Journal of Social Philosophy, Volume 52, Issue 4, Page 536-553, Winter 2021.

Designing a successful graduate seminar should account for more than just the content to be conveyed and the completion of the standard seminar paper. This article dissects the seminar structure, revealing some of what is obscured by the “hidden curriculum” of graduate education, with an eye toward transforming the climate in philosophy. I begin with a brief review of literature on graduate teaching and inclusive teaching in philosophy. I then examine four components of a typical graduate seminar: the faculty (...) instructor of graduate courses, the graduate students themselves, the material selection, and the course requirements. Reflecting on the graduate seminar compels revisiting learning goals, ensuring inclusivity and accessibility, and adopting a more intentional approach to graduate course design that ties course goals to specific activities and assessments for the life of the professional philosopher. (shrink)

Journal of Social Philosophy, EarlyView.

Climate change harms health and damages and diminishes environmental resources. Gradually it will cause health systems to reduce services, standards of care, and opportunities to express patient autonomy. Prominent public health organizations are responding with preparedness, mitigation, and educational programs. The design and effectiveness of these programs, and of similar programs in other sectors, would be enhanced by greater understanding of the values and tradeoffs associated with activities and public policies that drive climate change. Bioethics could generate such (...) understanding by exposing the harms and benefits in different cultural, socioeconomic, and geographic contexts, and through interdisciplinary risk assessments. Climate change is a bioethics problem because it harms everyone and involves health, values, and responsibilities. This article initiates dialog about the responsibility of bioethics to promote transparency and understanding of the social values and conflicts associated with climate change, and the actions and public policies that allow climate change to worsen. (shrink)

This paper explores the relevance of the Non-Identity Problem to explaining the wrongness of causing climate change.

Given the irrationality and failures of human behaviour in the face of ecocide, the majority of humankind appears either unable or unwilling to change self-destructive ways of life. Rejecting common accounts, the author suggests that the reasons for our stubborn resistance to change go well beyond cognitive dissonance or any standard political and economic explanations. Nor is the answer to be found in human history alone. The driving forces underlying that resistance, the author argues, originate far back in evolutionary time (...) to the impulses governing all sentient creatures. -/- NB: The copy of this article is the final, pre-production version of the article published in the Architectural Research Quarterly. (shrink)

Dale Jamieson has claimed that conventional human-directed ethical concepts are an inadequate means for accurately understanding our duty to respond to climate change. Furthermore, he suggests that a responsibility to respect nature can instead provide the appropriate framework with which to understand such a duty. Stephen Gardiner has responded by claiming that climate change is a clear case of ethical responsibility, but the failure of institutions to respond to it creates a (not unprecedented) political problem. In assessing the (...) debate between Gardiner and Jamieson, I develop an analysis which shows a three-part structure to the problem of climate change, in which the problem Gardiner identifies is only one of three sub-problems of climate change. This analysis highlights difficulties with Jamieson’s argument that the duty of respect for nature is necessary for a full understanding of climate ethics, and suggests how a human-directed approach based on the three-part analysis can avoid Jamieson’s charge of inadequacy. (shrink)

Climate change presents unprecedented challenges for the ethical community and society at large. The harms of climate change—real and projected—are well documented. Rising s...

Kant’s ethics provides surprising resources for addressing duties with respect to climate change. First, I show how Kant’s moral metaphysics, according to which the self is a phenomenon, provides a distinctive ground to mitigate the harm of climate change for future generations. In short, the physical appearances of our actions are grounded in an atemporal existence from which our intrinsic moral value derives. As such, the a priori basis for addressing climate duties to the present is no (...) different from that of duties to address climate duties to the future, though we must consider present circumstances in order to act effectively. Second, I show that recent helpful contributions towards understanding the resources of Kantian ethics for addressing climate face the following prima facie dilemma: perfect duties to reduce emissions are overly demanding because it requires reduction below subsistence levels, while imperfect duties to reduce emissions are not demanding enough to address the climate crisis. Without ruling out the existence of perfect duties to address climate, I analyze the latter horn of the dilemma and show how imperfect duties can be more demanding than one might have thought, given that we are in a climate emergency. Recent work on the role of emergency in Kant’s ethics has shown that there are resources for making sense of the prioritization of some concerns as more pressing. Overall, the aim of this contribution is to highlight some of the prospects and problems that face Kantian approaches to climate ethics. (shrink)

This article justifies and restates the non-identity problem in relation to climate change. First and briefly, I argue that while there is often good reason to set the NIP aside in practical politics, there can be areas where a climate NIP will have practical implications. An instructive example concerns climate change litigation. Second, I argue that there are three particular circumstances of a climate NIP that may set it apart from the more established NIP in bioethics. (...) These differences regard interaction, numbers, and agency respectively. Third, I discuss the premises and conclusion of a climate NIP, modifying an account in bioethics by David Boonin. (shrink)

The peculiar features of the climate change problem pose substantial obstacles to our ability to make the hard choices necessary to address it. Climate change involves the convergence of a set of global, intergenerational and theoretical problems. This convergence justifies calling it a 'perfect moral storm'. One consequence of this storm is that, even if the other difficult ethical questions surrounding climate change could be answered, we might still find it difficult to act. For the storm (...) makes us extremely vulnerable to moral corruption. (shrink)

Why should one take action to move toward a greener world if doing so will cause the birth of a totally different group of future people? This chapter starts from the metaphysical evidence that many collective climate actions imply a change in the identity of future generations, as opposed to a counterfactual laissez-faire attitude. The climatic fallout from the non-identity paradox introduced by Derek Parfit is examined to determine if and how a principle of transgenerational responsibility can be defended (...) against this metaphysical complexity. The paradox is divided into a moral argument, based on the person-affecting view of harm, and a metaphysical premise, treating non-identity as a result of variations in timing and pair combination of a person’s conception. Three strategies to circumvent the moral argument are explored: non-consequentialist accounts of harm, moral thresholds, and impersonal ethics. However, it is argued that all three strategies fall short or come with too high a cost. The metaphysical premise is then examined through the introduction of transgenerational actions in relation to the climate crisis. A principle of transgenerational responsibility applicable to climate change mitigation is inferred from the hypothetical consent to be obtained from those who will continue transgenerational actions in the future. (shrink)

The study examines the relationship between the strength of an organizationÕs ethical climate and ethical problems involving human resource management. Data were collected through a survey of 1078 human resource managers. The results indicate a statistically significant negative relationship between the strength of an organization'ss ethical climate and the seriousness of ethical violations and a statistically significant positive relationship between an organization'ss ethical climate and success in responding to ethical issues. Thus, interventions that strengthen an organization'ss (...) ethical climate may help manage ethical behavior within organizations. (shrink)

Personal carbon footprints have become a subject of major concern among those who worry about global climate change. Conventional wisdom holds that individuals have a duty to reduce their impacts on the climate system by restricting their carbon footprints. However, I defend a new argument for thinking that this conventional wisdom is mistaken. Individuals, I argue, have a duty to take actions to combat the world’s problems. But since climate change is only one of a nearly (...) endless list of such problems, individuals’ obligations to take action as activists do not specifically require reductions in personal carbon footprints. Moreover, this is true even in spite of the fact that we are personally implicated in causing climate change. This paper also argues that many of those who decide to combat climate change by reducing their carbon footprints are likely doing more than they can justify in this regard. Although most people are not doing enough to combat world problems, a proper devotion to activism would seek a balance with other life demands that many climate activists currently eschew. (shrink)

This essay uses Ulrich Beck’s concept of risk society to understand the threat of catastrophic climate change. It argues that this threat is “abstract-corporeal”, and therefore a special kind of threat that poses special kinds of epistemic and ecological challenges. At the center of these challenges is the problem of human vulnerability, which entails a complex form of trust that both sustains and threatens human survival.

Climate change is one of the greatest challenges that human societies have ever faced. After a late start, it is by now rather intensely debated and analysed also in the social sciences and humanities, though mostly through overly generic explanations in terms of an instrumental relation to nature, of capitalist expansion drives or of the human longing for comfort. In contrast, this article concentrates on the socio-political transformations since the middle of the 20th century, which have been referred to (...) as the ‘Great Acceleration’ in the use of biophysical resources and in environmental degradation. It provides an analysis of the socio-political mechanisms that brought the resource-intensive path of social development about, showing how Western democratic societies tended to ‘solve’ difficult social problems by means of a triple displacement: onto other societies; onto nature and the planet; and into the future. As an unintended consequence, this displacement politics led to the globalization of resource-intensive development and to a planetary situation in which, at least as it appears in much of current debate, no further displacement is possible. The article concludes with insights for a more adequate approach to social phenomena of large scale and long duration in social theory. (shrink)

Climate change has become one of the most pressing problems that can threaten the existence and development of humans around the globe. Almost all climate scientists have agreed that climate change is happening and is caused mainly by greenhouse gas emissions induced by anthropogenic activities. However, some groups still deny this fact or do not believe that climate change results from human activities. This essay discusses the causes, significance, and skeptical arguments of climate change (...) denialism, as well as the roles of scientists and science communication in addressing the issues. Through this essay, we call for the active participation of scientists in science communication activities with the public, the opening of new science communication sectors specified for climate change, and more attention to social sciences and humanities in addressing climate change issues. (shrink)

According to the Polluter Pays Principle, excessive emitters of greenhouse gases have special obligations to remedy the problem of climate change, because they are the ones who have caused it. But what kind of problem is climate change? In this paper I argue that as a moral problem, climate change has a more complex causal structure than many proponents of the Polluter Pays Principle seem to recognize: it is a problem resulting from the interaction of anthropogenic (...) class='Hi'>climate effects with the underlying vulnerability and exposure of human communities and other things of value. This means that we should acknowledge more pathways by which human agency contributes to the climate problem and, accordingly, a different landscape of contribution-based remedial responsibilities. (shrink)

Mission-oriented climate change research is often unverifiable. Therefore, many stakeholders look to peer-reviewed climate change research for trustworthy information about deeply uncertain and impactful phenomena. This is because peer-review signals that research has been vetted for scientific standards like reproducibility and replicability. Here we evaluate the transparency of research methodologies in mission-oriented computational climate research. We find that only five percent of our sample meets the minimal standard of fully open data and code required for reproducibility and (...) replicability. The widespread lack of minimal openness standards in peer-reviewed climate change research jeopardizes scientific credibility and risks poor societal outcomes as we manage growing climate risks. The scientific community can and must do better. We, the authors, outline necessary openness standards that we commit to as researchers, reviewers, and readers. We invite you to join us. (shrink)

The study examines the relationship between the strength of an organizationÕs ethical climate and ethical problems involving human resource management. Data were collected through a survey of 1078 human resource managers. The results indicate a statistically significant negative relationship between the strength of an organization'ss ethical climate and the seriousness of ethical violations and a statistically significant positive relationship between an organization'ss ethical climate and success in responding to ethical issues. Thus, interventions that strengthen an organization'ss (...) ethical climate may help manage ethical behavior within organizations. (shrink)

This article examines the emphasis on facts and data in public discourse, and the belief that they provide a certainty necessary for public judgment and collective action. The heart of this belief is what I call the “myth of the Absolute,” which is the belief that by basing our judgment and actions on an Absolute we can avoid errors and mistakes. Myths of the Absolute can help us deal with wicked problems such as climate change, but they also (...) have a downside. This article explores the experience behind these myths, to better understand how they describe and mediate our experiences of uncertainty, then relates these myths to debates about climate change. I conclude by describing how to engage these myths in a way that promotes better public discourse—and thus better public judgment and collective action—by telling these stories in such a way that we poke and prod wherever the story is not. (shrink)

This book is a guide for understanding climate change. The guide takes an interdisciplinary approach because climate change is simultaneously a matter of science, engineering, economics, politics, culture, ethics, and more. The guide thus follows the contours of climate change as it appears in the world—as a tangle of problems. It builds climate literacy as a form of problem-posing by offering a set of tools for understanding how problems get framed, debated, and resolved. Through (...) developing climate literacy, students gain the ability to think critically about how facts are constructed and mobilized in the pursuit of values. Part One (Big Picture and Fundamentals) provides basic definitions and broad orientation by situating climate change within larger contexts like the Anthropocene, international climate diplomacy, sustainable development, and “green growth.” Part Two (Climate Sciences) offers tools for understanding climate science, its historical development, and its place in society by asking: who knows, what do we know, and how do we know it? Part Three (Politics, Ethics, and Policy) shows how to analyze debates about climate change policies from mitigation to rewilding. (shrink)

The disconnect problem arises wherever there is ongoing and severe discordance between the scientific assessment of a politically relevant issue, and the politics and legislation of said issue. Here, we focus on the disconnect problem as it arises in the case of climate change, diagnosing a failure to respect the necessary tradeoff between authority and autonomy within a public institution like science. After assessing the problematic deployment of scientific authority in this arena, we offer suggestions for how to mitigate (...) climate change’s particular disconnect problem, as well as more general proposals for reforming science advising. (shrink)

Within the climate justice debate, the ‘beneficiary pays’ principle holds that those who benefit from greenhouse emissions associated with industrialization ought to pay for the costs of mitigating and adapting to their adverse effects. This principle constitutes a claim of inter-generational justice, and it is widely believed that the non-identity problem raises serious difficulties for any such claim. After briefly sketching the rationale behind ‘beneficiary pays,’ this paper offers a new way of understanding the claim that persons in developed (...) societies have benefited from industrialization. It argues that when we think of the claim in this new way, it evades the non-identity problem entirely. Some objections to this approach are then considered and rebutted. The paper concludes by comparing the present, relatively modest solution to the nonidentity problem with a much more ambitious attempt from the recent literature. (shrink)

Ongoing inaction on mitigation and adaptation has turned climate justice debates toward non-ideal theory, where the demand for action-guidance is foregrounded. Some theorists have adopted an understanding of the problem of action-guidance toward climate justice as a “pathway problem.” I argue that this theoretical framework’s assumptions, including a reliance on probabilistic feasibility assessments, makes it inappropriate to guide action toward climate justice.

This contribution explores the assertion that climate change may be described as a “wicked problem.” It notes that the term was introduced in the context of the management sciences where a managerial ethos prevailed and where moral connotations were excluded. Subsequent references to climate change as a wicked problem maintained both these features. Yet, if climate change not only poses technological, economic, and political problems but also has moral and, indeed, spiritual challenges—as is widely maintained—then such (...) moral connotations cannot be avoided. The description of a problem as wicked then becomes part of the problem. It is argued that the term is best understood as one used in jest, so that if we seek to define a problem’s wickedness in a conceptually precise way, we are missing the joke. The major moral dimensions of the challenges posed by climate changes should be taken seriously, but perhaps there is no need to take the term wicked problems all that seriously. What should not be laughed off is the managerial ethos that presumes that the challenges posed by climate changes can be addressed “exactly” through climate engineering or even social engineering. (shrink)

Outlining the characteristics of “wicked” and “super‐wicked” problems, climate change is considered as a global super‐wicked problem that is primarily about the future. Being global‐ and future‐oriented makes climate change something we have to learn to live with but cannot expect to solve. Because the Institute on Religion in an Age of Science (IRAS) is a multidisciplinary society that yokes the natural and social sciences with values, it is in a position to explore strategies for living with (...) climate change—exemplified by the articles in this section. Finally, asking “who/what is in charge,” it is suggested that in a dynamically interrelated and evolving world no one is. It is important to distinguish between good that is already created and the creative interactions that give rise to new good. In order to live with climate change, our primary orientation should be to live with the creativity that has created and continues to create our life on Planet Earth—since we are not able to know what the future holds. (shrink)

Climate action is conventionally framed in terms of overcoming epistemic and practical disagreement. An alternative view is to treat people’s understandings of climate change as fundamentally pluralistic and to conceive of climate action accordingly. This paper explores this latter perspective through a framework of philosophical psychology, in particular Bernard Williams’s distinction between internal and external reasons. This illuminates why the IPCC’s framework of ‘Reasons for Concern’ has an inefficacious relationship to people’s concerns and, hence, why additional reason (...) giving is required. Accordingly, this paper recommends a model of truthful persuasion, which acknowledges the plurality of people’s motivations and sincerely strives to connect the facts of climate change to people’s subjective motivational sets. (shrink)

After decades of institutional failure to address climate change, the need for ethically-motivated collective action is clear. It is equally clear that this issue is not widely perceived as an ethical problem. As founders of climate ethics research, Dale Jamieson and Stephen Gardiner offer compelling accounts to explain why. Nevertheless, questions of ethical motivation in the face of institutional failure arguably mark an impasse in these otherwise essential contributions. This essay identifies the philosophical limits of Jamieson and Gardiner’s (...) accounts of ethical motivation while advancing an alternative philosophy of motivation that reframes the institutional barriers to climate responsibility. (shrink)

Climate change is reshaping patterns of displacement around the world. Extreme weather events destroy homes, environmental degradation threatens the viability of livelihoods, sea level rise and coastal erosion force communities to relocate, and risks to food and resource security magnify the sources of political instability. Climate displacement—the displacement of people driven at least in part by the impacts of climate change—is a pressing moral challenge that is incumbent upon us to address. -/- This book develops a political (...) theory of climate displacement. Most work on climate displacement has tended to take an idealized ‘climate refugee’ as its focus. But focusing on the figure of the climate refugee obscures the complexity and heterogeneity of climate displacement. Instead, this book takes the empirical dynamics of climate displacement as its starting point. It examines the moral and political problems raised by the interaction of climate change and displacement in five domains: community relocation, territorial sovereignty, labour migration, refugee movement, and internal displacement. In each context, climate displacement raises distinct questions, which this book explores on their own terms. At the same time, this book treats climate displacement as a unified phenomenon by examining the overarching questions of responsibility and fairness that it raises. The result is an empirically grounded political theory that both maps the conceptual terrain of climate displacement and charts a course for meeting the moral challenge that it raises. (shrink)

In recent years, there has been an intense public debate about whether and, if so, to what extent investments in nuclear energy should be part of strategies to mitigate climate change. Here, we address this question from an ethical perspective, evaluating different strategies of energy system development in terms of three ethical criteria, which will differentially appeal to proponents of different normative ethical frameworks. Starting from a standard analysis of climate change as arising from an intergenerational collective action (...) problem, we evaluate whether contributions from nuclear energy will, on expectation, increase the likelihood of successfully phasing out fossil fuels in time to avert dangerous global warming. For many socio-economic and geographic contexts, our review of the energy system modeling literature suggests the answer to this question is “yes.” We conclude that, from the point of view of climate change mitigation, investments in nuclear energy as part of a broader energy portfolio will be ethically required to minimize the risks of decarbonization failure, and thus the tail risks of catastrophic global warming. Finally, using a sensitivity analysis, we consider which other aspects of nuclear energy deployment, apart from climate change, have the potential to overturn the ultimate ethical verdict on investments in nuclear energy. Out of several potential considerations, we suggest that its potential interplay — whether beneficial or adverse — with the proliferation of nuclear weapons is the most plausible candidate. (shrink)

A collection of original and innovative essays that compare the justice issues raised by climate engineering to the justice issues raised by competing approaches to solving the climate problem.

Tackling climate change is one of the most demanding challenges of humanity in the 21st century. Still, the efforts to mitigate the current environmental crisis do not seem enough to deal with the increased existential risks for the human and other species. Persson and Savulescu have proposed that our evolutionarily forged moral psychology is one of the impediments to facing as enormous a problem as global warming. They suggested that if we want to address properly some of the most (...) pressing problems that cause catastrophic harm to our existence, we should enhance our moral behavior by biomedical means. The objective of this paper is, precisely, to reflect on whether a Moral Bio-Enhancement (henceforth MBE) program would be a viable option to confront the climate emergency. To meet this goal, I will propose the Ultimate Mostropic (hereafter UM) thought experiment, a hypothetical situation where we have already discovered the UM, an available, safe (without any deleterious secondary effects), extremely cheap and effective pill to enhance our cognitive, affective and motivational abilities related to morality. After briefly presenting the main argument of Persson and Savulescu regarding MBE and climate change, I will point out some of the difficulties that make MBE a daunting but exciting philosophical and scientific debate. In order to overcome these complications, I will describe the UM thought experiment, which involves two scenarios of the MBE program: (a) the state-driven, compulsory and universal enterprise, and (b) the initiative of voluntary individuals. I will show that the shortcomings of MBE programs through the UM in both scenarios make Persson and Savulescu’s proposal a not appealing pathway to mitigate climate change. In the final section, I will suggest that an inaccurate attribution of responsibilities underlies their proposal and that the collective inaction problem should be redirected primarily through a reinforcement of the political nature of the solutions. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to address the neglected but important problem of differentiating between epistemically beneficial and epistemically detrimental dissent. By “dissent,” we refer to the act of objecting to a particular conclusion, especially one that is widely held. While dissent in science can clearly be beneficial, there might be some instances of dissent that not only fail to contribute to scientific progress, but actually impede it. Potential examples of this include the tobacco industry’s funding of studies that (...) questioned the link between smoking and lung cancer, and the attempt by the petroleum industry and other groups to cast doubt upon the conclusion that human consumption of fossil fuels contributes to global climate change. The problem of distinguishing between good and bad dissent is important because of the growing tendency of some stakeholders to attempt to delay political action by ’manufacturing doubt’. Our discussion in this paper focuses on climate science. This field, in our view, is rife with instances of bad dissent. On the basis of our discussion of climate science, we articulate a set of sufficient conditions for epistemically problematic dissent in general, which we call “the inductive risk account of epistemically detrimental dissent.”. (shrink)

When discussing the general inertia in climate change mitigation, it is common to approach the analysis either in terms of epistemic obstacles (climate change is too scientifically complex to be fully understood by all in its dramatic nature and/or to find space in the media) and/or moral obstacles (the causal link between polluting actions and social damage is too loose, both geographically and temporally, to allow individuals to understand the consequences of their emissions). In this chapter I maintain (...) that both categories of obstacles now play a secondary role: many people have a clear understanding of the physical and social dynamics involved in climate change. The main reason why so few manage to reduce their ecological footprint is an ethical short-circuit that does not allow most people to reveal their “true” climate-related preferences in their daily choices. This short-circuit manifests itself in two phenomena that can be analysed through the lens of moral psychology. First, as the possibility of anticipated utility approaches, individuals further discount expected future utility and may even reverse their preferences (due to the so-called immediacy multiplier, in addition to the better known and discussed future utility discounting). Second, individuals struggle to order their preferences transitively when presented with the opportunity to obtain small net marginal utilities in the short run. The intertemporal and collective structure of the climate problem creates fertile ground for both phenomena, which means that even those who are sincerely convinced of the need to contribute to climate change mitigation end up trapped in loops of procrastination, both first and second level. If, however, we can understand the origin of these phenomena, then we will be able to devise counteracting solutions that will speed up individual mitigation efforts. I will therefore briefly propose three ethical/public strategies to break the procrastination loop: pre-commitment; increasing the costs of marginal postponements; reducing the disutility of action that is likely to be postponed. (shrink)

Commercial success of big data has led to speculation that big-data-like reasoning could partly replace theory-based approaches in science. Big data typically has been applied to ‘small problems’, which are well-structured cases characterized by repeated evaluation of predictions. Here, we show that in climate research, intermediate categories exist between classical domain science and big data, and that big-data elements have also been applied without the possibility of repeated evaluation. Big-data elements can be useful for climate research beyond (...) small problems if combined with more traditional approaches based on domain-specific knowledge. The biggest potential for big-data elements, we argue, lies in socioeconomic climate research. (shrink)

If climate change represents a severe threat to humankind, why then is response to it characterized by inaction at all levels? The authors argue there are two complementary explanations for the lack of motivation. First, our moral judgment system appears to be unable to identify climate change as an important moral problem and there are pervasive doubts about the agency of individuals. This explanation, however, is incomplete: Individual emitters can effectively be held morally responsible for their luxury emissions. (...) Second, doubts about individual agency have become overly emphasized and fail to convincingly exonerate individuals from responsibility. This book extends the second explanation for the motivational gap, namely that the arguments for the lack of individual agency do in fact correspond to mechanisms of moral disengagement. The use of these mechanisms enables consumption elites to maintain their consumptive lifestyles without having to accept moral responsibility for their luxury emissions. (shrink)

Climate change creates unprecedented problems of intergenerational justice. What do members of the current generation owe to future generations in virtue of the contribution they are making to climate change? Providing important new insights within the theoretical framework of political liberalism, Climate Change and Future Justice presents arguments in three key areas: Mitigation: the current generation ought to adopt a strong precautionary principle in formulating climate change policy in order to minimise the risks of serious (...) harm from climate change imposed on future generations Adaptation: the current generation ought to create a fund to which members of future generations may apply for compensation if the risks of climate change harm imposed on them by the current generation ripen into harms Triage: future generations ought to keep alive hope for a return to the framework of justice for the social cooperation of future people less burdened by climate change harms. This work presents agenda-setting applications of important principles of democratic equality to the most serious set of political challenges ever faced by human society. It should be required reading for political theorists and environmental philosophers. (shrink)

A collection of original and innovative essays that compare the justice issues raised by climate engineering to the justice issues raised by competing approaches to solving the climate problem.

Part 1. Introduction -- Introduction: Navigating the Perfect Moral Storm in Light of a Thirty-Five Year Debate -- Thirty-Five Year Climate Change Policy Debate -- Part 2. Priority Ethical Issues -- Ethical Problems with Cost Arguments -- Ethics and Scientific Uncertainty Arguments -- Atmospheric Targets -- Allocating National Emissions Targets -- Climate Change Damages and Adaptation Costs -- Obligations of Sub-national Governments, Organizations, Businesses, and Individuals -- Independent Responsibility to Act -- Part 3. The Crucial Role of (...) Ethics in Climate Change Policy Making -- Why Has Ethics Failed to Achieve Traction? -- Conclusion: Navigating the Perfect Moral Storm. (shrink)

Over the past two decades, virtue ethicists have begun to devote increasing attention to applied ethics. In particular, the application of virtue ethical frameworks to the environmental ethics debate has flourished. This chapter reviews recent contributions to the literature in this field and highlights some strengths and weaknesses of thinking about climate change through a virtue ethical lens. Section “Two Benefits of Virtue Ethical Approaches to Climate Change” explores two benefits of applying virtue ethics to climate change: (...) (a) we can better capture the phenomenology of our moral experience, and (b) we avoid the problem of inconsequentialism. Section “A Catalogue of Environmental Virtues” analyzes various practical proposals that have been put forward in the form of specific environmental virtues. Section “An Objection to Virtue-Oriented Approaches to Climate Change” reconstructs a fundamental objection to the idea of using a virtue ethical normative approach to tackling the urgent and imminent dangers of climate change. (shrink)

Several philosophers claim that the greenhouse gas emissions from actions like a Sunday drive are so miniscule that they will make no difference whatsoever with regard to anthropogenic global climate change (AGCC) and its expected harms. This paper argues that this claim of individual causal inefficacy is false. First, if AGCC is not reducible at least in part to ordinary actions, then the cause would have to be a metaphysically odd emergent entity. Second, a plausible (dis-)utility calculation reveals that (...) such actions have a not-insignificant amount of expected harm. One upshot is that the near-exclusive focus in the literature on AGCC as a collective action problem is too restricted. The paper also provides several moral psychological explanations of why it is so difficult to comprehend individual responsibility with regard to global phenomena, including a reappraisal of Thomas Nagel’s view of the absurd. (shrink)

A recent study showed that 78% of global climate science funding flows to European and North American institutions. Dr. Quan-Hoang Vuong gives his perspective on why this is a problem for the planet.