This article considers whether any interpretation of the idea of equal claims to the natural world can resolve the Canyon Dilemma (i.e. can justify protecting the Grand Canyon but not a small canyon from mining by a poor generation). It first considers and ultimately rejects the idea of subjecting natural resource rights to an intergenerational equal division. It then demonstrates that a pluralist theory of environmental justice committed to both respect for the separateness of persons and to the collective good (...) can justify a type of intergenerational non-absolute equal division of natural resource rights that can navigate the Canyon Dilemma. (shrink)

:Libertarianism is a political philosophy whose defenders have set its foundations in the principle of self-ownership. But self-ownership supplies an uncertain basis for such a theory as it is prone to a number of serious difficulties, some of which have been addressed by libertarians but none of which can ultimately be overcome. For libertarianism to be a plausible way of looking at the world, it must look elsewhere for its basic principles. In particular, it needs to rethink the way it (...) understands property and its foundations. (shrink)