In this article I propose to explore two issues. The first concerns what kinds of contributions academics can make to reducing poverty. I argue that academics can contribute in a number of ways, and I seek to spell out the diversity of the options available. I concentrate on four ways in which these contributions might differ.My second aim is to outline some norms that should inform any academic involvement in activities that seek to reduce poverty. I set out six proposals. (...) These concern: (1) the need to construct coalitions among people with different ethical frameworks; (2) the value of constructing nonideal theory on the basis of our best understanding of an ideal world; (3) the need for integrated analysis that connects antipoverty initiatives to other areas of moral concern; (4) the vital importance of interdisciplinarity; (5) the need for epistemic modesty and revisability; and (6) the need for accountability. (shrink)

Imagine that you are a farmer living in Kenya. Though you work hard to sell your produce to foreign markets you find yourself unable to do so because affluent countries subsidize their own farmers and erect barriers to trade, like tariffs, thereby undercutting you in the marketplace. As a consequence of their actions you languish in poverty despite your very best efforts. Or, imagine that you are a peasant whose livelihood depends on working in the fields in Indonesia and you (...) are forcibly displaced from your land by a biofuels company because corrupt government officials have stolen the land and sold it to the company. Or, suppose that you work on the coast of Bangladesh but find that increasingly you are unable to cope with salination resulting from sealevel rise – a product of anthropogenic climate change. These, I believe, are cases of global injustice. My question is: What are those who bear the brunt of global injustice entitled to do to secure their, and other people’s, entitlements? Often people focus on the duties of the affluent to respect and uphold the rights of the disadvantaged. This is understandable. But there is a striking omission. Rarely do people analyze, or even mention, what those who lack their entitlements are entitled to do to secure their own rights. This is my focus in this paper. More specifically, I examine what agents are entitled to do to change the underlying social, economic and political practices and structures in a more just direction. (shrink)

The prospect of dangerous climate change requires Humanity to limit the emission of greenhouse gases. This in turn raises the question of how the permission to emit greenhouse gases should be distributed and among whom. In this article the author criticises three principles of distributive justice that have often been advanced in this context. He also argues that the predominantly statist way in which the question is framed occludes some morally relevant considerations. The latter part of the article turns from (...) critique and advances a new way of addressing the problem. In particular, first, it proposes four key theses that should guide our normative analysis; and, second, it outlines how these four theses can be realised in practice. (shrink)

Hay muchas maneras de entender y practicar la innovación social. En este artículo queremos abordar una perspectiva concreta: la innovación social colectiva (ISC) que busca explícitamente la transformación de los regímenes socio-técnicos. A partir del análisis de dos experiencias que tienen lugar en Valencia (grupos de consumo y una cooperativa energética), caracterizamos el sentido de la transformación de las ISC y su direccionalidad. Para lo primero, se recurre al marco de las transiciones socio-técnicas, mientras que para lo segundo el análisis (...) se realiza desde el desarrollo humano. El análisis arroja diferencias sustanciales en la manera en la que las ISC entienden la producción, las tecnologías, las políticas y regulaciones, la estructura industrial, los canales de acceso y las fuentes de conocimiento, respecto de las prácticas socio-técnicas dominantes. Asimismo evidencia que sus propuestas se alinean claramente con los principios del desarrollo humano y permiten la expansión de capacidades y de agencia.There are many ways to understand and practice social innovation. In this article we touch upon a specific perspective: grassroots innovations (gi) which explicitly seek the transformation of socio-technical regimes. From the analysis of two experiences that took place in the city of Valencia (consumer groups and an energy cooperative), we characterize the sense of the transformation of the grassroots and its directionality. For the former, the framework of socio-technical transitions is used, while, for the latter, the analysis is being made through the human development approach. The analysis reveals substantial differences in the way in which gi understand production, technologies, policies and regulations, industrial structure, access channels and sources of knowledge, compared with dominant socio-technical practices. It also shows that their proposals are clearly aligned with the principles of human development and allow the expansion of capabilities and agency. (shrink)

A number of philosophers have resisted impersonal explanations of our obligation to mitigate climate change, and have developed accounts according to which these obligations are explained by human rights or harm-based considerations. In this paper I argue that several of these attempts to explain our mitigation obligations without appealing to impersonal factors fail, since they either cannot account for a plausibly robust obligation to mitigate, or have implausible implications in other cases. I conclude that despite the appeal of the motivations (...) for rejecting the appeal to impersonal factors, such factors must play a prominent role in explaining our mitigation obligations. (shrink)

Obstacles to achieving a global climate treaty include disagreements about questions of justice raised by the UNFCCC's principle that countries should respond to climate change by taking cooperative action "in accordance with their common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities and their social and economic conditions". Aiming to circumvent such disagreements, Climate Change Justice authors Eric Posner and David Weisbach argue against shaping treaty proposals according to requirements of either distributive or corrective justice. The USA's climate envoy, Todd Stern, takes (...) a similar position. In this article I explain the practical and theoretical drawbacks of Posner & Weisbach's welfarist perspective and propose an alternative. I show that their arguments fail to rule out John Rawls' non-utilitarian, political conception of international justice and human rights, the Law of Peoples. On this basis I develop a conception of climate justice that highlights implications of some of Rawls' principles and adds a principle for determining fair shares of climate -treaty-related benefits and burdens. I propose this conception as a moral framework for negotiating a treaty that would promote human welfare consistently with requirements of justice, and I argue that a treaty proposal satisfying these requirements could best satisfy Posner & Weisbach's own feasibility criteria. (shrink)

Political actions by Fridays for Future, Extinction Rebellion, and other climate activists often involve violations of legal regulations – such as compulsory education requirements or traffic laws – and have been criticized for this in the public sphere. In this essay, I defend the view that these violations of the law constitute a form of morally justified civil disobedience against climate policies. I first show that these actions satisfy the criteria of civil disobedience even on relatively strict conceptions of civil (...) disobedience. I then argue that they meet plausible justification conditions for civil disobedience because they are directed against serious and clear injustices, which legal means of influence have failed to remedy for decades. Finally, I reject the objection that civil disobedience against climate policy violates basic democratic principles because it claims authority to override democratically enacted agreements. When addressed to Fridays for Future activists, the objection misfires for the reason alone that these activists are largely minors that are excluded from democratic participation. Moreover, disobedience even by adult activists is justified by the existence of serious democratic deficits in our climate policies, especially since it can help to correct them. Such deficits include the lack of representation of the interests of people affected by climate change in the future and globally. (shrink)

Early discussions of ?climate justice? have been dominated by economists rather than political philosophers. More recently, analytical liberal political philosophers have joined the debate. However, the philosophical discussion of climate justice remains in its early stages. This paper considers one promising approach based on human rights, which has been advocated recently by several theorists, including Simon Caney, Henry Shue and Tim Hayward. A basic argument supporting the claim that anthropogenic climate change violates human rights is presented. Four objections to this (...) argument are examined: the ?future persons? objection; the ?risk? objection; the ?collective causation? objection; and the ?demandingness? objection. This critical examination leads to a more detailed specification and defence of the claim that anthropogenic climate change violates human rights. (shrink)

What responsibilities does each of us have to reduce or limit our greenhouse gas emissions? Advocates of individual emissions reductions acknowledge that there are limits to what we can reasonably demand from individuals. Climate ethics has not yet systematically explored those limits. Instead, it has become popular to suggest that such judgements should be ‘context-sensitive’ but this does not tell us what role different contextual factors should play in our moral thinking. The current approach to theory development in climate ethics (...) is not likely to be the most effective way to fill this gap. In existing work, climate ethicists use hypothetical cases to consider what can be reasonably demanded of individuals in particular situations. In contrast, ‘climate ethics with an ethnographic sensibility’ uses qualitative social science methods to collect original data in which real individuals describe their own situations. These real-life cases are more realistic, more detailed and cover a broader range of circumstances than hypothetical cases. Normative analysis of real-life cases can help us to develop a more systematic understanding of the role that different contextual factors should play in determining individual climate responsibilities. It can also help us to avoid the twin dangers of ‘idealization’ and ‘special pleading’. (shrink)

Although actions of individuals do contribute to climate change, the question whether or not they, too, are morally obligated to reduce the GHG emissions in their responsibility has not yet been addressed sufficiently. First, I discuss prominent objections to such a duty. I argue that whether individuals ought to reduce their emissions depends on whether or not they exceed their fair share of emission rights. In a next step I discuss several proposals for establishing fair shares and also take practical (...) considerations into account. I conclude that individuals should not always be obliged to reduce their emissions to what is their fair share for they may depend on carbon-intensive structures. Instead, they have a Kantian imperfect duty to reduce their emissions ‘as far as can reasonably be demanded of them’. In addition, they should press governments to introduce proper regulation. At the end, I further specify both duties. (shrink)

Most of us believe that it would be unjust to act with indifference about the plight of future generations. Zipper arguments in intergenerational justice aim to show that we have duties of justice regarding future generations, regardless of whether we have duties of justice to future generations. By doing so, such arguments circumvent the foundational challenges that come with theorising duties to remote future generations, which result from the non-existence, non-identity and non-contemporaneity of future generations. I argue that zipper arguments (...) face several significant challenges. The ought-implies-can challenge points out that because prior generations determine what later generations can transfer, they determine how much they ought to transfer. In addition, both intentional and non-intentional non-compliance can break the chain of duties towards future generations on which zipper arguments rely. Some versions are surprisingly resilient especially in real-world circumstances. This paper does not show that zipper arguments inevitably fail, but all ways forward come at significant theoretical costs. Unless the challenges posed here are met (or shown as irrelevant), theorists of justice cannot side-track the foundational challenges that come with doing intergenerational justice. (shrink)

Almost everyone believes that freedom from deprivation should have significant weight in specifying what justice between generations requires. Some theorists hold that it should always trump other distributive concerns. Other theorists hold that it should have some but not lexical priority. I argue instead that freedom from deprivation should have lexical priority in some cases, yet weighted priority in others. More specifically, I defend semi-strong sufficientarianism. This view posits a deprivation threshold at which people are free from deprivation, and an (...) affluence threshold at which people can live an affluent life, even though their lives may be even further improved beyond that point. I argue that freedom from deprivation in one generation lexically outweighs providing affluence in another generation; in all other cases, freedom from deprivation does not have lexical priority. (shrink)

The problems caused by anthropogenic climate change threaten the lives and well-being of millions, yet it seems that we, as individuals, are powerless to prevent or worsen these problems. In this essay we consider the difficulty of assigning moral responsibility in cases of collective action problems like the problem of anthropogentic climate change. We consider two promising solutions, the expected utility and rights based solution, and argue that both are incapable of explaining why individuals have moral obligations to address collective (...) action problems. We believe, however, that this result does not justify inaction, instead it reveals a failure of moral philosophy to adequately address collective action problems. More work must be done to address the moral responsibilities that arise in cases of collective action problems and we close by pointing in the direction of some promising work in this area. (shrink)

How could ectogestative technology disrupt gender roles, parenting practices, and concepts such as ‘birth’, ‘body’, or ‘parent’? In this chapter, we situate this emerging technology in the context of the history of reproductive technologies and analyse the potential social and conceptual disruptions to which it could contribute. An ectogestative device, better known as ‘artificial womb’, enables the extra-uterine gestation of a human being, or mammal more generally. It is currently developed with the main goal of improving the survival chances of (...) extremely premature neonates. We argue that the intended use of the technology in neonatal intensive care units, as an alternative to current incubators (’partial-ectogestation’), challenges concepts such as ‘birth’, ‘fetus’, and ‘neonate’, and has several ethico-legal implications. We moreover address a more futuristic scenario where the entire embryological and fetal development could happen within an artificial womb (’full-ectogestation’). Such a scenario reveals the disruption of gender roles, parenting practices, and concepts such as ‘mother’, ‘father’, and ‘parent’. Both full- and partial-ectogestation would have implications for engineering and design, law-making, ethics, and philosophical anthropology. (shrink)

Over the last decade, climate neutrality has emerged as an empowering, new concept—and it has given rise to concerns that it may be conducive to greenwashing and a disregard for justice and sustainability. Are these concerns justified? This paper argues that there is a qualified case for climate neutrality as part of an integrated approach to climate ethics. There are ethical and economic arguments for climate neutrality. An ethical conception of climate neutrality puts critical emphasis on reduction as well as (...) transparent measurement, substitution and stakeholder involvement so as to counter a prevailing focus on compensation. (shrink)

Our aim in this paper is to suggest that most current theories of global justice fail to adequately recognise the importance of global public goods. Broadly speaking, this failing can be attributed at least in part to the complexity of the global context, the individualistic focus of most theories of justice, and the localised nature of the theoretical foundations of most theories of global justice. We argue ? using examples (particularly that of protecting antibiotic efficacy) ? that any truly effective (...) theory of global justice must recognise the importance of global public goods. Global public goods confer significant benefits to individuals yet can only be effectively promoted and preserved through collective action and the restriction of individual choice; something which most theories of justice are structurally unequipped to sufficiently promote. (shrink)

This paper reflects on Lawrence Gostin’s Global Health Law. In so doing seeks to contribute to the debate about how global health justice is best conceived and achieved. Gostin’s vision of global health is one which is communal and in which health is directly connected to other justice concerns. Hence the need for health-in-all policies, and the importance of focusing on basic and communal health goods rather than high-tech and individual ones. This paper asks whether this broadly communal vision of (...) global health justice is best served by making the right to health central to the project. It explores a number of reasons why rights-talk might be problematic in the context of health justice; namely, structurally, rights are individual and state-centric and politically, they are oppositional and better suited to single-issue campaigns. The paper argues that stripping rights of their individualist assumptions is difficult, and perhaps impossible, and hence alternative approaches, such as those Gostin endorses based on global public goods and health security, might deliver much, perhaps most, global health goods, while avoiding the problems of rights-talk. (shrink)

Justice as mutual advantage appears to show inadequate concern for those that are insufficiently useful to others, implying that those that are most in need of the protections of justice fall outside the scope of justice as mutual advantage. Vanderschraaf offers a novel reply to this objection. He presents a game–the Indefinitely Repeated Provider-Recipient Game–which establishes that in some situations justice as mutual advantage can show concern for the vulnerable. This finding, however, does not match the problem raised by the (...) vulnerability objection, for the objection says that in all relevant situations, justice requires equal basic concern for all–vulnerable and non-vulnerable alike. (shrink)

This paper discusses two approaches to climate ethics for practicalreflection and decision-making in concrete local climate changegovernance. After a brief review of the main conceptual frameworksin climate ethics research, we show that none of these leadingapproaches is sufficiently context specific and pluralistic to provideguidance appropriate for concrete local climate governance. Asalternatives, we present principlism as a methodology of midlevelprinciples and environmental pragmatism as an ethicalapproach. We argue that the two methodologies of principlismand pragmatism offer a new pluralistic framework that allows (...) realworldconditions and contexts to be properly integrated into ethicalanalysis and decision-making in climate governance. (shrink)

1. Birth within a particular state is a major determinant of a person’s life course: their life expectancy, health possibilities, income, level of education, employment opportunities, and the safet...

This article lays out a capabilities and justice-based approach to the development of adaptation policy. While many theories of climate justice remain focused on ideal theories for global mitigation, the argument here is for a turn to just adaptation, using a capabilities framework to encompass vulnerability, social recognition, and public participation in policy responses. This article argues for a broadly defined capabilities approach to climate justice, combining a recognition of the vulnerability of basic needs with a process for public involvement. (...) Such an approach can be used to engage stakeholders with varied perceptions of what is at risk, and to develop priorities for adaptation policy. It addresses both individual and community-level vulnerabilities, and acknowledges that the conditions of justice depend on a functioning, even if shifting, environment. (shrink)

In this article I elaborate and defend a rights-based understanding of climate politics, that is, one that takes climate politics to concern the rights to access of natural resources as opposed to people’s economic incentives. The argument contains two parts. The first is negative: to demonstrate that the tragedy of the commons as a story of climate change is inadequate. The second is positive: to suggest a more satisfactory framework, which I call the tragedy of the few. In this view, (...) climate politics is neither primarily mitigation nor economic incentive politics, but one of distributing rights to access natural resources in a fair and environmentally-friendly way. By changing both the narrative and underlying methodological assumptions, my goal is to enable us to accommodate the rights to access natural resources as a key moral issue in climate politics. I begin by sketching the main features of the tragedy of the commons and demonstrate its inadequacy. I then provide an account of the rights-based view of climate change that consists of two arguments. First, I demonstrate the normative side of the argument by highlighting the importance of environmental rights, and second, I outline the empirical side of the argument by discussing recent studies on the properties of natural resources and on the corporate agents who extract the resources that emit greenhouse gasses. (shrink)

Theories of intergenerational justice are a very common and popular way to conceptualise the obligations currently living people may have to future generations. After briefly pointing out that these theories presuppose certain views about the existence, number and identity of future people, I argue that the presuppositions must themselves be ethically investigated, and that theories of intergenerational justice lack the theoretical resources to be able to do this. On that basis, I claim it is necessary to do the ‘ethics of (...) metaphysics’ in order to fully comprehend what, if anything, we may owe future generations. I defend these claims against some important objections. (shrink)

For the last 20 years, there has been lively debate about which principle of distributive and corrective justice should be used in dividing, among the various countries, the costs associated wit...

ABSTRACTThis paper attempts to explore the ways through which the discourse on global justice can be expanded beyond the language of redistribution by utilizing the insights from the theory of recognition as proposed by Honneth. It looks into the potential contributions of recognition theory in the normative analysis of global poverty and inequality. Taking off from the argument that the focus on global redistributive justice is misleading, the paper makes three claims: firstly, any global justice discourse must take as its (...) point of departure the experience of suffering of the poor; secondly, suffering poverty, the global poor experience shame or humiliation, thereby, degrading their sense of self-worth and their capacity for independent agency; thirdly, the goal of global justice is not simply the poor’s equal access to resources but self-realization. In the end, the paper argues that the recognition paradigm is a useful tool in analyzing and theorizing global justice. (shrink)

A range of developing countries and international advocacy organizations have argued that wealthy countries, as a result of their greater historical contribution to human-induced climate change, owe a ?climate debt? to poor countries. Critics of this argument have claimed that it is incoherent or morally objectionable. In this essay we clarify the concept of climate debt and assess its value for conceptualizing responsibilities associated with global climate change and for guiding international climate negotiations. We conclude that the idea of a (...) climate debt can be coherently formulated, and that while some understandings of the idea of climate debt could lead to morally objectionable conclusions, other accounts would not. However, we argue that climate debt nevertheless provides an unhelpful frame for advancing global justice through international climate negotiations ? the only existing means of resolving political conflict over the collective action problems posed by human-induced climate change ? due to its retrospective and potentially adversarial emphasis, and to problems of measurement. (shrink)

Geoengineering as a technological intervention to avert the dangerous climate change has been on the table at least since 2006. The global outreach of the technology exercised in a non-encapsulated system, the concerns with unprecedented levels and scales of impact and the overarching interdisciplinarity of the project make the geoengineering debate ethically quite relevant and complex. This paper explores the ethical desirability of geoengineering from an overall review of the existing literature on the ethics of geoengineering. It identifies the relevant (...) literature on the ethics of geoengineering by employing a standard methodology. Based on various framing of the major ethical arguments and their subsets, the results section presents the opportunities and challenges at stake in geoengineering from an ethical point of view. The discussion section takes a keen interest in identifying the evolving dynamics of the debate, the grey areas of the debate, with underdeveloped arguments being brought to the foreground and in highlighting the arguments that are likely to emerge in the future as key contenders. It observes the semantic diversity and ethical ambiguity, the academic lop-sidedness of the debate, missing contextual setting, need for interdisciplinary approaches, public engagement, and region-specific assessment of ethical issues. Recommendations are made to provide a useful platform for the second generation of geoengineering ethicists to help advance the debate to more decisive domains with the required clarity and caution. (shrink)

Climate change poses grave risks to food security, and mitigation and adaptation actions have so far been insufficient to lessen the risk of climate-induced violations of the right to food. Could safeguarding the right to food, then, justify some forms of geoengineering? This article examines geoengineering through the analytical lens of the right to food. We look at the components of food security and consider how the acceptability of geoengineering relates to the right to food via its impacts on these (...) components. Our examination shows that results vary greatly between different forms of geoengineering: while some forms of geoengineering fail to respect the right to food, certain other forms may even become obligatory to protect the right to food. It appears that there is no support for aerosol-based solar radiation management, whereas some carbon dioxide removal methods can help protect or promote the right to food. The ethical challenges related to carbon dioxide removal methods are, we note, similar to those that will also be faced in the course of climate change mitigation. (shrink)

In this paper I discuss ethical issues related to mitigation of climate change. In particular, I focus on mitigation of climate change to the extent this change is caused by livestock production. I support the view—on which many different ethical approaches converge—that the present generation has a moral obligation to mitigate climate change for the benefit of future generations and that developed countries should take the lead in the process. Moreover, I argue that since livestock production is an important contributing (...) factor to climate change, we should undertake mitigation measures also in this sector and not only in, for example, the transport and energy sectors. However, technological solutions do not seem sufficient in the livestock sector, leaving us with the option of reduced meat production and consumption. In order to reach significant results in mitigation of climate change, political steering seems necessary. With this in mind, I argue in favor of a tax on meat consumption. (shrink)

Even though anthropogenic climate change is largely caused by industrialized nations, its burden is distributed unevenly with poor developing countries suffering the most. A common response to livelihood insecurities and destruction is migration. Using Peter Singer's ‘historical principle’, this paper argues that a morally just evaluation requires taking causality between climate change and migration under consideration. The historical principle is employed to emphasize shortcomings in commonly made philosophical arguments to oppose immigration. The article concludes that none of these arguments is (...) able to override the moral responsibility of industrialized countries to compensate for harms that their actions have caused. (shrink)

Anthropogenic climate change is a global process affecting the lives and well-being of millions of people now and countless number of people in the future. For humans, the consequences may include significant threats to food security globally and regionally, increased risks of from food-borne and water-borne as well as vector-borne diseases, increased displacement of people due migrations, increased risks of violent conflicts, slowed economic growth and poverty eradication, and the creation of new poverty traps. Principles of justice are statements of (...) what persons are owed either by others or by institutions and policies. Climate change gives rise to many concern of justice. This article briefly summarizes some of the most important of these, including claims to have climate change mitigated, claims regarding the sharing of the costs of climate change mitigation, claims for investment into adaptation, and claims to be compensated. (shrink)

The risk posed by anthropogenic climate change is generally accepted, and the challenge we face to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to a tolerable limit cannot be underestimated. Reducing GHG emissions can be achieved either by producing less GHG to begin with or by emitting less GHG into the atmosphere. One carbon mitigation technology with large potential for capturing carbon dioxide at the point source of emissions is carbon capture and storage (CCS). However, the merits of CCS have been questioned, (...) both on practical and ethical grounds. While the practical concerns have already received substantial attention, the ethical concerns still demand further consideration. This article aims to respond to this deficit by reviewing the critical ethical challenges raised by CCS as a possible tool in a climate mitigation strategy and argues that the urgency stemming from climate change underpins many of the concerns raised by CCS. (shrink)

Political philosophers commonly tackle the issue of climate change by focusing on fundamental interests as a basis for human rights. This approach struggles, however, in cases where one set of fundamental interests requires one course of action, and another set of fundamental interests requires another course of action. This article advances an alternative response to climate change based on an account of global justice that gives weight to utilitarian, prioritarian, and luck egalitarian considerations. A practical application of this pluralistic account (...) is provided, which shows that it handles trade-offs between individuals’ interests in an appealing way, and that it supports an aggressive policy of climate change mitigation. This account provides a more plausible justification for rights against the harms of climate change. (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)

The principle of sustainability is generally taken as a good, but what does sustainability really mean? The notion of sustainability has been at the center of global governance debates for more than a decade and many countries across the world include sustainability in their constitutions. This paper argues that in order to understand the concept of sustainability in a constitutional context, we need to turn to the notion of dignity. The paper explores the concepts of sustainability and dignity and their (...) meanings in the framework of climate justice and related questions and by discussing them in the context of Kantian and republican theory. In addition, the paper looks at intriguing court cases on the importance of nation states meeting their climate law duties. The paper concludes by exploring new uses of the sustainability concept. EU constitutional law will serve as a laboratory in testing these questions. (shrink)

A notable feature of recent philosophical work on climate ethics is that it makes practically no reference to ‘traditional’ environmental philosophy. There is some irony in this, since environmental ethics arose as part of a broader movement within philosophy, starting in the 1960s, aimed at developing different fields of applied philosophy, in order to show how everyday practice could be enriched through philosophical reflection and analysis. The major goal of this paper is to explain why this branch of practical ethics (...) has, for the most part, failed the test of practicability when it comes to formulating a response to global climate change. The central problem is that debates in environmental philosophy became absorbed by a set of metaphysical questions about the nature of value. The result has been a field dominated by views that provide unsuitable foundations for the development of public policy. (shrink)

Recent debates over climate change policy have made it clear that the choice of a social discount rate has enormous consequences for the amount of mitigation that will be recommended. The social discount rate determines how future costs are to be compared to present costs. Philosophers, however, have been almost unanimous in endorsing the view that the only acceptable social rate of time preference is zero, a view that, taken literally, has either absurd or extremely radical implications. The first goal (...) of this paper is to show that the standard arguments against temporal preference are much less persuasive than they are usually taken to be. The second goal is to explore two different avenues of argument that could be adopted, in order to show that temporal discounting of welfare may be permissible. The first involves simply an application of the method of reflective equilibrium, while the second involves consideration of the way that our abstract moral commitments are institutionalized. (shrink)

ABSTRACT In Debating Climate Ethics, David Weisbach and I offer contrasting views of the importance of ethics and justice for climate policy. I argue that ethics is central. Weisbach advocates for climate policy based purely on narrow forms of self-interest. For this symposium, I summarize the major themes, and extend my basic argument. I claim that ethics gets the problem right, whereas dismissing ethics risks getting the problem dangerously wrong, and perpetuating profound injustices. One consequence is that we should reject (...) the alleged “feasibility constraint” of short-term, economic self-interest. (shrink)

One topic of growing interest in the debate on intergenerational justice is the duty to respect the freedom of future generations. One consideration in favor of such a duty is that the decisions of present generations will affect the range of decisions that will be available to future people. As a consequence, future generations’ freedom to direct their lives may be importantly restricted such that present generations can be seen as taking future people’s lives into their hands and disempowering them. (...) This article defends the idea that present generations have an obligation to sustain a certain threshold of freedom for members of present and future generations alike. It argues that we should regard sustainability policies as a way to redistribute freedom across members of different generations. It starts by explaining the centrality of social freedom to the way we conceive of moral persons, then explains how freedom can be understood as an object of redistribution. It then argues that by imposing some risks—such as that of resource depletion or destruction of the ecosystem—on future generations, present generations push future generations’ freedom below an acceptable threshold. The paper concludes with examples of how this focus on freedom can offer guidance in selecting and justifying sustainability policies—for example, measures for conserving biodiverse environments—even when it is not clear how they will directly contribute to the well-being of future persons. (shrink)

This article argues that governments in countries that currently permit intensive animal agriculture - especially but not exclusively high-income countries - are, in principle, morally justified in taking steps to restrict or even eliminate intensive animal agriculture to protect public health from the risk of zoonotic pandemics. Unlike many extant arguments for restricting, curtailing, or even eliminating intensive animal agriculture which focus on environmental harms, animal welfare, or the link between animal source food (ASF) consumption and noncommunicable disease, the argument (...) in this article appeals to the value of protecting populations from future global health emergencies and their broad social, economic, and health impacts, taking the SARS-CoV-2 virus as a particularly salient example. The article begins by identifying how intensive animal agriculture contributes to the outbreak (and risk of future outbreaks) of zoonotic diseases. Next, we explore three specific policy options: 1. Incentivizing plant-based and cell-based ASF alternatives through government subsidies; 2. Disincentivizing intensive ASF production through the adoption of a “zoonotic tax”; and 3. Eliminating intensive ASF production through a total ban. We argue that all three of these measures are permissible, although we remain agnostic as to whether these measures are obligatory. We argue for this conclusion on the grounds that each measure is justified by the same sorts of considerations that justify other widely accepted public health interventions, and each is compatible with a variety of theories of justice. We then address potential objections. Finally, we discuss how our novel argument relates to extant ethical arguments in favor or curtailing ASF production and consumption. (shrink)

The urgent need to address climate change poses a range of complex moral and practical concerns, not least because rising to the challenge will require cooperation among countries that differ greatly in their wealth, the extent of their contributions to the problem, and their vulnerability to environmental and economic shocks. This thesis by publication in the field of climate ethics aims to characterise a range of national responsibilities associated with acting on climate change (Part I), and to identify proposals for (...) fulfilling those responsibilities through fair and feasible institutional arrangements (Part II). I aim not only to address substantive gaps in scholarly understanding of those responsibilities, but also to strengthen the ability of climate ethics to engage meaningfully with climate policy. Chapter 2 addresses the question of whether wealthy countries owe a “climate debt” to poor countries. It finds that even if climate debt (suitably interpreted) may provide a coherent and morally plausible concept, its political value as a discursive frame that can provide a basis for cooperation is limited. Chapter 3 investigates the role that equity may play in negotiations on a long-term climate change agreement. It argues that developed and developing countries may reach a “principled bargain” if both converge on a way of differentiating their responsibilities that places less emphasis on a rigid dichotomy between the two groups and more emphasis on objective criteria relating to their contribution to the problem and capacity to address it. Chapter 4 explores a question largely overlooked in climate ethics, namely whether wealthy countries owe compensation to those who are adversely affected by the climate policies which they enact. I find that enacting countries have responsibilities to compensate both domestic and foreign citizens who would suffer disproportionate losses from the effects of policies. Chapter 5 assesses whether wealthy countries may legitimately adopt unilateral (or “fragmented”) rather than multilaterally coordinated approaches to raising climate finance for developing countries. It finds that coordinated target-setting, effort sharing and oversight arrangements are essential, but that a mix of unilateral and coordinated approaches to raising funds will be necessary for securing legitimacy. In Chapter 6, through addressing the broader question of what should count as official aid, I consider whether wealthy countries may draw on aid budgets to support developing countries’ efforts to address climate change. I find that the current definition of official aid should be retained but supplemented by specified exclusions from eligibility in order to preserve the aid regime’s integrity. Nevertheless, some climate finance may justifiably be counted as aid provided that concerns relating to the diversion of aid funding are addressed. In addressing these research questions, the thesis seeks not only to make original theoretical contributions to climate ethics but also to strengthen broader scholarly understanding of the ways in which ethics and international public policy may inform one another, particularly by highlighting the role of framing considerations (Chapter 2), feasibility considerations (Chapter 3), and the ways in which principles of fairness and legitimacy map onto institutional functions (Chapters 4, 5 and 6). (shrink)

The general aim of this licentiate thesis is to analyze the framework in which long-term goals are set and subsequently achieved. It is often claimed that goals should be realistic, meaning that they should be adjusted to known abilities. This thesis will argue that this might be very difficult in areas related to sustainable development and climate change adaptation, and that goals that are, to an acceptable degree, unrealistic, can have important functions. Essay I discusses long-term goal setting. When there (...) is a great temporal discrepancy between the point in time of setting and achieving a goal, many uncertainties have to be considered. The surrounding world and the agent’s abilities and values might change. This is an ontological uncertainty. We often form beliefs regarding how abilities and values might change, but this belief is always uncertain. This is an epistemological uncertainty. A form of goal called cautiously utopian goals is proposed, which incorporate such uncertainties, but enables goal setting with long time-frames. Essay II discusses the issue of goals intended to reduce great risks. We cannot expect an agent to do something that lies beyond this agent’s abilities, as exemplified in the principle ‘ought implies can’. Adjusting goals to what we currently, with a high degree of certainty know could be done is difficult. If not including an estimation of how abilities can change, important performance-enhancing functions of goals might be lost. It is argued that very ambitious goals should be set. This is partly due to the great magnitude and likelihood of unwanted consequences and partly due to the difficulty of delineating what lies in agents’ capacity to manage complex risks. Essay III discusses a decision-facilitating tool Sustainability Analysis to be used by Swedish municipal planners. One sub-part of the tool, Goal Conflict Analysis, can be used to identify how the consequences of a planned adaptation measure will affect other long-term municipal goals. Identified goal conflicts can then be used in order to determine whether the conflicts are acceptable, or whether a different adaptation measure should be worked out. The paper discusses a workshop in a Swedish municipality in which the tool has been tested. (shrink)

Climate change threatens to infringe the human rights of many. Taking an optimistic stance, climate engineering might reduce the extent to which such rights are infringed, but it might also bring about other rights infringements. This Forum, leading off the special issue on climate engineering governance, engages three scholars in a discussion of three core issues at the intersection of human rights and climate engineering. The Forum is divided into three sections, each authored by a different scholar and discussing a (...) distinct aspect of this relationship. First, Toby Svoboda gives an overarching view of three competing approaches to human rights, grounded in philosophy; then, Holly Jean Buck looks at lessons from how the climate migration conversation brings a human rights approach to a climate policy issue; and finally, Pablo Suarez illustrates how a humanitarian approach to climate engineering works with a human rights framework. The conclusion of the Forum draws together points of overlap across the three sections and suggests a path forward for policy and research on this topic. Together, the sections show that climate engineering, should it materialize, will pose novel human rights challenges, and may well force reconsideration of how human rights are applied as a guide to action. (shrink)

In Ethics for a Broken World (2011),Tim Mulgan invites us to partake in a series of lectures delivered in a fictional future on some of the political philosophies that dominate our current tradition. The future he asks us to imagine is one in which the world is ‘broken’. In the broken world, climate change has lead to intermittent and unpredictable periods of radical scarcity in which there are insufficient resources to guarantee the survival of all existing persons (8-12). We are (...) also to imagine, rather plausibly in light of recent scientific discoveries, that we bear causal responsibility for this situation (9). Mulgan suggests that the device of the broken world ‘serves to highlight the contingency of our moral and political ideals, asking us to see our society and its ideals from the outside’ (ix). In this paper, I employ the device of the broken world to reflect on one of the most prominent ideals in contemporary affluent societies, namely that of human rights. In particular, I am interested in what sense the device of the broken world shows our ideal of human rights to be contingent, and what implications this might have for how we should understand and evaluate this ideal. (shrink)

Suppose the present generation leaves future ones with a world depleted of all the natural resources required for many valuable human pursuits. Has the present generation acted unjustly? According to contemporary theories of liberal egalitarian intragenerational and intergenerational justice, the answer, it appears, is no. The explanation for this verdict lies in the liberal commitment to remaining neutral between different ways of life: many value-laden environ- mental sites and species are not an all-purpose means to any reasonable human end and (...) so their existence is not directly relevant in an assessment of whether justice obtains. Against this view, I argue that a commitment to neutrality and its underlying justification – the idea that individuals should be equipped to live lives of their own design – in fact supports the opposite conclusion. If justice requires that citizens can pursue whatever way of life they do or might value, then it will also demand the continued existence of the natural resources necessary for those pursuits. (shrink)