Liberty, harm, and health: political and ethical considerations in implementing air pollution policies

Abstract

This thesis is concerned with exploring the political and ethical considerations in implementing air pollution policies in liberal democracies, like the United Kingdom. Poor air quality is a serious harm to public health, and this has been overlooked in the political and philosophical literature on pollution, which has focused on the threat of climate change. My aim in this thesis is to bring attention to the harm of air pollution to public health, but also to consider the justifications for state intervention and the ethical challenges related to public health policies. I present this discussion over five chapters.
In Chapter One, I will begin by providing a brief definition and explanation of air pollution, followed by an overview of its key sources and the main factors that contribute to poor air quality. I will also outline the severe impacts of air pollution on public health. I conclude Chapter One by arguing that the state should bear the primary responsibility for addressing poor air quality.
In Chapter Two, I turn to considering when state intervention that attempts to address air pollution is justified. Chapter Two will also explain my methodological approach. Put briefly, I offer a plausible reading of John Stuart Mill’s harm principle and the arguments of On Liberty (1859), but not a definitive interpretation and I diverge from Mill’s own thoughts. In this Chapter, I will show the harm principle holds that coercive interference is only permitted to prevent harm to others. My ambition here is to show Mill’s arguments serve as a basis for contemporary discussions on how the state should address air pollution. I also argue that harm should be defined as any direct negative consequence. Importantly, I show that justifying state interference requires satisfying a two-stage process. The first stage is that the interference must be permitted by Mill’s harm principle. The second-stage is that benefits and costs of the interference must make it worthwhile.
In Chapter Three, I illuminate significant ambiguity in On Liberty (1859). The ambiguity is whether the harm principle permits interference only with conduct that is harmful, or also with conduct that contributes to harm, or more generally to prevent harm. I conclude that the harm principle permits interference more generally to prevent harm. This conclusion provides a more plausible normative principle and permits the state to interfere to enforce positive acts that prevent harm, like compelling witness testimony, enforcing duty to rescue laws, and positive acts that can prevent air pollution.
The previous chapters establish that the state can interfere to address air pollution. In Chapter Four, I turn to considering how the state should interfere. I suggest improvements to the prominent Nuffield Council on Bioethics ‘intervention ladder’(2007) and show that policymakers should be concerned with how intrusive a public health intervention is. I offer my own intervention ladder which can serve as a guide for policymakers.
However, intrusion is not the only concern policymakers introducing public health interventions should be aware of. In Chapter Five, I offer an ethical evaluation of the public health interventions on my intervention ladder. I also propose some policies that the state should adopt to protect public health from air pollution.

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Identifiers

ORCID for Adam Meylan-Stevenson: orcid.org/0000-0002-3725-3568

ORCID for Ben Saunders: orcid.org/0000-0002-5147-6397

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