RIGHTS AGAINST POLLUTERS

When there is only one source of pollution, the language of rights is adequate for justifying solutions to pollution problems. However, poll ution is often both a public and an accumulative harm. According to Fe inberg, an accumulative harm is a harm to some person brought about by the actions of many people when the action of no single person is suf ficient, by itself, to cause the harm. For example, although no single car emits enough exhaust to do any harm, the emissions from many cars can accumulate to an unhealthy level. In this paper, I argue that rig hts, understood in terms of the will theory of Hart and the interest t heories of Lyons and Rat, cannot justify protecting people from public , accumulative harms. I conclude that pollution regulation should focu s not on protecting people's rights, but on preventing harm to people' s interests.