Climate change is one of the greatest collective action problems ever faced. The social and cultural barriers to intersubjectively motivating concern and agency are sweeping. It seems all but impossible to imagine politically viable solutions commensurate with the realities of the problem, and likewise find visionary ways of framing this problem to inspire meaningful solutions. One therefore perceives an abyss between ‘problem’ and ‘solution,’ as expressed in irreconcilable debates between problem-driven and solution-driven strategies for motivating climate action. Drawing on Merleau-Ponty’s (...) dialectical phenomenology of motivation and class consciousness in particular, I argue that his call for a “thinkable politics” can help activists bring problem-driven and solution-driven motives for climate response into productive relation. (shrink)

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