>With assets of over US$1.0 trillion and growing, public pension funds in the United States have become a major force in the private sector through their holding of equity positions in large publicly traded corporations. More recently, these funds have been expanding their investment strategy by considering a corporations long-term risks on issues such as environmental protection, sustainability, and good corporate citizenship, and how these factors impact a companys long-term performance. Conventional wisdom argues that the fiduciary responsibility of the pension (...) funds trustees must be solely focused on their beneficiaries and, therefore, their investment criteria must be based strictly on narrowly defined financial measures. It is also asserted that well-established financial measurements of corporate performance already include long-term risk assessment through discounted present value of future flow of earnings. Consequently, all other criteria are contrary to the best interest of the pension funds beneficiaries. In this paper, we assert that, contrary to conventional wisdom, pension funds, and for that matter other mutual funds, must be concerned with the long-term survival and growth of corporations. These measures are generally referred to socially responsible investing (SRI) and when applied to corporations, it is termed socially responsible corporate conduct (SRCC). We demonstrate that current measurement of future risk assessment invariably understates, and quite often completely overlooks, these long-term risks because of the inherent bias towards short-run on the part of financial intermediaries whose compensation depends greatly on short-term results. Furthermore, there is ample evidence to suggest that these intermediaries have been engaging in self-serving practices and thus failing in their duties to serve their clients, i.e. pension funds, best interests. Because of their large holdings in the total market as well as individual companies, these funds cannot easily divest from poorly performing companies without destabilizing the companies stock and overall markets. Hence, they must opt for a strategy of emphasizing investment criteria that encourage companies to take into account long-term aspects of their operations in terms of their impact on environment, sustainability, and community welfare, to name a few. We argue that an exclusionary, and even a primary, focus on short-term financial criteria is no longer a viable option. It also calls for the pension funds to encourage greater transparency and accountability of the entire corporate sector through improved corporate governance. Thus socially responsible investing practices are not merely discretionary and desirable activities; they are a necessary imperative, which both the corporations and public pension funds, and other large institutional holders, will ignore at serious peril to themselves. Finally, the paper considers some of the recent developments where corporations have been responding to these challenges and how their actions might be strengthened through greater disclosure and transparency of corporate activities. It also makes recommendations for the pension funds to support further research in creating new measurement standards that further refine the concept of socially responsible investing as a necessary ingredient of long-term corporate survival and growth in the context of a changing economic, environmental and socio-political dynamic. (shrink)

With assets of over US$1.0 trillion and growing, public pension funds in the United States have become a major force in the private sector through their holding of equity positions in large publicly traded corporations. More recently, these funds have been expanding their investment strategy by considering a corporation's long-term risks on issues such as environmental protection, sustainability, and good corporate citizenship, and how these factors impact a company's long-term performance. Conventional wisdom argues that the fiduciary responsibility of the pension (...) funds' trustees must be solely focused on their beneficiaries and, therefore, their investment criteria must be based strictly on narrowly defined financial measures. It is also asserted that well-established financial measurements of corporate performance already include long-term risk assessment through discounted present value of future flow of earnings. Consequently, all other criteria are contrary to the best interest of the pension funds' beneficiaries. In this paper, we assert that, contrary to conventional wisdom, pension funds, and for that matter other mutual funds, must be concerned with the long-term survival and growth of corporations. These measures are generally referred to "socially responsible investing" and when applied to corporations, it is termed "socially responsible corporate conduct." We demonstrate that current measurement of future risk assessment invariably understates, and quite often completely overlooks, these long-term risks because of the inherent bias towards short-run on the part of financial intermediaries whose compensation depends greatly on short-term results. Furthermore, there is ample evidence to suggest that these intermediaries have been engaging in self-serving practices and thus failing in their duties to serve their clients', i.e. pension funds', best interests. Because of their large holdings in the total market as well as individual companies, these funds cannot easily divest from poorly performing companies without destabilizing the companies' stock and overall markets. Hence, they must opt for a strategy of emphasizing investment criteria that encourage companies to take into account long-term aspects of their operations in terms of their impact on environment, sustainability, and community welfare, to name a few. We argue that an exclusionary, and even a primary, focus on short-term financial criteria is no longer a viable option. It also calls for the pension funds to encourage greater transparency and accountability of the entire corporate sector through improved corporate governance. Thus socially responsible investing practices are not merely discretionary and desirable activities; they are a necessary imperative, which both the corporations and public pension funds, and other large institutional holders, will ignore at serious peril to themselves. Finally, the paper considers some of the recent developments where corporations have been responding to these challenges and how their actions might be strengthened through greater disclosure and transparency of corporate activities. It also makes recommendations for the pension funds to support further research in creating new measurement standards that further refine the concept of socially responsible investing as a necessary ingredient of long-term corporate survival and growth in the context of a changing economic, environmental and socio-political dynamic. (shrink)

Western society has been diverted from the goal of spiritual freedom and autonomy as expressed in the ancient Pythagorean 'theory of the cosmos'. Indeed, following Heidegger's analysis, it can be seen that modern Western society has arrived at the opposite pole of anthropocentric 'absolute subjectivism' in which the entire non-human world is seen as a material resource to be consumed in the satisfaction of our egoistic passive desires. It is further argued that Spinozism is actually a modern version of the (...) 'theory of the cosmos' which, when supplemented by a vision of man's identity with the ecological world, would provide us with the only adequate portrayal of the God/Nature/Man relationship. (shrink)

Traditionally floods have been understood to be acts of God or nature, with localised impacts afflicting those who choose to live or to invest capital in lowland and coastal locations. This central idea of causation, located outside human agency, survives somewhat precariously today, but is reflected in the lack of any right to protection from flooding in England and Wales. However in 1930 new legislation institutionalised a social framing of the impact of floods as part of a wider national problem. (...) This related the interests of lowland agriculture and land drainage to the national economic and military interest. Modernising and expanding agricultural production was a political priority from the 1930s to the 1980s. The cost of preventing flooding and draining land was transferred from the affected landowners to the nation as a whole. River and coastal engineering was central to the new policy, and by the early 1970s much of the riverine and coastal environment was radically altered by flood defence structures and associated land drainage. As a result of food over-production and conflicts with conservation interests in the early 1980s, the emphasis has shifted from drainage to flood defence, while risk reduction and environmentalist values have also been promoted. The institutional arrangements from 1930 largely survive, however, and a new coherent social framing has failed to emerge. It is argued that for a risk-oriented framing to succeed, new assumptions about causation and a new ethical outlook are now needed. Emphasis on flood 'control' rather than 'defence', and a shift in priorities from economic benefits towards human rights and intrinsic value in nature are proposed as key elements in such a reframing. (shrink)

A multilevel view of social change is presented in which socially responsible organizations, society, and high-hope individuals interact in support of hopefulness – thereby leveling the playing field. Suggestions are made about future research and the roles of organizations and society in eliciting hope in organizational and societal cultures.

In Unfit for the Future, Ingmar Persson and Julian Savulescu present a challenging argument in favour of biomedical moral enhancement. In light of the existential threats of climate change, insufficient moral capacities of the human species seem to require a cautiously shaped programme of biomedical moral enhancement. The story of the tragedy of the commons creates the impression that climate catastrophe is unavoidable and consequently gives strength to the argument. The present paper analyses to what extent a policy in favour (...) of biomedical moral enhancement can thereby be justified and puts special emphasis on the political context. By reconstructing the theoretical assumptions of the argument and by taking them seriously, it is revealed that the argument is self-defeating. The tragedy of the commons may make moral enhancement appear necessary, but when it comes to its implementation, a second-order collective action-problem emerges and impedes the execution of the idea. The paper examines several modifications of the argument and shows how it can be based on easier enforceability of BME. While this implies enforcement, it is not an obstacle for the justification of BME. Rather, enforceability might be the decisive advantage of BME over other means. To take account of the global character of climate change, the paper closes with an inquiry of possible justifications of enforced BME on a global level. The upshot of the entire line of argumentation is that Unfit for the Future cannot justify BME because it ignores the nature of the problem of climate protection and political prerequisites of any solution. (shrink)

This article contributes to the debate about the political role of the business firm. The article clarifies what is meant by the “political” role of the firm and how this political role relates to its economic role. To this end, the authors present an ordonomic concept of corporate citizenship and illustrate the concept by way of comparison with the Aristotelian idea of individual citizenship for the antique polis. According to our concept, companies take a political role if they participate in (...) rule-setting processes and rule-finding discourses. Though this political role of the corporation is in principle ambivalent, the authors conclude that in such processes of “new governance” the economic and political roles of the firm need not contradict each other but can follow the same win-win logic of individual self-perfection through cooperative social interactions. (shrink)

The typical method of acquiring a property right involves transfer from a previous owner. But sooner or later, that chain of transfers traces back to the beginning. That is why we have a philosophical problem. How does a thing legitimately become a piece of property for the first time ? In this essay, I follow the custom of distinguishing between mere liberties and full-blooded rights. If I have the liberty of doing X , then it is permissible for me to (...) do X . But the mere fact that I am at liberty to do X leaves open the possibility that you might be at liberty to interfere with my doing X . Accordingly, liberties are not full-blooded rights, since my having a right to do X has the additional implication that others are not at liberty to interfere with my doing X . When it comes to mere liberties, interference is not a violation. You can violate rights, but you cannot violate liberties. (shrink)

Rachlin overlooks that free will determines when and in what direction acts that appear impulsive will occur. Because behavioral patterns continuously evolve, animals are not guaranteed when they will, or how to, maximize larger-later reinforcements. An animal therefore uses self-control to emit free acts to vary behavioral patterns to optimize larger-later rewards.

The Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) is a global private governance system overseeing the sustainability and biodiversity of the world forestry system through certification of forests and forestry processes and products, and is perceived as the strongest of the various certification schemes available (Domask, Globalization and NGOs: Transforming Business, Government, and Society , 2003 ; Gulbrandsen, Global Environmental Politics , 2004 ). It has seen more success in developed than developing countries in terms of amount of forest certified and number of (...) chain-of-custody certificates issued, raising questions as to its ability to promote biodiversity Gulbrandsen, Global Environmental Politics , 2004 ). A number of challenges have risen to the pragmatic and moral legitimacy of the FSC as a global governance system: alternative certification schemes, output and market access, cost of certification, plantations, and illegal logging. I examine each of these challenges as they pertain to the dimensions of pragmatic and moral legitimacy of the FSC. I conclude with a discussion of theoretical implications for global governance systems using ecolabel schemes, as well as a discussion of practical implications for the FSC in particular. (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)

The dominant methodological assumptions in climate ethical debates are rational-individualistic. The aim of this paper is to examine whether the rational-individualistic methodological framework is compatible with a theory of moral responsibility for climate change. I employ three fitness criteria of moral agency: a normatively significant choice, sufficient knowledge and control. I demonstrate that the rational-individualistic methodology does not provide a framework in which rational agents meet the three criteria. I conclude that rational-individualistic agents are not fit to be held morally (...) responsible for climate change. The paper demonstrates that the dominant climate-ethical view rests on a methodology that does not allow for a conceptualisation of a moral agent of climate change. (shrink)

Prisoner's dilemmas can lead rational people to interact in ways that lead to persistent inefficiencies. These dilemmas create a problem for institutional designers to solve: devise institutions that realign individual incentives to achieve collectively rational outcomes. I will argue that we do not always want to eliminate misalignments between individual incentives and efficient outcomes. Sometimes we want to preserve prisoner's dilemmas, even when we know that they systematically will lead to inefficiencies. No doubt, prisoner's dilemmas can create problems, but they (...) also create opportunities to practice the cooperative norms that make market institutions possible in the first place. An ethical market culture, I argue, benefits from the presence of prisoner's dilemmas. I first consider standard approaches for solving prisoner's dilemmas. I then argue for the value of prisoner's dilemmas. Finally, I show the significance of this argument for advocating codes of business ethics. (shrink)

Prisoner's dilemmas can lead rational people to interact in ways that lead to persistent inefficiencies. These dilemmas create a problem for institutional designers to solve: devise institutions that realign individual incentives to achieve collectively rational outcomes. I will argue that we do not always want to eliminate misalignments between individual incentives and efficient outcomes. Sometimes we want to preserve prisoner's dilemmas, even when we know that they systematically will lead to inefficiencies. No doubt, prisoner's dilemmas can create problems, but they (...) also create opportunities to practice the cooperative norms that make market institutions possible in the first place. An ethical market culture, I argue, benefits from the presence of prisoner's dilemmas. I first consider standard approaches for solving prisoner's dilemmas. I then argue for the value of prisoner's dilemmas. Finally, I show the significance of this argument for advocating codes of business ethics. (shrink)

In the last two decades, there has been a pronounced growth of CSR rating agencies that assess corporations based on their social and environmental performance. This article investigates the impact of CSR ratings on the behavior of individual corporations. To what extent do corporations adjust their behavior based on how they rank? Our primary finding is that being dropped from a CSR ranking appears to do little to encourage firms to acknowledge and address problems related to their social and environmental (...) performance. Specific rankings appear not to have a widespread effect of influencing firms to acknowledge negative CSR events and publicly present plans and actions to address them. Whether firms are well or poorly ranked, they appear to focus on and publicly discuss their “positive” CSR activities. We discuss the wider significance of these results as well as the overall significance of CSR rankings for a global economy. (shrink)

The objective of this work is to demonstrate how cooperative sharers and uncooperative free riders can be placed in different groups of an electronic society in a decentralised manner. We have simulated an agent-based open and decentralised P2P system which self-organises itself into different groups to avoid cooperative sharers being exploited by uncooperative free riders. This approach encourages sharers to move to better groups and restricts free riders into those groups of sharers without needing centralised control. Our approach is suitable (...) for current P2P systems that are open and distributed. Gossip is used as a social mechanism for information sharing which facilitates the formation of groups. Using multi-agent based simulations we demonstrate how the adaptive behaviour of agents lead to self-organisation. We have tested with varying the gossip level and checked its impact in the system’s behaviour. We have also investigated the impact of false gossip in this system where gossip is the medium for information sharing which leads to self-organisation. (shrink)

Western Kansas is one of the most important agricultural regions in the world. Most agricultural production in this semi-arid region depends on the consumption of nonrenewable groundwater from the High Plains Aquifer, which will be 70 % depleted by 2070. The problem of depletion has drawn significant attention from local citizens and policymakers at the federal, state, and local levels for at least 40 years, resulting in a variety of policies and institutions to manage groundwater from the aquifer as a (...) common pool resource. Yet depletion has persisted. We explain this conundrum as an outcome of a mismatch between the scale of resource management, which has become more intensively local, and the scale of resource exchange, which has rendered the High Plains Aquifer a global common pool resource. We then explain the deeper, structural origins of the management–exchange scale mismatch. Drawing on concepts from structural human ecology theory and empirical evidence from Southwest Kansas, we show that agriculture is predicated on local metabolic rift in the hydrological cycle that is exacerbated through ecological unequal exchange with higher-income, core areas beyond the region. We conclude by highlighting two key policies that, if implemented together, may lessen the deleterious effects of these structural dynamics and thus promote a more sustainable relationship between society and environment in this region and other water-scarce regions that are net-exporters of groundwater. (shrink)

In this paper, I adopt the view that if general forces or processes can be detected in ecology, then the principles or models that represent them should provide predictions that are approximately correct and, when not, should lead to the sorts of intervening factors that usually make trouble. I argue that Lotka–Volterra principles do not meet this standard; in both their simple “strategic” and their complex “tactical” forms they are not approximately correct of the findings of the laboratory experiments and (...) historical studies most likely to confirm them; nor do they instruct ecologists where to look for likely intervening factors. Evidence drawn from long-term case studies and other available data sets suggests that the populations of predators and their prey are not regulated by an interaction between them but are controlled by transient, contingent, and accidental events that affect each animal and each population individualistically. This paper argues that the presence of general forces or processes in ecology should be determined by comparing competing models of these forces not just to each other or to a null model but also to case studies that may challenge theoretical approaches with convincing individualistic causal accounts of the phenomena. (shrink)

Fundamental problems of environmental sustainability, including climate change and fisheries management, require collective action on a scale that transcends the political and cultural boundaries of the nation-state. Rational, self-interested neoclassical economic theories of human behavior predict tragedy in the absence of third party enforcement of agreements and practical difficulties that prevent privatization. Evolutionary biology offers a theory of cooperation, but more often than not in a context of discrimination against other groups. That is, in-group boundaries are necessarily defined by those (...) excluded as members of out-groups. However, in some settings human’s exhibit behavior that is inconsistent with both rational economic and group driven cooperation of evolutionary biological theory. This paper reports the results of a non-cooperative game-theoretic exercise that models a tragedy of the commons problem in which groups of players may advance their own positions only at the expense of other groups. Students enrolled from multiple universities and assigned to different multi-university identity groups participated in experiments that repeatedly resulted in cooperative outcomes despite intergroup conflicts and expressions of group identity. We offer three possible explanations: students were cooperative because they were in an academic setting; students may have viewed their instructors as the out-group; or the emergence of a small number of influential, ethical leaders is sufficient to ensure cooperation amongst the larger groups. From our data and analysis, we draw out lessons that may help to inform approaches for institutional design and policy negotiations, particularly in climate change management. (shrink)

The wicked problems that constitute sustainability require students to learn a different set of ethical skills than is ordinarily required by professional ethics. The focus for sustainability ethics must be redirected towards: (1) reasoning rather than rules, and (2) groups rather than individuals. This need for a different skill set presents several pedagogical challenges to traditional programs of ethics education that emphasize abstraction and reflection at the expense of experimentation and experience. This paper describes a novel pedagogy of sustainability ethics (...) that is based on noncooperative, game-theoretic problems that cause students to confront two salient questions: “What are my obligations to others?” and “What am I willing to risk in my own well-being to meet those obligations?” In comparison to traditional professional ethics education, the game-based pedagogy moves the learning experience from: passive to active, apathetic to emotionally invested, narratively closed to experimentally open, and from predictable to surprising. In the context of game play, where players must make decisions that can adversely impact classmates, students typically discover a significant gap between their moral aspirations and their moral actions. When the games are delivered sequentially as part of a full course in Sustainability Ethics, students may experience a moral identity crisis as they reflect upon the incongruity of their self-understanding and their behavior. Repeated play allows students to reconcile this discrepancy through group deliberation that coordinates individual decisions to achieve collective outcomes. It is our experience that students gradually progress through increased levels of group tacit knowledge as they encounter increasingly complex game situations. (shrink)

Social evolution theory conventionally takes an externalist explanatory stance, treating observed cooperation as explanandum and the positive assortment of cooperative behaviour as explanans. We ask how the circumstances bringing about this positive assortment arose in the first place. Rather than merely push the explanatory problem back a step, we move from an externalist to an interactionist explanatory stance, in the spirit of Lewontin and the Niche Construction theorists. We develop a theory of ‘social niche construction’ in which we consider biological (...) entities to be both the subject and object of their own social evolution. Some important cases of the evolution of cooperation have the side-effect of causing changes in the hierarchical level at which the evolutionary process acts. This is because the traits that act to align the fitness interests of particles in a collective can also act to diminish the extent to which those particles are bearers of heritable fitness variance, while augmenting the extent to which collectives of such particles are bearers of heritable fitness variance. In this way, we can explain upward transitions in the hierarchical level at which the Darwinian machine operates in terms of particle-level selection, even though the outcome of the process is a collective-level selection regime. Our theory avoids the logical and metaphysical paradoxes faced by other attempts to explain evolutionary transitions. (shrink)

: In "Thinking Like a Mackerel," Susan Power Bratton attempts to develop a sea ethic based on the writings of Rachel Carson. This article critically evaluates Bratton's position using an analysis of a contemporary problem on the high seas as a basis: the theft of the Patagonian tooth fish in the Southern Ocean. Various possibilities for providing philosophical and legal bases for the protection of the sea realm are explored.

Empirical evidence of our changing climate is frequently interpreted through the lens of either optimism or pessimism. In tandem with this, ethical responses can oscillate from myopic ‘business as usual’ to misanthropic ‘lifeboat ethics’. In this paper I argue that these are inadequate and unworthy positions from which to begin in Christian ethics. The question of sharing the burdens of climate-change mitigation and adaptation is the crucial task facing the world community. The development of the burden-sharing rules—sector based as well (...) as country based—since the Kyoto agreement will be evaluated from the perspective of three theological ethical principles: justice, solidarity and subsidiarity. Lastly I suggest that creation serves as a ground for developing shared perspectives in the ethics of environmental questions in the context of intercultural and interfaith dialogue. (shrink)

Climate change, rising energy costs, and other dilemmas raise the prospect for major change in energy-ecology-society relations. Two prominent proposals for change include: a nuclear power renaissance; and mega-scale renewable energy development. Both suggest that modern society will receive a rising stream of less CO2-rich kilowatt-hours, so that increased energy consumption and economic growth can continue. The article doubts these CO2 claims and finds both options lead to deepening unsustainability and environmental injustice. A third approach is proposed. A new institutional (...) and community strategy called a Sustainability Energy Utility. The SEU looks to reduce energy use and seeks to support remaining energy needs by community-scale renewables. To accomplish deep energy change, the authors show how an SEU can move society from an energy commodity to energy commons regime. Commonwealth economy and community trusts are key means to significant change: a future commons is offered as the more appropriate strategy. (shrink)

:A norm of equal treatment is cited regularly in the American jurisprudence of property “takings” under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution, as a benchmark of fair treatment of owners. According to an increasingly prevalent version of this equality norm, courts should look to parity of treatment among property owners in investigating whether particular regulations “take” property. This essay argues, however, that such an equality norm is misplaced, and that courts should judge fairness by the criterion of expectation—including (...) reasonable expectations of regulation.A norm of equality becomes problematic in the face of the economic theory of the evolution of property. This theory posits that as resources become more congested, their uses carry increasing common pool costs or “externalities”—a scenario that should predictably result in more stringent resource management—up to and including the establishment of regulatory regimes as well as property rights themselves. This evolutionary pattern, however, places earlier and later resource users in different positions vis-à-vis both common pool externalities and regulatory responses, and their different temporal positions fragment the meaning of equal treatment and destabilize it as a jurisprudential norm. This essay argues that while equal treatment may be a benchmark for special or invidious cases, like those relating to civil rights, the great bulk of takings cases involve regulatory responses to congesting resources, where a norm of equal treatment breaks down. Thus, in seeking fair treatment, takings jurisprudence should downplay equality and instead look to the understanding of property as a basis of expectations—but those expectations should include the anticipation of reasonable regulatory responses to resource congestion. (shrink)

Zygon®, Volume 57, Issue 1, Page 5-24, March 2022.

Environmental ethics has a future as long as there are moral agents on Earth with values at stake in their environment. Somewhat ironically, just when humans, with their increasing industry and development, seemed further and further from nature, having more power to manage it, just when humans were more and more rebuilding their environments with their super technologies, the natural world emerged as a focus of ethical concern. Environmental alarms started with prophets such as Aldo Leopold, Rachel Carson, John Muir, (...) and David Brower, and have, over recent decades, become daily news. (shrink)

Parents can benefit their offspring by conserving resources that the offspring stand to inherit. Thus, inheritance of resources should promote the evolution of propensities to conserve. But inheritance also has another, less obvious effect: it can reduce the fertility of the conserver’s grandchildren, thus reducing the expected number of great-grandchildren. Consequently, inheritance of resources promotes the evolution of conservation less than might be supposed.

The multiple commons is an important context in a world facing the eco-challenge. The platform for land use negotiation is a perspective concerning the good governance of the multiple commons. Platforms are devices or procedures for social learning and negotiation about effective collective action. They create collective decision making capacity at eco-system levels at which critical ecological services need to be managed. Taking platforms seriously as an option for designing a more sustainable society assumes a belief in the human capacity (...) to engage in collective action. Unfortunately, human thinking about humans is dominated by perspectives that emphasize either technical solutions to given human ends, or perspectives that emphasize the selfish nature of human ends. This article focuses especially on the latter: the strategic narratives that have become dominant as society increasingly becomes designed on economic principles. The paper seeks to explain the dominance of strategic narratives and provides social science evidence for alternative perspectives. It concludes with cornerstones for an alternative narrative. (shrink)

Critics of carbon mitigation often appeal to what Jonathan Glover has called ‘the argument from no difference’: that is, ‘If I don’t do it, someone else will’. Yet even if this justifies continued high emissions by the industrialised countries, it cannot excuse business as usual. The North’s emissions might not harm the victims of climate change in the sense of making them worse off than they would otherwise be. Nevertheless, it receives benefits produced at the latter’s expense, with the result (...) that it has more than it deserves, and that victims will have less. This enrichment is unjust; unjustly enriched agents ought to make compensation. The best form of compensation is vigorous action against climate change. (shrink)

Efforts to protect endangered species by regulating the use of privately owned lands are routinely resisted by appeal to the private property rights of landowners. Recently, the 'wise-use' movement has emerged as a primary representative of these landowners' claims. In addressing the issues raised by the wise-use movement and others like them, legal scholars and philosophers have typically examined the scope of private property rights and the extent to which these rights should influence public policy decisions when weighed against other (...) moral considerations. Whether from an anthropocentric standpoint or from a perspective of moral extensionism, the key question seems to be the extent to which prima facie property rights are overridden by other moral interests, not whether such rights claims can reasonably be appealed to at all in public discussions of environmental justice. I argue, however, that a morally extensionist perspective not only introduces more potential defeaters of prima facie property rights, but actually strips appeals to private property rights of their moral significance. Hence, I argue on Rawlsian grounds that appealing to private property rights in the way that the wise-use movement does is unreasonable in a pluralistic society. In so doing, I show that a Rawlsian perspective may be more congenial to the interests of moral extensionists than is typically thought. (shrink)

Social dilemmas occur when individuals make choices that are in their own best interest but not in the interest of society as a whole. Intrapersonal dilemmas occur when people make choices that are in the best interest of themselves at the moment of choice, but not in the best interest of themselves in the long run. A number of writers have observed that we can usefully model this self-defeating behavior by treating each individual as an aggregate of selves which have (...) competing interests, like the individual selves in a population. We undertake to synthesize and extend these contributions, applying the theory of intrapersonal dilemmas to addiction and procrastination, and discuss how the concept of multiple selves can explain why people attempt to control their behavior by imposing costs or constraints on themselves in the future, and how it can also help us develop new strategies of (personal) behavior control. (shrink)

This article argues that empirical social scientists can be freed from having to account for “micro-to-macro transitions.” The article shows, in opposition to the (still) dominant perspective based on Coleman’s macro-micro-macro model, that no micro-macro transitions or mechanisms connect the individual level to the macro level in empirical social science. Rather, when considering that social macro entities and properties are micro manifest rather than macro manifest, it becomes clear that the micro-macro move in empirical social science is purely conceptual or (...) analytical. (shrink)