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ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH Jewish Ethics and Environmental Health: Authors: Consulting scholar:
Unit 1. Core Values: Health, Community and Commerce Human Health and Life Judaism puts a supreme value on the protection of human life, for the human being is understood as having been created in the image of God ("let us create humanity in our image"). We are expected to stop crimes, rescue people from natural disasters, and intervene in life-threatening circumstances. Virtually any action is permissible -- except for murder of innocents, idolatry and adultery/incest -- to save a human being from death. Life is priceless, and the life of one person is considered no less valuable than the life of another -- regardless of their prognosis for survival. Indeed we are commanded to take action to prevent the death of others: The reason Adam was created alone in the world is to teach you that whoever destroys a single soul, Scripture imputes it to him as though he had destroyed the entire world; and whoever keeps alive a single soul, Scripture imputes it to him as though he had preserved the entire world. Babylonian Talmud Neither shall you stand idly by the blood of your neighbor. Leviticus 19:16 By this prohibition [Leviticus 19:16] we are forbidden to neglect to save a life of a person whom we see in danger of death and destruction and whom it is in our power to save: as for instance if a person is drowning, and we are good swimmers and can save him; or if a heathen is trying to kill someone, and we are in a position to thwart his intention... Rabbi Moses Maimonides, Book of Commandments, no. 297.
The Importance of Work and Commerce While placing the utmost value on individual human life, all Judaic systems (past and present) seem to recognize the extraordinary value of well-functioning families and communities. The health and safety of each person is intimately linked to the health of the community. Jewish thinkers greatly value work in itself and commercial activities that are necessary for the larger society to safeguard, nurture and sustain its members. As God created the world, humans are expected to create and productively employ nature's gifts: The brute's existence is an undignified one because it is a helpless existence...Men of old who could not fight disease and succumbed in multitudes to yellow fever or any other plague with degrading helplessness could not lay claim to dignity. Only the man who builds hospitals, discovers therapeutic techniques, and saves lives is blessed with dignity. Man of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries who needed several days to travel from Boston to New York was less dignified that modern man who attempts to conquer space, boards a plane at the New York airport at midnight and takes, several hours later, a leisurely walk along the streets of London. Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik Justice and Business Ideally work is a means to life, to better life and to the preservation of life. For this reason, Judaism smiles upon economic endeavors. At the same time, the tradition is sensitive to the possible conflicts between unrestrained economic pursuit and the values and conditions that make for a high quality of life. Accordingly, Judaism questions not whether to succeed economically but how to succeed. Historically, Judaism placed many constraints and ethical boundaries on commerce, including stipulations regarding the proper treatment of workers, slaves, animals, customers, and the land: You shall not oppress a laborer who is poor and needy, whether he is one of your brothers, or a stranger in one of the communities in your land. You must pay him his wages on the same day, before the sun sets; for he is poor, and sets his heart upon it, else he will cry against you to the Eternal, and you will incur guilt. Deuteronomy 24:14-15 "And will do that which is right in God's eyes" (Exodus 15:26) while engaged in the give-and-take of business. The verse implies that when a person gives and takes in business with integrity, and the spirit of the person's fellow creature delights in the person, it is accounted to him as if he had fulfilled the entire Torah, all of it. Nachmanides
Unit 2. When Individual Economic Pursuits Threaten the Health and Safety of Others The Torah expresses in many ways our duty to pursue our own economic interests while taking care that this pursuit is respectful of the welfare of others. Consider the following texts as expressive of society's right to regulate how each economic actor is responsible if their activities prove injurious to others: When an ox gores a man or a woman to death, the ox shall be stoned and its flesh shall not be eaten, but the owner of the ox is not to be punished. If however, that ox has been in the habit of goring, and its owner, though warned, has failed to guard it, and it kills a man or a woman -- the ox shall be stoned and its owner, too, put to death. Exodus 21:28-29
When someone opens a pit, or digs a pit and does not cover it, and an ox or an ass falls into it, the one responsible for the pit must make restitution, that person shall pay the price to the owner, but shall keep the dead animal. Exodus 21: 33-35
When a fire is started and spread to thorns, so that stacked, standing or growing grain is consumed, the one who started the fire must make restitution. Exodus 22:5
DISCUSSION I. What general concerns seem to lie behind the provisions of these laws? What distinctions are made by citing different cases of damage, and why? II. What concepts of responsibility are at work here? How do the laws reflect these concepts of responsibility? For example, why does the penalty for ox goring change if the ox is in the habit of goring? III. The ox, fire, and pit are among the basic categories of damages under Jewish law. What features of these types of damage might be interpreted to apply to air or water pollution? IV. Consider how this distinction between oxen and the responsibility of their owners might apply to contemporary environmental regulation. To what extent might synthetic chemicals be considered 'innocent until proven guilty' or vice versa?
Unit 3. Everybody's Business: The Communal Role in Regulating the Impacts of Business Distinct from the issue of responsibility for injury is the question of prior social regulation of potential hazards before they cause injury. As economic life expanded beyond farming, Jewish communities enacted legal and ethical standards based on the Torah and the Mishnah (the "Oral Law") to prevent economic actors from causing damage or discomfort to neighbors and their property. Later codes of Jewish law, such as Maimonides' Mishneh Torah, were drawn from the earlier laws and rulings. Consider the following texts: One may not dig ... a water channel nor a launderer's pool unless one distances them [two feet] from the other's wall and plasters it with lime... One must distance olive refuse, manure, salt, lime and stones... One must distance seeds, a plow and urine [two feet]... One may not open a bakery or a dye shop under the storehouse of another, nor a cattle shed... One must distance a dovecote [100 feet] from a town... One must distance a fixed threshing floor... One must distance carcasses, graves, and a tannery... One must distance a flax pool from vegetables. Mishnah
A store in a courtyard -- one can block the store by claiming, "I cannot sleep due to the noise of those entering and leaving... But one cannot block... the noise of the grain mill or the noise of children. Mishnah
DISCUSSION I. Consider the types of industries and "environmental" hazards addressed by these texts. How do these hazards resemble and differ from the hazard of exposure to toxic chemicals? II. What implications do you see in these texts regarding the duty to prevent damage? What differences do you notice between the rules regarding human injury and the rules designed primarily for property damage? III. Given the principles that seem to be at work here, what implications might follow for the regulation of environmental hazards?
Unit 4. Playing with Fire: Long-Term and Uncertain Risks There are many threats to human life that are neither certain nor imminent. For this reason, Jewish thinkers have devised ways of evaluating risks and deciding upon how much prevention (or precaution) to mandate in the face of predictable or unpredictable risks. Consider the following texts: When you build a new house, you shall make a parapet for your roof, so that you do not bring blood-guilt on your house if anyone should fall from it. Deuteronomy 22:8 The height of the parapet cannot be less that two feet so that [a potential] faller will not fall from it and each piece of the parapet has to be strong enough so that leaner can lean upon it and won't fall. Anybody who puts up his roof without a parapet has violated the positive commandment and transgressed a negative commandment -- "you shall not spill blood." Rabbi Moses Maimonides, Mishneh Torah Both the roof and any other object of potential danger, by which it is likely that a person could be fatally injured, require that the owner take action... just as the Torah commands us to make a fence on the roof... and so, too, regarding any obstacle which could cause mortal danger, one [not just the owner] has a positive commandment to remove it... if one does not remove it but leaves those obstacles constituting potential danger, one transgresses a positive commandment and negates a negative commandment "Thou shall not spill blood." Rabbi Moses Maimonides, Mishneh Torah DISCUSSION Consider the parapet rule from the Torah and as interpreted by Maimonides. I. What are the principles or rationales behind this regulation? II. How might you apply these principles to contemporary environmental hazards?
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