In order to decide whether a comprehensive treaty covering all greenhouse gases is the best next step after UNCED, one needs to distinguish among the four questions about the international justice of such international arrangements: (1) What is a fair allocation of the costs of preventing the global warming that is still avoidable?; (2) What is a fair allocation of the costs of coping with the social consequences of the global warming that will not in fact be avoided?; (3) What (...) background allocation of wealth would allow international bargaining (about issues like 1 and 2) to be a fair process?; and (4) What is a fair allocation of emissions of greenhouse gases (over the long-term and during the transition to the long-term allocation)? In answering each question we must specify from whom any transfers should come and to whom any transfers should go. As the grounds for the answers we usually face a choice between fault-based principles and no-fault principles. (shrink)

With respect to climate change, what is wanted is an account that morally condemns the production of ‘luxury’ greenhouse gas emissions (e.g., joyriding in an SUV), but not ‘subsistence’ emissions (e.g., cooking meals). Now, our individual greenhouse gas emissions either cause harm, or they do not—and those who condemn the production of luxury emissions generally stake their position on the grounds that they do cause harm. Meanwhile, those seeking to defend the moral permissibility of luxury (...) emissions generally do so by arguing that our individual emissions do not cause harm. Here, I argue that, if our individual emissions do cause harm, then this entails too much. For, it entails not only that our luxury emissions are morally impermissible, but that our subsistence emissions are too. This is an undesirable result. Therefore, I propose that we embrace our other option. Namely, I propose that we accept that our individual emissions do not cause harm; or at least, that they make no perceptible difference with respect to the harms associated with climate change. The result of this admission is not as bad as you might think. For, I argue, even if we are individually causally impotent with respect to the harms of climate change, there remains a plausible route toward the moral condemnation of our individual luxury emissions—contrary to what others have argued. What is more, only by accepting our individual causal impotence can we successfully ground the permissibility of our individual subsistence emissions. (shrink)

Do private individuals have a moral obligation to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions? In his rich and timely paper, Christian Baatz answers this question in the affirmative. People who emit over...

In this essay, I first consider what the implications of global climate change will be regarding issues of equity. Secondly, I consider two types of proposals which focus on sustainable emissions and subsistence rights respectively. Thirdly, I consider where these proposal types conflict. Lastly, I argue under plausible assumptions, these two proposals actually imply similar policies regarding global climate change.

Doit-on attendre des membres actuels d'une communauté qu'ils compensent les victimes des émissions de gaz à effet de serre causées par leurs ancêtres? Nous défendons l'idée que les générations précédentes de pollueurs peuvent très bien ne pas être mo-ralement responsables des dommages qu'elles ont causés. Et nous acceptons aussi la position selon laquelle les descendants d'une génération de pollueurs ne sauraient être tenus pour res-ponsables des dommages engendrés par leurs ancêtres. Il n'en subsiste pas moins que même si l'on effectue (...) ces deux concessions, il reste possible de défendre l'idée d'obligation des des-cendants d'une génération de pollueurs à compenser les victimes actuelles des actions de leurs ancêtres, et ce sur base d'une notion morale de free-riding transgénérationnel. Une définition est proposée et des objections au recours à une telle notion sont rejetées. Suit une comparaison de deux logiques possibles sous-tendant l'utilisation d'un concept de free-riding dans le cadre d'une théorie de la justice, ainsi qu'un examen de leurs implications pratiques. (shrink)

Arguing that issues of both emissions and subsistence should be comprehended within a single framework of justice, the proposal here is that this broader framework be developed by reference to the idea of "ecological space.".

This chapter reconsiders the global emissions budget using the conception of natural resource justice defended previously. Noting that this is to adopt a method of partial integrationism, it is shown that the two principles can at least be applied not only to the problem of sharing the emissions budget, but also the prior matter of setting it. Applying the principle of collective self-determination to these problems is found to be more difficult, because it grounds many conflicting claims. This (...) difficulty is addressed by formulating guidelines for adjudicating between self-determination claims. It is concluded that the emissions budget should be set within the parameters of enabling basic needs satisfaction for current and future individuals and protecting collectives from climate impacts that threaten the legitimate exercise of self-determination through territorial displacement. If this allows for more than subsistence emissions, fair international negotiations will be required to distribute any such secondary emissions entitlements. (shrink)

The extent of our duties to mitigate climate change is commonly conceptualized in terms of temperature goals like the 1.5°C and the 2°C target and corresponding emissions budgets. While I do acknowledge the political advantages of any framework that is relatively easy to understand, I argue that this particular framework does not capture the true extent of our mitigation duties. Instead I argue for a more differentiated approach that is based on the well-known distinction between subsistence and luxury (...) emissions. At the heart of this approach lies the argument that we have no budget of substantial, net-positive luxury emissions left. In a world in which dangerous climate change has begun, we must expect all further substantial, net-positive luxury emissions to cause harm. Since they lack the kind of justification needed for them to be nevertheless permissible, I conclude that we must stop emitting them with immediate effect. I also briefly discuss the difficult case of subsistence emissions and offer some first thoughts on the morality of a third category of emissions, what I call ‘transition emissions’. (shrink)

This article revisits a principle of distributive justice accepted by most, if not all, scholars of climate justice. The principle at stake, the limit, protects those who are very badly off from bearing the costs of climate change mitigation. The persistent noncompliance of developed states with their obligations toward burden sharing, however, means that this principle is increasingly in tension with successful climate change mitigation, given it seems to require that those in poverty have continued access to emissions in (...) cases where alternative forms of energy are not provided. In the first half of the paper I outline this tension and show how the dominant expression of the limit in the literature, advanced by Henry Shue, must be abandoned. I argue that any attempt to articulate the limit in current circumstance, where the carbon budget is very scarce, must consider the climate harm associated with continued subsistence emissions. The second half of the article defends a principle, the exemption, which is best able to maintain the strong commitment to shielding those below the minimal threshold from the costs of mitigation, even in light of the potential harm that will result if they require emissions to fuel their energy needs. (shrink)

Much has been written about climate change from an ethical view in general, but less has been written about it from a libertarian point of view in particular. In this paper, I apply the libertarian moral theory to the problem of climate change. I focus on libertarianism’s implications for our individual emissions. I argue that even if our individual emissions cause no harm to others, these emissions cross other people’s boundaries, although the boundary-crossings that are due to (...) our ‘subsistence emissions’ are implicitly consented to by others, there is no such consent to our ‘non-subsistence emissions’, and there is no independent justification for these emissions. Although offsetting would provide such a justification, most emitters do not offset their non-subsistence emissions. Therefore, these emissions violate people’s rights, which means that they are impermissible according to libertarianism’s non-aggression principle. (shrink)

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)

It is often argued that concerns about the equity of a global climate agreement might appropriately be addressed in the language of human rights. The human rights approach has been promoted by a number of international political actors, including the UN Human Rights Council. As such, human rights are instrumentally applied as a solution to what could be called the “justice problem” in climate negotiations. In order to assess the degree to which human rights could be a useful approach to (...) the justice problem with regard to to climate change, four major issues need to be examined. First, there is the distinction between human rights as protection against climate change versus the right to emit greenhouse gases. Both understandings are found in the debate on climate justice, but they are often not made explicit. Second, the “human rights as protection” approach with a focus on right holders, both presently and in the future, needs to be elucidated, as well as the human rights principles that are at stake, and the duties and duty holders involved. Third, the human right to emit greenhouse gases needs to be clarified in the context of subsistence rights and equal per capita emission rights. Finally, there is the question of whether the cosmopolitan conception of human rights is at odds with the goal of ensuring that individuals assume responsibility for their own carbon-dependent lifestyle. (shrink)

The Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, has already caused large amounts of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and will continue to do so for manyyears after hostilities have ceased mainly because of the emissions linked to the rebuilding of destroyed or damaged housing, public buildings, infrastructure, factories, and the like. My aim in this paper is to discuss how in a time of climate emergency such emissions of war should impact the political morality of states (...) initiating, continuing, and ending war (through a just and enduring peace) as understood by just war theory (JWT). My point of departure is a study by Lennard de Klerk and six co-authors detailing the emissions of the first year of the Russo-Ukrainian war. (shrink)

We present a cross-cultural analysis showing that the presence of an active or moral High God in societies varies generally along a continuum from lesser to greater technological complexity and subsistence productivity. Foragers are least likely to have High Gods. Horticulturalists and agriculturalists are more likely. Pastoralists are most likely, though they are less easily positioned along the productivity continuum. We suggest that belief in moral High Gods was fostered by emerging leaders in societies dependent on resources that were (...) difficult to manage and defend without group cooperation. These leaders used the concept of a supernatural moral enforcer to manipulate others into cooperating, which resulted in greater productivity. Reproductive success would accrue most to such leaders, but the average reproductive success of all individuals in the society would also increase with greater productivity. Supernatural enforcement of moral codes maintained social cohesion and allowed for further population growth, giving one society an advantage in competition with others. (shrink)

This paper examines what would be a fair distribution of the right to emit greenhouse gases. It distinguishes between views that treat the distribution of this right on its own (Isolationist Views) and those that treat it in conjunction with the distribution of other goods (Integrationist Views). The most widely held view treats adopts an Isolationist approach and holds that emission rights should be distributed equally. This paper provides a critique of this 'equal per capita' view, and the isolationist assumptions (...) on which it depends. It examines four arguments for this view, finding each wanting. It then presents two general challenges to the 'equal per capita' view, and, indeed, any views which treat the distribution of greenhouse gas emissions in isolation from other goods. It concludes by outlining and defending an alternative (Integrationist) approach to the distribution of rights to emit greenhouse gases. (shrink)

Should the current members of a community compensate the victims of their ancestor’s emissions of greenhouse gases? I argue that the previous generation of polluters may not have been morally responsible for the harms they caused.I also accept the view that the polluters’ descendants cannot be morally responsible for their ancestor’s harmful emissions. However, I show that, while granting this, a suitably defined notion of moral free-riding may still account for the moral obligation of the polluters’ descendants to (...) compensate the current victims of their ancestors’ actions. A concept of transgenerational free-riding is defined. Objections to the idea of using free-riding as part of a theory of justice are rejected. Two different views of moral free-riding are contrasted, with consequences for the amount of compensation to be exigible from the polluters’ descendants. Some final considerations are devoted to the possible relevance of this free-riding-based view for other issues of historical injustice. (shrink)

Emissions grandfathering holds that a history of emissions strengthens an agent’s claim for future emission entitlements. Though grandfathering appears to have been influential in actual emission control frameworks, it is rarely taken seriously by philosophers. This article presents an argument for thinking this an oversight. The core of the argument is that members of countries with higher historical emissions are typically burdened with higher costs when transitioning to a given lower level of emissions. According to several (...) appealing views in political philosophy (utilitarianism, egalitarianism, prioritarianism, and sufficientarianism) they are therefore entitled to greater resources, including emission entitlements, than those in similar positions but with lower emissions. This grandfathering may play an especially important role in allocating emission entitlements among rich countries. (shrink)

I address the usefulness of thinking about a human right to subsistence within conceptions of human rights grounded in ordinary moral reasoning. I argue that that natural rights should be understood as rights in rem, with their dynamism constrained by the requirements of justification and their scope constrained by the distinction between perfect and imperfect duty. I then suggest that many of the most pressing demands which the moral significance of subsistence needs create are plausibly imperfect duties, and (...) so cannot correlate to a natural right to subsistence. This restricts the helpfulness of a human right to subsistence in our reasoning about what we owe to others. (shrink)

How should the world's remaining carbon budget be divided among countries? We assess the role of a fault‐based principle in answering this question. Discussion of the role of historical emissions in dividing the global carbon budget has tended to focus on emissions before 1990. We think that this is in part because 1990 seems so recent, and thus post‐1990 emissions seem to constitute a lesser portion of historical emissions. This point of view was undoubtedly warranted in (...) the early 1990s, when discussion of fault‐based principles in this context began. While this view still has some intuitive force, we find that it and the associated focus on pre‐1990 emissions are now out of date. Emissions since 1990 in fact constitute a large and rapidly increasing proportion of emissions since 1750 – approximately half of the carbon emissions due to fossil fuel use and cement production, at the time of writing. We show that a restricted fault‐based principle, according to which emissions should be divided among countries on the basis of their emissions since 1990, is both viable and powerful. We consider standard objections to a fault‐based principle in this context, how such a principle might more concretely be applied, and its likely implications. (shrink)

Field research on customaryland tenure conducted in two villages inEastern Senegal suggests that theexisting tenure regime places a higher value onaccess than on security, long considered acornerstone of investment in increasedagricultural productivity. The underlyingreasons point to tenure's cultural dimensions.Interview accounts and observation are used todevelop the cultural link between tenure andsubsistence, and to describe the underlyingsocial relations and processes through which a``subsistence ethic'' is expressed. Such an``embedded'' approach to land tenure analysisimplies that understanding tenure dynamics andsocial change is a (...) complex challenge, onebenefiting from a sociological perspective thatgoes beyond behavior models that treat tenureas a primarily economic phenomenon. Land useand customary tenure are dynamic phenomena, buttheir responsiveness to economic forces istempered by the importance of householdinterdependence and the harsh materialrealities of living on the environmentalmargins. Market-based interventions that woulduse security as a means to effect land usechange may generate more social or spatialproblems than they solve. (shrink)

In the rapidly expanding literature on the ethics of climate engineering, a lot has been made of the fact that stratospheric aerosol injection would for the first time create a world whose climate had been intentionally shaped by deliberate human decisions. Intention has always mattered in ethics. Due to the importance of intention in assigning culpability for harms, one might expect that the moral responsibility for any harms created during an attempt to reconstruct the global climate using stratospheric aerosols would (...) be considerable. This article investigates such an expectation by making a comparison between the culpability for any unintended harms resulting from stratospheric aerosol injection and culpability for the unintended harms already taking place due to carbon emissions. To make this comparison, both types of unintended harms are viewed through the lens of the doctrine of double effect. The conclusion reached goes against what many might expect. The article closes by suggesting that a good way to read this surprising conclusion is that it points toward the continuing moral importance of prioritizing emission reductions. (shrink)

The central question I address is whether the inclusion of a right to subsistence among human rights can be justified. The human right to subsistence is conventionally interpreted as a fundamental right to a basic living standard characterized as having access to the material means for subsistence. It is widely thought to entail duties of protection against deprivation and duties of assistance in acquiring access to the material means for subsistence. The inclusion of a right to (...) subsistence among human rights interpreted in this way has been met with considerable resistance, particularly on the part of those who argue that fundamental rights cannot entail positive duties. My purpose in this dissertation is to consider whether a plausible interpretation of the human right to subsistence can succeed in overcoming the most forceful and persistent objections to it. My main thesis is that a minimal interpretation of the human right to subsistence according to which it is a right not to be deprived of access to the means for subsistence provides the strongest interpretation of this right. Although the idea that the human right to subsistence correlates with negative duties is not new, discussion of these duties has been overshadowed in the literature by debate over the positive duties conventionally thought to be entailed by it. I show that the human right to subsistence interpreted as a right not to be deprived of access to the means for subsistence makes an important contribution to reasoning about the normative implications of global poverty. (shrink)

I argue that, contrary to what Tom Regan suggests, his rights view implies that subsistence hunting is wrong, that is, killing animals for food is wrong even when they are the only available food source, since doing so violates animal rights. We can see that subsistence hunting is wrong on the rights view by seeing why animal experimentation, specifically xenotransplanation, is wrong on the rights view: if it’s wrong to kill an animal to take organs to save a (...) human life, it’s wrong to kill an animal to eat that animal to save a human life or improve human health. I discuss these arguments’ implications for animal rights-based vegan advocacy, insofar as some people claim that they don’t feel their best on vegan diets and so their eating meat is morally justified. I argue that such an attempt to justify consuming animal products fails on Regan’s rights view, but discuss some attempts to morally excuse such violations of animals’ rights. These attempts are inspired by Regan’s attempts at potentially excusing animal rights advocates’ using medications developed using animals. (shrink)

Attention has been given to cross-cultural differences in adolescent growth, but far less is known about developmental variability during juvenility (ages 3–10). Previous research among the Pumé, a group of South American foragers, found that girls achieve a greater proportion of their adult stature during juvenility compared with normative growth expectations. To explain rapid juvenile growth, in this paper we consider girls’ activity levels and energy expended in subsistence effort. Results show that Pumé girls spend far less time in (...) subsistence tasks in proportion to their body size compared with adults, and they have lower physical activity levels compared with many juveniles cross-culturally. Low activity levels help to explain where the extra energy comes from to support rapid growth in a challenging environment. We suggest that activity levels are important to account for the variation of resource and labor transfers in mediating energy availability. (shrink)

*Editorial note: This story is the closing chapter of The Kingfisher Story Collection (3rd Ed.) [1]. It was translated by Minh-Hoang Nguyen from the original Vietnamese version.

The United States health care industry is the second largest in the world, expending an estimated 479 million metric tons (MMT) of carbon dioxide per year, nearly 8 percent of the country's total emissions. The importance of carbon reduction in health care is slowly being accepted. However, efforts to “green” health care are incomplete since they generally focus on buildings and structures. Yet hospital care and clinical service sectors contribute the most carbon dioxide within the U.S. health care industry, (...) with structures/equipment and pharmaceuticals ranking as the third and fourth highest emitters in the industry. Given the magnitude of health care carbon emissions—and the paucity of attention to the carbon of hospital care and clinical services—this essay identifies overuse of health care as a health threat with serious ethical implications, offers a data‐driven action plan for carbon reduction in health care, and provides practical suggestions for more sustainable health care delivery in the United States. (shrink)

“Since the actions I perform as an individual only have an inconsequential effect on the threat of climate change,” a common argument goes, “it cannot be morally wrong for me to take my car to work everyday or refuse to recycle.” This argument has received a lot of scorn from philosophers over the years, but has actually been defended in some recent articles. A more systematic treatment of a central set of related issues shows how maneuvering around these issues is (...) no easy philosophical task. In the end, it appears, the argument from inconsequentialism indeed is correct in typical cases, but there are also important qualificatory considerations. (shrink)

:Most of the liberal moral and political debate concerning global poverty has focused on the duties of justice or assistance that the well-off have toward the needy. In this essay, I show how rights-based theories in particular have unanimously understood subsistence rights just as claims, where all it means to have a claim—following Hohfeld—is that others have a duty toward us. This narrow interpretation of subsistence rights has led to a glaring omission; namely, there has been no careful (...) examination of what the rights-holders themselves may do to realize the object of their rights. Furthermore, in the few cases where this question gets posed, rights are again understood just as claims, but this time of an Austinian kind: rights-holders are limited to the performance of speech-acts like demanding, pleading, and entreating to make noncompliers fulfill their duties. I suggest that this approach betrays the original spirit of subsistence rights as individual moral powers delineating a sovereign sphere of action. More seriously, it is unjust to the rights-holders themselves, to the extent that many of the actions they undertake to realize the objects of their rights fall off the radar of moral analysis. (shrink)

This chapter turns to the question of historical responsibility for unavoided climate impacts. It introduces the climate debt claim, according to which certain wealthy or industrialized states owe a debt of compensation to some of those suffering from the unavoided impacts of climate change; where the notion of a debt indicates that the obligation in question falls within the domain of rectificatory justice. The Historical Emissions Debt view, according to which climate debts arise when parties emit more than their (...) fair share of greenhouse gases, is rejected on the basis that there is no fair shares principle for historical use of the climate sink considered in isolation. Two interpretations of the beneficiary pays principle are found to face similar problems. Since none of these accounts appear defensible, it is concluded that those seeking to substantiate a climate debt claim would do better to attempt this by other means. (shrink)

Although emissions trading is embraced as a means to curb carbon emissions and to incentivize the use of renewable energy, it is also heavily contested on ethical grounds. We will assess the main fundamental objections and possible counterarguments. Although we sympathize with some of these arguments, we argue that they are unpersuasive when an emissions trading system is well designed: emissions should be accounted ‘upstream,’ on the production rather than the consumer level. Moreover, allowances should be (...) auctioned, and regulatory measures could instigate the right kind of behavior towards the environment. (shrink)

Le « féminisme de la subsistance », à l’intersection du féminisme, de l’écologie et de l’anticapitalisme, a été remis en lumière par des théoricien·nes et activistes du Nord et du Sud dans les années 2010. L’étude des sociétés paysannes montre que l’accomplissement par les femmes des tâches vitales pour le groupe a été sous-estimé et leur confère puissance, sacralité et autonomie, en particulier pour assurer l’égale répartition des biens de subsistance. Face aux critiques dénonçant cet essentialisme, l’auteure propose un « (...) écoféminisme vernaculaire » qui s’appuie sur les pratiques concrètes des femmes intégrant agriculture, artisanat, travaux de mécanique et de maçonnerie, agirs familiaux. Car, sous sa forme moderne, le travail domestique est doublement aliéné : non seulement, il n’est pas rémunéré, mais il est coupé de ses potentialités productives de subsistance pour se cantonner à la consommation et au care. Les écoféministes de la subsistance veulent s’opposer aux vocations « naturelles » des femmes et imaginer des perspectives : se réapproprier et partager collectivement des fonctions nourricières de base dans un monde où s’impose de façon accélérée l’aménagement agro-industriel de la planète. (shrink)

An expanded and updated edition of a classic work on human rights and global justice Since its original publication, Basic Rights has proven increasingly influential to those working in political philosophy, human rights, global justice, and the ethics of international relations and foreign policy, particularly in debates regarding foreign policy’s role in alleviating global poverty. Henry Shue asks: Which human rights ought to be the first honored and the last sacrificed? Shue argues that subsistence rights, along with security rights (...) and liberty rights, serve as the ground of all other human rights. This classic work, now available in a thoroughly updated fortieth-anniversary edition, includes a substantial new chapter by the author examining how the accelerating transformation of our climate progressively undermines the bases of subsistence like sufficient water, affordable food, and housing safe from forest-fires and sea-level rise. Climate change threatens basic rights. (shrink)

S'il reprend des thèmes chers à la patristique, Érigène adapte ces notions théologiques afin de penser non plus tant l'être divin, que l'être créé, en sa condition même de créature. Ainsi Érigène reconnaît-il aux êtres créés, qu'il nomme «existants» (existentia), une subsistence qui, si elle se fonde dans l'essence divine, s'en distingue toutefois.Quoi qu'il en soit du contexte néoplatonicien dans lequel intervient le terme subsistence (utilisé notamment pour traduire l'huparxis du Ps-Denys ou de Maxime le Confesseur), l'on ne (...) saurait le réduire à la nomination de la venue à l'être (c'est l'existence qui évoque cette idée). Réinvestissant la notion de subsistence qui s'est construite chez ses prédécesseurs latins, notre auteur s'en sert pour faire signe vers l'idée d'une permanence de ce qui est au-delà de la procession qui luia permis d'accéder à l'être. (shrink)

S'il reprend des thèmes chers à la patristique, Érigène adapte ces notions théologiques afin de penser non plus tant l'être divin, que l'être créé, en sa condition même de créature. Ainsi Érigène reconnaît-il aux êtres créés, qu'il nomme «existants» (existentia), une subsistence qui, si elle se fonde dans l'essence divine, s'en distingue toutefois.Quoi qu'il en soit du contexte néoplatonicien dans lequel intervient le terme subsistence (utilisé notamment pour traduire l'huparxis du Ps-Denys ou de Maxime le Confesseur), l'on ne (...) saurait le réduire à la nomination de la venue à l'être (c'est l'existence qui évoque cette idée). Réinvestissant la notion de subsistence qui s'est construite chez ses prédécesseurs latins, notre auteur s'en sert pour faire signe vers l'idée d'une permanence de ce qui est au-delà de la procession qui luia permis d'accéder à l'être. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that the discourse theoretic account of human rights defended by Jürgen Habermas contains a fruitful tension that is obscured by its dominant tendency to identify rights with legal claims. This weakness in Habermas’s account becomes manifest when we examine how sweatshops diminish the secure enjoyment of subsistence, which Habermas himself (in recognition of the UDHR) recognizes as a human right. Discourse theories of human rights are unique in tying the legitimacy of human rights to (...) democratic deliberation and consensus. So construed, their specific meaning and force is the outcome of historical political struggle. However, unlike other legal rights, they possess universal moral validity. In this paper I argue that this tension between the legal and moral aspects of human rights can be resolved if and only if human rights are conceived as moral aspirations and not simply as legal claims. In particular, I shall argue that there are two reasons why human rights must be understood as moral aspirations that function non-juridically: First, the basic human goods to which human rights provide secure access are determinable only in relation to basic human capabilities that are progressively revealed in the course of an indefinite (fully inclusive and universal) process of collective learning; second, the institutional impediments to enjoying human rights are cultural in nature and cannot be remedied by means of legal coercion. (shrink)

We explore corporate environmental accountability by examining how carbon emissions affect voluntary climate-related information disclosure based on TCFD principles. Using computerized textual analysis to measure such climate-related disclosure, our results show that firms with higher levels of carbon emissions disclose more climate-related information. This relation is stronger in firms belonging to carbon-intensive industries, such as energy, materials, and utilities. We also examine this relationship at the category level for Governance, Strategy, Risk Management, and Metrics and Targets, finding that (...) carbon emissions drive disclosure in all categories except in Governance. Overall, our findings indicate that high carbon emitting firms appear to discharge their corporate accountability by increasing climate-related disclosure, consistent with legitimizing their potentially unethical actions and submitting to stakeholder and societal pressure. (shrink)

Climate change and other harmful large-scale processes challenge our understandings of individual responsibility. People throughout the world suffer harms—severe shortfalls in health, civic status, or standard of living relative to the vital needs of human beings—as a result of physical processes to which many people appear to contribute. Climate change, polluted air and water, and the erosion of grasslands, for example, occur because a great many people emit carbon and pollutants, build excessively, enable their flocks to overgraze, or otherwise stress (...) the environment. If a much smaller number of people engaged in these types of conduct, the harms in question would not occur, or would be substantially lessened. However, the conduct of any particular person (and, in the case of climate change, of even quite large numbers of people) could make no apparent difference to their occurrence. My carbon emissions (and quite possibly the carbon emissions of much larger groups of people dispersed throughout the world) may not make a difference to what happens to anyone. When the conduct of some agent does not make any apparent difference to the occurrence of harm, but this conduct is of a type that brings about harm because many people engage in it, we can call this agent an overdeterminer of that harm, and their conduct overdetermining conduct. In this essay we explore the moral status of overdetermining harm. (shrink)

This article examines the doctrine of the Trinity taught in the Second London Confession of Faith of 1677. It begins by examining a trinitarian controversy among the Particular Baptists of England in the mid-seventeenth century. After outlining the doctrinal deviations of Thomas Collier, the article proceeds to describe some of the responses to Collier from the Particular Baptist community. In many ways the Second London Confession can be seen as a response to Collier. The article also explores the theology of (...) Hercules Collins, a signatory of the Second London Confession, in contrast to the doctrinal deviations of Collier. The article shows that the Particular Baptists continued in the orthodox Christian tradition of the Apostles, Nicene, and Chalcedonian Creeds. They adopted the Reformed confessional language of the Westminster Confession of 1646 and the Savoy Declaration of 1658 while at the same time not fearing to adjust the language in accordance with their orthodox commitments. (shrink)

Anthropogenic climate change threatens humanity as a whole, making its mitigation a matter of pressing concern. Mitigation efforts at the institutional level are necessary to successfully change the course of climate change, but thus far governments and industries have been ineffective at reducing greenhouse gas emissions. A point of philosophical contention is whether individuals have a moral responsibility to reduce their own emissions given the lack of institutional action. I argue that they do by redefining climate change as (...) a collective impact. Individual emitters share collective responsibility for that impact, which translates to an individual duty to reduce their contribution. (shrink)

There are a number of cases where, collectively, groups cause harm, and yet no single individual’s contribution to the collective makes any difference to the amount of harm that is caused. For instance, though human activity is collectively causing climate change, my individual greenhouse gas emissions are neither necessary nor sufficient for any harm that results from climate change. Some (e.g., Sinnott-Armstrong) take this to indicate that there is no individual moral obligation to reduce emissions. There is a (...) collective action problem here, to which I offer a solution. My solution rests on an argument for a (sometimes) bare moral difference between intending harm and foreseeing with near certainty that harm will result as an unintended side-effect of one’s action. I conclude that we have a moral obligation to reduce our individual emissions; and, more broadly, an obligation to not participate in many other harmful group activities (e.g., factory-farming). (shrink)

In "The Problems of Philosophy," Russell held that universals not exist, rather, they subsist. In the same work, he stated that universals are nevertheless "something," without intending to suggest that quantification over universals would require a special quantifier. I show these apparently conflicting statements can be reconciled with a simple definition of "subsists.".

This paper constitutes an exploration and evaluation of the so-called ‘linkage argument' in support of the inclusion of a right to subsistence among human rights. While it is uncontroversial that avoiding poverty is hugely important for all humans, the human right to subsistence and other socio-economic human rights are often regarded as social goals rather than genuine rights. The linkage argument aims to show that a commitment to the existence of any human rights at all entails a commitment (...) to the inclusion of a right to subsistence among them. I argue that the linkage argument does not succeed in vindicating the inclusion of a right to subsistence among moral human rights, but I conclude that a modified version of it might support the justification of a legal human right to subsistence. (shrink)