, R.H., Thompson, B.H. and Leshy, J.D. 2000. Legal Control of Water Resources. 3rd edition. St. Paul, MN: West Publishing.Google Scholar
Scarborough, B. and Lund, H.L.. 2007. Saving Our Streams: Harnessing Water Markets. A Practical Guide. Bozeman, MT: The Property and Environmental Resource Center (PERC).Google Scholar
Shrader-Frechette, K. 1993. Locke and limits on land ownership. Journal of the History of Ideas 54, 201–219.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Simmons, A.J. 1992. The Lockean Theory of Rights. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, S.M. 2019. Instream flow rights within the prior appropriation doctrine: insights from Colorado. Natural Resources Journal 59, 181–213.Google Scholar
Sterne, J. 1997. Instream rights & invisible hands: prospects for private instream water rights in the Northwest. Environmental Law 27, 203–243.Google Scholar
Stevens, J.B. 1996. John Locke, environmental property, and instream water rights. Land Economics 72, 261–268.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tully, J. 1980. A Discourse on Property: John Locke and his Adversaries. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Van der Vossen, B. 2009. What counts as original appropriation. Politics, Philosophy & Economics 8, 355–373.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Van der Vossen, B. and Brennan, J. 2018. In Defense of Openness. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar