The utilitarian viewpoint developed by Jeremy Bentham (1994) is based on the principle o f cost versus benefit, and suggests that one should chose the act that will brings the greatest amount o f benefits, at the least cost to all parties involved. John Stuart Mill (1962) also puts emphasis on the basic criterion o f morality that maximizes the total amount o f happiness or social utility. Utilitarian ideas are also to be found in the Chinese philosophical tradition. Mo Tzu (479-381 BC), an early critic o f Confucius, argues that there is too much emphasis on duty and too little on love in the Confucian teaching. Mo Tzu advocated a kind o f utilitarianism, called Mutual
Profitableness: ‘Righteousness is that which yields profit ... Mutual love produces mutual profit ... Common good arises from loving and profiting others ... God must like to see men loving and benefiting one another.’ Mo Tzu advocated equal concern for everyone rather than any sort o f individualistic pursuit o f profit. Like utilitarianism, he considers morality as a task producing the greatest good for the greatest number.49 Mo Tzu’s ideas are still an important reference for political debate in Taiwanese culture. Such utilitarian considerations have become more significant in the contemporary society, with its rapid economic development.
The majority o f the Taiwanese participants in the focus groups hold utilitarian perspectives on the conception o f environmental justice. They regard people on Taiwan Island and Orchid Island as a whole, and argue that the siting decision needs to consider the greatest amount o f good to the greatest number. For the Taiwanese groups, nuclear waste repository at the remote place with low population density and suitable geographic environment could minimize the possible risk (see Chapter 4). The utility principle requires the equal consideration o f interests or happiness o f each person in the calculation o f consequences. However, Shrader-Frechette (1991: 113-4) argues that such utilitarian reasoning to justify the siting decision is incapable o f dealing with the complexity o f issues o f justice because it does not address problems o f fairness in the distribution o f goods and ‘bads’. With Shrader-Frechette, residents in small rural communities that host nuclear waste facilities and bear the disproportionate burdens probably consider the utilitarian principle unacceptable. Can Taipower justify dumping nuclear waste on Orchid Island by reference to the differences o f geography conditions and density o f population? The Yami might claim
49 The ‘six sch ools’ o f Chinese Philosophy. Available at
that the Taipower’s criterion is based on social status that involves bullying the ethnic minority.
In Yearley’s (1995: 468-9) discussion on public disputes over environmental knowledge, it is argued that appeals to universal safety standards or safety procedures may actually be insensitive to local conditions and legitimate unjust outcomes. He provides the example o f sheep farmers in Cumbria, northwest England, whose land was contaminated by radioactive fallout from the 1986 Chernobyl accident (cf. Wynne, 1996). Although the farmers received the scientific reassurances that the polluting cesium would quickly pass from the food chain, official scientists still measured high levels o f contamination years after these predictions and the farmers were still unable to sell their stock. He argues that the assumptions about consistent caesium mobility disadvantaged Cumbrian farmers.
The case o f public controversy describes above and the competing knowledge and values between the Yami and Taiwanese groups (see Chapter 4) reveal that it would be problematic to justify dumping nuclear waste at specific places by simply appealing to scientific standards. One crucial critique o f utilitarianism is that it would lead to the sacrifice o f some people’s rights to the good o f the many (Hudson, 2001: 112). The principle o f utility alone could not do much good in solving problems o f social and environmental conflicts, and the benefits o f the minority.
Fairness
Distributive equity or equality o f treatment does not mean that everyone ought to receive the same or identical treatment (W igley and Shrader-Frechette, 1995: 137). As Shrader-Frechette (2002: 26) puts it, ‘genuinely equal treatment might require that treatment for all individuals not be the same, so as to take account o f some
individuals’ higher m erit, their deserving compensation, their special needs, or society’s need to offer them an incentive for desirable actions’. She argues that it requires justifying unequal treatment by reference to relevant differences and justifying equal treatment by reference to relevant similarities to meet the requirements o f justice. However, the distributive element o f environmental justice discourses discussed in Chapter 2 shows that there are various notions and perspective o f distributive justice.
The idea o f fairness has been found in both the Yami Taipower employee group and Taiwanese groups’ understanding o f environmental justice. As discussed in Chapter 4, the Yami fisherman and housewife groups regard it bullying the ethnic minority to dump nuclear waste on Orchid Island. The Yami Taipower employee group recognizes a link between unfair distribution o f risk and the factor o f ethnicity:
Mod Have you heard about the term environment justice? What does it mean to you?
M l Yes, I have. It means the majority oppresses the minority. Bullying the weak. I think that I hear it from international media.
M2 I think so. Then... why it [nuclear waste] has not dumped in the office of the president? (The Yami Taipower employees, group 7)
Similarly, some Taiwanese professional participants understand environmental justice in terms o f gong p in g [fairness]. It is considered bu gong p in g [unfair] that the minority or people in poor town and impoverished country have no choice but to suffer disproportionately environmental destruction and costs. As one Taiwanese professional puts it: ‘It involves the problem o f gong p in g [fairness]. Why build the nuclear waste repository, why not set it up at other places?’ Another participant puts it: ‘I think it refers to the phenomena that nuclear waste was stored in the poor town that