Abstract

Some philosophers are skeptical that individuals are morally blameworthy for their own greenhouse gas emissions. Although an individual’s emissions may contribute to climate change that is on the whole very harmful, perhaps that contribution is too trivial to render it morally impermissible. Against this view, there have been attempts to show that an individual’s lifetime emissions cause non-trivial harm, but in this paper I will consider what follows if it is true that an individual is not blameworthy for her emissions. Specifically, I ask how a non-blameworthy emitter would best regard his or her own emissions. I will argue that the appropriate attitude to adopt here is one of agent-regret. This allows us to capture the moral disvalue of one’s emissions without entailing blame for them. *Links to the paper and video overview below.*