QUANTIFYING DISTRIBUTIVE JUSTICE - AN APPROACH TO ENVIRONMENTAL AND RISK-RELATED PUBLIC-POLICY

The most fundamental philosophical objection to cost-benefit analysis is that it fails to account for the distinction between more-necessary and less-necessary benefits. For example, it provides no way to avoid trading off a few cancer deaths in exchange for a more cost-effective but also more hazardous technology which provides cheaper paper or pl astic products for the many. Since unjust distribution of benefits and burdens results primarily from the failure to prefer more-necessary g oods (such as health and safety) over less-necessary ones (such as che aper plastic razors), we shall see that a correct calculation of the r ate at which marginal utilities diminish in value (as they become less necessary to their users) can determine 'degrees of necessity' and th us the most just possible distribution of benefits and burdens. One wa y to measure the rate of diminishing marginal utility is provided by t he 'wealth effect' in occupational risk studies. Wealthier workers wil l not assume the same risk in exchange for a given salary increment (w hich to them is not very necessary) as poorer workers would assume for that same salary increment (which to them is more necessary). It is t herefore possible to construct a mathematical model for the effect of necessity/non-necessity on quantitative decision principles for enviro nmental and risk-related public policy, thus making such decisions mor e distributively just than traditional cost-benefit analysis would all ow.