The Ethics of Water: From Commodification to Common Ownership

Description

In this global approach to climate change and freshwater access, Cameron Fioret explores the harmful effects of water commodification. Making use of deliberative democratic theory, Fioret suggests tools that can change the balance of democratic decision-making power by rethinking the governance of water more broadly. Five main case studies including Detroit, Cochabamba, and Kerala span four continents to convey the global and local scope of normative water issues. These examples draw on contemporary water justice movements to explore how anti-water-commodification struggles can utilize water recommoning practices to make water governance processes more deeply democratic. Highlighting the ethical and sociopolitical ramifications of water injustice, this study moves beyond the surface issue of distributional concerns. To this end, Fioret draws on research in democratic political theory and environmental philosophy to consider what right people have to water, the putative harms of privatizing and commodifying water, common ownership, and legal protections, alongside local and transnational political activism. In navigating these pressing issues, The Ethics of Water provides a searing analysis of water commodification and political domination today. Water is the fulcrum on which life pivots—it is nonpareil in its importance for life on Earth. Climate change and the ever-expanding sphere of water commodification raise important ethical and sociopolitical questions and ramifications that are not reducible to only distributional concerns. Philosophical, normative work on climate change is prolific, but there is considerably less research on water issues specifically. Drawing on research in democratic political theory and environmental philosophy, I pose and address five main questions in this book: 1. What right, if any, do people have to water? 2. What are the putative harms of privatizing and commodifying water? 3. Should naturally occurring necessities for human life, like water, be considered owned in common as common territory or property? 4. If so, what are the most compelling normative and ethical grounds for justifying common ownership of water? 5. How might people’s rights to access to water be protected through legal and political means, and what role might local and transnational political activism play in hastening the implementation of such protections? In answering these questions, this book contributes to the burgeoning study of water ethics and justice within academic philosophy while working through the lens of non-ideal theory and a hybrid engaged philosophy. Communities subjected to water commodification, I argue, ultimately suffer a form of political domination insofar as they lack democratic decision-making power and control over this most vital of resources. I contend that deliberative democratic theory provides suggestive tools (at the level of norms and institutional design) for rethinking the governance of water. Drawing on contemporary water justice movements, I also show how anti-water-commodification struggles can utilize water recommoning practices to make water governance processes more deeply democratic. By way of five main case studies—Guelph-Wellington; Detroit, Flint and Baltimore; Cochabamba; Grenoble; and Kerala—I convey the global yet local, or glocal, scope of normative water issues. Additionally, I provide normative analyses of water governance and water injustice, and I show why the political harms of water commodification require democratic remedies. Cover Halftitle page Also available from Bloomsbury Title page Copyright page Dedication Contents Acknowledgements Epigraph 1 Introduction 1.1 Preface 1.2.1 Methodology 1.2.2 The book as engaged philosophy and non-ideal theory 1.2.3 Description of the chapters herein 1.3 Do people have a right to water? An analysis and explication of the existing literature on the ethics of water commodification 1.4 The author’s argument 2 Water, Rights-based Arguments and Social Entitlement 2.1 Current representative views on water ownership,and the putative harms of water commodification 2.2 The water commons, and a tension in recommoning 2.3 Water and the question of commodification 2.4 The harms of water commodification 2.5 Harms and property: where to go from here? 3 An Explication of Common Ownership and Common Territory 3.1 Path dependencies and commodification 3.2.1 Common ownership 3.2.2 Common ownership and the tragedy of the commons 3.2.3 Commons control in relation to self-governance and state-governance 3.3 Common ownership, common territory and deliberative democracy as complementary 3.4 Conclusion 4 Water Justice as Socioenvironmental Justice 4.1.1 Water justice as socioenvironmental justice 4.1.2 Participatory water justice: the importance of recognition and inclusion 4.1.3 Difficulties of democratizing water justice: social movements, recognition and human rights 4.2 The political harm of water injustice: the weakening of democracy 4.3 Conclusion 5 The Protection of Rights to Water Through Law, Politics and Social Movements 5.1 Social movements as protections for rights to water 5.2 Democracy, resistance and water recommoning 5.3 Resistance and violence 5.4 Conclusion 6 Conclusion 6.1 Synopsis of arguments and conclusions 6.2 Water ethics and justice going forward 6.3 Final thoughts Notes Bibliography Index