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Establishing a Philosophical Framework for a Sustainable Water Ethic

By Justine Lacey.

Published by The International Journal of Environmental, Cultural, Economic and Social Sustainability

Water ethics is an area of research that is still in its infancy. As such there is a real need to provide the basis of a framework which can capture not only the philosophical underpinnings of a sustainable water ethic but also accommodate the significant research already undertaken in a variety of other fields. To date a majority of the work on water ethics has focused on purely economic or environmental concerns. There is a real need to broaden our outlook in developing a more ethical relationship to water. This paper explores a number of general policy approaches to water management in an effort to determine how our moral values and principles might inform and impact upon our practical deliberation and action in this field. I argue that a contractualist approach to ethics might best provide the framework for using reasoned agreement to determine our ethical values and thus lead us closer to the development of a sustainable water ethic.

The International Journal of Environmental, Cultural, Economic and Social Sustainability, Volume 3, Issue 3, pp.9-18. Article: Print (Spiral Bound). Article: Electronic (PDF File; 564.697KB).

Justine Lacey

The University of Queensland, Australia