On Ecological Justice

The ecological justice is, in the background of the global ecological crisis, especially since the1980s, a social justice form discovered by people when they are reflecting on the social injustice roots of the contradiction between human and nature and exploring their harmonious developing approaches. Emerging in the social activity, the ecological justice is a relationship that exists among the people concerned and that regards human being's overall and long-term interests as the fundamental measure of value for balancing the relationship between man and nature, and it indicates the exact state that the relationship among the people concerned should be. When studying the ecological justice, people need to discuss its definition, clarify the foundation for its realization, explore how it forms, and find ways to overcome the ecological injustice and realize it as well as expound the internal relations between its realization and the construction of harmonious society, the practice of the scientific development and the building of ecological civilization.In recent years, scholars have discussed the issue of ecological justice in many aspects, with the result of the emergence of both many creative ideas and utopian visions. The author doesn't agree to define the ecological justice between man and nature but favors its definition in view of human relations. However, this does not mean that we define it simply based on human relations without any consideration of the relations between man and nature. From the view of human relations that take the ecological resources as a medium, that is, the productive relations among people, the author thinks that the ecological justice is a relationship on ecological rights confirmation, the exercise of ecological rights, the ownership of the ecological resources, the access of the ecological benefit and the shouldering of the ecological responsibility. The relationship among the people concerned in the social activity takes human being's overall and long-term interests as the fundamental measure of value for balancing the relationship between man and nature. People concerned are the people who relate to the specific ecological resources and have the practical ability of exploiting and utilizing those resources. The ownership of the ecological resources, the access of the ecological benefit and the shouldering of the ecological responsibility constitute the three most important relations among the people concerned, and the essence of these three kinds of relations is the relation of distribution among them, which determines the essence of the ecological justice is the distributive justice about the ecological resources, benefit and responsibility. Ecological justice enjoys three basic properties:practicality, concreteness and relativity as well as three forms:the ecological justice between the generations, ecological justice within the generations and the female ecological justice.Based on the creatures'ability of feeling bitterness and sweetness as well as their inherent value, starting from the relations between human and non-human life existences, the biocentrism expands moral rights which is originally peculiar to mankind to all non-human life existences, argues that all non-human life existences have moral rights as equal as humans and they can become the target of moral concern and that ecological justice is possible in the harmonious coexistence among life existences. Starting from the relationship of man and the whole nature and in terms of intrinsic value of nature, the ecocentrism developed the viewpoints of the biocentrism and took the whole ecological system as the object of moral concern, considering that the ecological justice is possible in the balance and sustainable development of the ecological system. The author thinks the viewpoints of biocentrism and ecocentrism hold no water and their value orientations are also questionable, because they did not and can not answer "Why can the ecological justice be possible?" We can really answer this question only if we insist on anthropocentrism; regard human's overall and long-term interests as the fundamental value scale to deal with the relationship between man and nature, considering the human relationship that take the ecological resources as a medium, which is also called the economic relations among people. Of course, this does not mean that we have to put aside the relationship between man and nature and then discuss human relations in isolation, nor does this mean that we are going to discuss all social relations among people. In fact, the relations between man and nature are closely connected with human relations, so do human relations that taking the ecological resources as a medium and the other relations among people. It is possible that the ecological justice exists in the people's social relationship taking the ecological resources as a medium when people take their overall and long-term interests as the fundamental measure of value to handle the relationship between man and nature.Ecological injustice is also called non-ecological justice. The essence of non-ecological justice, the opposite of ecological justice, is the contradictions between people and things caused by ones among between people, thus leading to the following injustices among people:the confirmation and exercise of ecological rights, the ownership of the ecological resources, the access of the ecological benefit and the shouldering of the ecological responsibility. Ecological injustice is the proper state among people concerned who should abide by the principle of ecological justice in any case. However, the reality is that ecological injustice can be seen everywhere in the contemporary social life. To some extent, we even can say, once the relationship with ecological resources as the intermediary between people exists, the ecological injustice may exist. War, ecological racism and ecological colonialism are the concentrated forms of ecological injustice in the contemporary society. Not only will they make the people concerned unable to equally confirm and exert ecological rights, own ecological resources, obtain ecological interests and take ecological responsibility, but also they destroy the global ecological environment and lead to the global ecological crisis, threatening the survival and development of the future generations. The ecological non-justice in the contemporary society is mainly caused by cultures of male chauvinism, extensive liberalism, materialism, the formed cultural psychology based on these cultures, the tool rationality and irrationality, the beneficial nature of capitalism, the mandatory production mode and compulsive pattern of consumption and unequal international social order.The realization of the ecological justice is to resolve the contradictions between people in the premise of resolving the contradictions between man and nature, realize the fair distribution of the ecological resources, ecological benefits and the ecological responsibilities between the parties concerned so as to ensure that each party can confirm equal ecological rights, exert the equal ecological rights, own the same share of ecological resource, obtain a fair share ecological benefit and assume a fair share of responsibility. Developing ecological economy, politics, culture and technology can create a prerequisite for the realization of ecological justice. However, we can not draw the conclusion that ecological justice must come true based on this. Its realization is finally embodied in the behavior of the people concerned in different specific circumstances. Only if their behaviors' equal opportunity of the starting point, fair distribution of the outcome and ecological compensation of the consequences are achieved can the ecological justice be really realized. Realizing the equality of opportunity is to stick to the equal treatment in the same case, and vise versa. Realizing the fair distribution of the outcome is to achieve the fair distribution of the ecological resources, ecological benefits and ecological responsibilities. The fundamental way to realize the fair allocation of ecological resources lies in the realization of common ownership of the world resources, and then according to different situations of people concerned, treating the equal situations alike, and different situations unlike. Realizing the fair distribution of ecological benefits and responsibilities is required to decide on each specific circumstance. The realization of the ecological compensation of the consequences is to realize such compensations as of the occupation of the ecological resources, of the access of the ecological resources and of the ecological responsibilities. The achievement of the compensation of the ecological resources is to treat differently according to the different natures that people concerned develop and utilize the ecological resources. According to the nature of benefit parties' compensative ability and the loss of the ecological interests of the injured parties, realizing the ecological benefit compensation is to determine the compensative range and amount when no damage is brought to the benefit parties' ecological benefits. The most fundamental approach to realize the compensation on the shouldering of the ecological responsibilities means making the benefit parties directly bear the ecological responsibilities which are proportional to its ecological resources, power and interests.Peace and development are the two major themes of current era. When people all over the world strive to realize the peace and development, the increasingly severe environmental problems have spread to every corner of where people live, and pose a real and serious threat to the survival security and sustainable development of humans. In the background of global ecological crisis, to build a harmonious society, practice the scientific development and construct ecological civilization constitute the three important and pressing tasks that the society needs to complete urgently. The ecological justice is, under the background of the global ecological crisis, a social justice between people. It takes the ecological resources as its media and was found by people when they were probing into the origin of ecological crisis and exploring the solution to the ecological crisis. There is an immanent and inevitable relationship between people's efforts to realize the ecological justice and their efforts to construct a harmonious society, practice the scientific development and build the ecological civilization. The realization of the ecological justice has the common value orientation and value pursuit with the construction of harmonious society, the practice of the scientific development and the building of ecological civilization. And the orientation and pursuit make the realization of the ecological justice, the construction of harmonious society, the practice of the scientific development and the building of ecological civilization depend on and promote each other. The realization of the ecological justice is not only the essential requirement and important task, but also the basic approach and important measures of constructing a harmonious society, practicing the scientific development and building the ecological civilization.