Employing methods of reflective equilibrium to operationalize ideal-typical principles of justice in the context of climate and environmental crises

The climate and environmental crises are proving to be the defining and unprecedented issues of our time. Their uneven impacts within and between human societies have led to an efflorescence of normative political literature exploring the principles of justice that can structure and guide policymakers’ response to such crises. Despite the scholarly fields of environmental, climate, and energy justice previously having distinct remits, that somewhat mirror the siloed nature of policymaking, clear similarities exist between the typologies of justice being leveraged across such fields. Indeed, the normative principles of justice used can be categorized under the same four groups across these fields, namely procedural, distributive, restorative and recognition justice. Furthermore, justice research is increasingly crossing over into policymaking arenas. Here two examples can illustrate the increasing influence of normative political theory in decision-making. Notably, the example of the Common But Differentiated Responsibility clause (CBDR) of the Paris Agreement being shaped by the Ability to Pay Principle and Polluter Pays Principle of distributive climate justice, or the example of the United States (US) Department of Energy (DoE) making it a legal requirement that energy projects be shaped with the four types of justice in mind – failing which they would not access subsidies. Further examples abound, like Columbia’s Just Energy Transition Roadmap 2023. Simultaneously, a clear research gap has been identified when it comes to operationalizing such principles in practice, suggesting a pressing need for innovative methods of normative political theory able to fine-tune principles of justice for coherent applications in the non-ideal circumstances of the real world. Without the development of such a method, the recent inclusion of these principles of justice in different legal architectures runs the risk of remaining lip service, rather than set clear and above-all measurable imperatives for just outcomes in the context of the transformations brought about by climate and environmental crises. Worse yet, and as can be seen with CBDR, without clear methodologies for their application, principles of justice can become additional hurdles to expedient and effective action. This paper outlines how a method of wide reflective equilibrium could provide some answers for applying ideal-typical justice principles in non-ideal circumstances, as long as such a method be used bidirectionally. That is to say, in using such a method, principles could simultaneously serve to evaluate given policy outcomes, and in being confronted with real circumstances, principles of justice would stand the chance to be iteratively improved where their application creates substandard outcomes for justice. Conducting such an exercise in applied ethics enables us to bridge the gap between the theories of justice emanating from normative political theory and the increasing empirical complexities of the climate and environmental crises.