The term environmental justice (EJ) is broadly used to frame discussions regarding unjust or unequal distributions of environmental harms between different communities. Typically, we see examples where air, water, and soil quality are significantly worse in poorer communities, especially poorer communities of color, than in wealthier, white communities. While poor environmental quality is not desirable, severely environmentally impacted communities, and the individuals who inhabit them, often face much worse consequences, in the form of health effects that can often have long-term implications for opportunities and achievements.

The project of my dissertation is the creation of a flexible and empirically-informed model for both diagnosing the injustices and guiding policy decisions that will result in a more just distribution of risks, and prevent some of the grossest injustices. John Rawls and Amartya Sen provide the philosophical basis for the claims of injustice, and help to guide the normative conception I develop the latter parts of the work. Ultimately, I argue that we need a conception of environmental justice that will lead both to just institutional and background conditions to prevent harms, as well as providing mechanisms of restorative justice for those who have already faced harms. The Rawlsian project of “Justice as Fairness” will provide guidance for the institutional framework whose goal is the creation of more perfect justice, while Sen’s work will aid in making comparative judgments of the well-being of particular individuals.