Anthropogenic climate change is arguably one of the biggest problems that confront us today. There is ample evidence that climate change is likely to affect adversely many aspects of life for all people around the world, and that existing solutions such as geoengineering might be too risky and ordinary behavioural and market solutions might not be sufficient to mitigate climate change. In this paper, we consider a new kind of solution to climate change, what we call human engineering, which involves (...) biomedical modifications of humans so that they can mitigate and/or adapt to climate change. We argue that human engineering is potentially less risky than geoengineering and that it could help behavioural and market solutions succeed in mitigating climate change. We also consider some possible ethical concerns regarding human engineering such as its safety, the implications of human engineering for our children and society, and we argue that these concerns can be addressed. Our upshot is that human engineering deserves further consideration in the debate about climate change. (shrink)

Este libro presenta tres estudios sobre las formas en las que el discurso convencional sobre desarrollo condiciona, modela, e interviene en la vida de los seres humanos y su entorno. Muestra, además, cómo la lógica epistemológica que sostiene el discurso sobre el desarrollo permea y excede sus propios límites, alcanzando incluso aquellas propuestas teóricas y prácticas que pretenden tomar distancia de este discurso y que se enuncian a sí mismas como resistentes. En los tres estudios que componen este libro, se (...) presentan diferentes conceptualizaciones y formas en las que el discurso convencional sobre desarrollo afecta la calidad de vida de las personas que son objeto de políticas públicas, intervenciones gubernamentales e institucionales. La propuesta, finalmente, es poner en evidencia la relación saber/poder que sostiene el discurso del desarrollo y cómo éste tiene efectos materiales y simbólicos que producen y reproducen condiciones desiguales de existencia. (shrink)

Health is higher on the international agenda than ever before, and improving the health of poor people is a central issue in development. Poor people suffer from far higher levels of ill health, mortality, and malnutrition than do those better off, and their inadequate health is one of the factors keeping them poor or for their being poor in the first place. Health is a crucially important economic asset, particularly for poor people. Their livelihoods depend on it. When poor people (...) become ill or injured, their entire household can become trapped in a downward spiral of lost income and high healthcare costs—a vicious circle of poverty and ill health. (shrink)

In this article we argue that sustainable development is not a socio-ecologically friendly principle. The principle, which is deeply embedded in environmental law, policymaking and governance, drives environmentally destructive neoliberal economic growth that exploits and degrades the vulnerable living order. Despite seemingly well-meaning intentions behind the emergence of sustainable development, it almost invariably facilitates exploitative economic development activities that exacerbate systemic inequalities and injustices without noticeably protecting all life forms in the Anthropocene. We conclude the article by examining an attempt (...) to construct alternatives to sustainable development through the indigenous onto-epistemology of buen vivir. While no panacea, buen vivir is a worldview that offers the potential to critically rethink how environmental law could re-orientate away from its ‘centered’, gendered and anthropocentric, neoliberal sustainable development ontology, to a radically different ontology that embraces ecologically sustainable ways of seeing, being, knowing and caring. (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)

This paper discusses some ethically relevant aspects of William Nordhaus’s contribution to climate change policy evaluation. Nordhaus's approach can shed light on one—but only one—dimension of the climate change problem. His boldest claims notwithstanding, there is nothing particularly "optimal" about the temperature increases associated with his most famous modeling choices.

Several areas of welfare economics seek to evaluate states of affairs as a function of interpersonally comparable individual utilities. The aim is to map each state of affairs onto a vector of individual utilities, and then to produce an ordering of these vectors that can be represented by a mathematical function assigning a real number to each. When this approach is used in intertemporal contexts, a central theoretical question concerns the evaluative weight to be applied to utility coming at different (...) times. This question concerns the rate of pure time preference, which is one key determinant of the social discount rate. This article argues that the standard philosophical account of pure time preference is mistaken, because it ascribes to economists a methodological commitment they need not, and often do not, accept. This in turn undercuts the most common philosophical objection to pure time preference, which traces at least to Rawls’s A Theory of Justice. The article then evaluates three further objections to pure time preference, concluding that it might still be defensible under certain circumstances. The article closes by articulating a final argument that is suggested by the “Social, Economic and Ethical Concepts and Methods” chapter of the most recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report. If this further argument is sound, it would constitute a decisive objection to pure time preference as it currently figures in much intertemporal welfare economics. (shrink)

John Broome claims that there is a sacrifice-free solution to climate change. He says this is a consequence of elementary economics. After explaining the economic argument in somewhat more detail than Broome, I show that the argument is unsound. A main problem with it stems from Derek Parfit's ‘nonidentity effect.’ But there is hope, since the nonidentity effect underwrites a more philosophical yet more plausible route to a sacrifice-free solution. So in the end I join Broome in asking economists and (...) policymakers to help make this a reality. (shrink)

We seek insights into potential benefits for firms adopting strategies to improve business sustainability in a carbon-constrained future. We investigate whether lenders incorporate a firm’s exposure to carbon-related risk into lending decisions through the cost of financing, and if so, importantly whether firms can mitigate the penalty by demonstrating an awareness of their carbon risks. We use a sample of 255 firm-year observations from eight industries over the period 2009–2013. We measure carbon-related risk exposure as the firm’s historical carbon emissions (...) and our primary measure of carbon risk awareness is based on the firm’s willingness to respond to the Carbon Disclosure Project survey. We document a positive association between cost of debt and carbon risk for firms failing to respond to the CDP. Further, this association is economically meaningful, with a one standard deviation increase in carbon risk mapping into between a 38 and 62 basis point increase in the cost of debt. Equally, we find that this penalty is effectively negated for firms exhibiting carbon risk awareness. Our results are robust when we consider alternate measures of carbon awareness—disclosure through alternative medium to the CDP and firms’ annual cash investment in new capital assets using “cleaner” technology. Our results highlight not only the importance of carbon awareness as a business strategy for polluting firms, but also its importance to lenders exposed to their clients’ default and reputational risk. The debt market appears to incorporate historical carbon emissions and forward-looking indicators of carbon performance. (shrink)

This paper reviews a number of huge challenges to ethical leadership in the twenty-first century and concludes that the need for global ethical leadership is not merely a desirable option, but rather – and quite literally – a matter of survival. The crises of the recent past reveal huge, and in some cases criminal, failures of both ethics and leadership in finance, business and government. We posit that mainstream economic theory’s construct of ‘homo economicus’ and its faith in the ‘invisible (...) hand’ of the market constitute deeply flawed foundations upon which alone policy may be built and, farthermore, that these problematic foundations exert substantial shaping power over the institutional and discursive landscapes in which international business is transacted. Analogously, we argue that dominant approaches to business ethics and corporate social responsibility are, if not incorrect, at least in need of revisiting in terms of questioning their basic assumptions. Instead of the smugness of Western (especially Anglo-American) attitudes towards other ways of thinking, valuing and organising, it appears clear that openness, cooperation and co-creation between the developed and developing worlds is a basic prerequisite for dealing with the global challenges facing not just leaders, but humanity as a whole. This objective of stimulating discussion between dominant and marginal voices has guided our selection of papers for this Special Issue. We have thus included not only representatives of research from within the parameters of mainstream business ethics, IB or leadership scholarship, but also innovative contributions from fields such as military history, information technology, regulation, spirituality and sociology. (shrink)

In this paper I make the following claims. In order to see anthropogenic climate change as clearly involving moral wrongs and global injustices, we will have to revise some central concepts in these domains. Moreover, climate change threatens another value that cannot easily be taken up by concerns of global justice or moral responsibility.

– We offer a new motivation for imprecise probabilities. We argue that there are propositions to which precise probability cannot be assigned, but to which imprecise probability can be assigned. In such cases the alternative to imprecise probability is not precise probability, but no probability at all. And an imprecise probability is substantially better than no probability at all. Our argument is based on the mathematical phenomenon of non-measurable sets. Non-measurable propositions cannot receive precise probabilities, but there is a natural (...) way for them to receive imprecise probabilities. The mathematics of non-measurable sets is arcane, but its epistemological import is far-reaching; even apparently mundane propositions are liable to be affected by non-measurability. The phenomenon of non-measurability dramatically reshapes the dialectic between critics and proponents of imprecise credence. Non-measurability offers natural rejoinders to prominent critics of imprecise credence. Non-measurability even reverses some of the critics’ arguments—by the very lights that have been used to argue against imprecise credences, imprecise credences are better than precise credences. (shrink)

We all seem to have a sense of what good and bad arguments are, and there is a long history—focusing on fallacies—of trying to provide objective standards that would allow a clear separation of good and bad arguments. This contribution discusses the limits of attempts to determine the quality of arguments. It begins with defining bad arguments as those that deviate from an established standard of good arguments. Since there are different conceptualizations of “argument”—as controversy, as debate, and as justification—and (...) since arguments in each of these senses can be used for different purposes, a first problem is that we would need a large variety of standards for “good” arguments. After this, the contribution focuses in particular on proposals made in the literature on how to assess the quality of arguments in the sense of justification. It distinguishes three problems of assessment: How to determine whether reasons are acceptable, whether reasons are sufficient to justify the conclusion, and how to identify arguments in real-world speech acts and texts? It is argued that limitations of argument assessment result from unavoidable relativism: The assessment of many—if not most—arguments depends on the epistemic situation of the evaluator. (shrink)

Why do we formulate arguments? Usually, things such as persuading opponents, finding consensus, and justifying knowledge are listed as functions of arguments. But arguments can also be used to stimulate reflection on one’s own reasoning. Since this cognitive function of arguments should be important to improve the quality of people’s arguments and reasoning, for learning processes, for coping with “wicked problems,” and for the resolution of conflicts, it deserves to be studied in its own right. This contribution develops first steps (...) towards a theory of reflective argumentation. It provides a definition of reflective argumentation, justifies its importance, delineates it from other cognitive functions of argumentation in a new classification of argument functions, and it discusses how reflection on one’s own reasoning can be stimulated by arguments. (shrink)

One of the first things President Obama did after coming to office was the establishment of the Office of Public Engagement. As described on its Web site, this office "is the embodiment of the President's goal of making government inclusive, transparent, accountable and responsible." The Office of Public Engagement is supposed to "create and coordinate opportunities for direct dialogue between the Obama Administration and the American public, while bringing new voices to the table and ensuring that everyone can participate and (...) inform the work of the President."1As the president explained in his memorandum on transparency and open government, "Public engagement enhances the Government's effectiveness and improves .. (shrink)

The energy domain is still dominated by equilibrium models that underestimate both the dangers and opportunities related to climate change. In reality, climate and energy systems contain tipping points, feedback loops, and exponential developments. This paper describes how to create realistic energy transition management models: quantitative models that can discover profitable pathways from fossil fuels to renewable energy. We review the literature regarding agent-based economics, disruptive innovation, and transition management and determine the following requirements. Actors must be detailed, heterogeneous, interacting, (...) learning, and strategizing. Technology should be represented as a detailed and heterogeneous portfolio that can develop in a bottom-up manner, using endogenous feedback loops. Assumptions about discount rates and the social cost of carbon should be configurable. The model should contain interactions between the global, national, local, and individual level. A review of modelling techniques shows that equilibrium models are unsuitable and that system dynamics and discrete event simulation are too limited. The agent-based approach is found to be uniquely suited for the complex adaptive sociotechnical systems that must be modelled. But the choice for agent-based models does not mean a rejection of other approaches because they can be accommodated within the agent-based framework. We conclude with practical guidelines. (shrink)

Science-based methods for assessing the practical rationality of a proposed public policy typically represent assumed future outcomes of policies and values attributed to these outcomes in an idealized, that is, intentionally distorted way and abstracted from aspects that are deemed irrelevant. Different types of methods do so in different ways. As a consequence, they instantiate the properties that result from abstraction and idealization such as conceptual simplicity versus complexity, or comprehensiveness versus selectivity of the values under consideration to different degrees. (...) I hold that none of these methods is best in general. Instead, I opt for the valuation method that is useful for the policy issue in question both in terms of its relevance and in terms of its practicability. Relevance requires that the method can represent and account for what is at stake in the policy issue. Practicability refers to aspects such as easy versus difficult handling of the method. To argue for the claim, I evaluate three types of valuation methods: cost–benefit analysis that rests on unidimensional measurement and ranking, multi-criteria decision analysis that applies multi-dimensional measurement but unidimensional ranking, and non-aggregate indicator systems that operate with multi-dimensional measurement and sometimes also multi-dimensional ranking. Second-order justification indicating whether and how the valuation method chosen is capable of accounting for the substantive value considerations that constitute the real-world policy issue in question renders the conditions on which the results of a proposed policy evaluation rest transparent. (shrink)

Most scientists agree that; at least for the time being; unquantified uncertainties are inevitably connected to predictions of climate models. Uncertainties; however; do not justify political inaction. This paper addresses the question of how epistemic uncertainties are of relevance for practical decision making. It is shown how common decision approaches based on the precautionary principle fail to adequately deal with uncertainties as they arise in climate modeling. I argue that with regards to climate change; unquantified uncertainties can neither be ignored (...) in decision making nor be reduced to quantified ones by assigning subjective probabilities. This distinguishes the ethical problems associated with climate change from other problems regarding energy supply and demand like; for example; those associated with nuclear power. (shrink)

Between the fourth and the recent fifth IPCC report, science as well as policy making have made great advances in dealing with uncertainties in global climate models. However, the uncertainties public decision making has to deal with go well beyond what is currently addressed by policy makers and climatologists alike. It is shown in this paper that within an anthropocentric framework, a whole hierarchy of models from various scientific disciplines is needed for political decisions as regards climate change. Via what (...) is sometimes referred to as ‘uncertainty cascade’ in the technical literature, the uncertainties of various models accumulate in the input to political decision making. This paper aims to chart the uncertainties in the multi-disciplinary enterprise of current climate modeling in broad strokes. It is shown that the uncertainty cascade makes it impossible to quantify uncertainties in the form of probability estimates. Moreover the paper highlights how global climate models fail to provide probability estimates. A better treatment of the uncertainties of climate predictions on the political level would require an overhaul of the current IPCC practice that separates the various scientific fields in various working groups. (shrink)

The harms of climate change are deeply uncertain. Though climate change will render most individuals more vulnerable to harm, many individuals will not actually suffer climate-related harms. In this paper, I argue that vulnerability to harms is itself a harm, because it undermines our enjoyment of the good of security. After some brief remarks on the concept of security, I give three reasons for thinking that depriving an individual of the security of basic goods harms them: it has a strong (...) contingent connection to fear and anxiety, it directly undermines their ability to make reasonable plans, and security may reasonably be valued as an end in itself. This suggests that one of our goals in determining climate policy ought to be mechanisms which ensure the security of basic goods. (shrink)

What makes climate change such a difficult problem to solve is that it is so pervasive: it is global but with very different effects on regions and nations. It stretches through time to many future generations. Its causes are ultimately the growth of population, the structure of production and growing consumption: greater numbers require ever more to make them happy.

Despite the growing interest in examining the role of religious beliefs as a guide towards environmental conscious actions, there is still a lack of research informed by an analysis of divine messages. This deficiency includes the extent to which ethics for environmental responsibility are promoted within textual divine messages; types of environmental themes promoted within the text of divine messages; and implications of such religious environmental ethics for business practice. The present study attempts to fill this gap by conducting a (...) thorough content analysis of environmental themes within the divine message of Muslims focusing on their related ethical aspects and business implications. The analysis has revealed 675 verses in 84 chapters throughout all 30 parts of the Qur’an, with environmental content relating to the core components of the natural world, i.e. human beings, water, air, land, plants, animals, and other natural resources. This environmental content and its related ethics are grounded on the belief that humans are vicegerents of God on the earth and their behaviours and actions are motivated by earthly and heavenly rewards. Implications of these findings for different sectors/businesses are also highlighted. (shrink)

A growing body of literature has thought to draw the link between Islamic ethics and environmental stewardship to explain the foundational principles of why humans should care about the environment, which gave rise to the coining of the term “Eco-Islam”. But only recently have we started to witness the birth of empirical examinations of the Eco-Islam concept, going beyond the why principles and so explaining what is meant by the environment, the role of humans towards it, and its regard as (...) explained in the holy book of Muslims—the Qur’an. However, these foundational (why and what) principles do not suggest specific behavioural actions. This study conceptually and methodologically advances the existing literature from the belief (why and what) level of Islamic teachings about the environment to the action level by addressing questions such as: how can we take our belief of “Eco-Islam” to actually guide behaviours and outcomes? And in which business contexts are these behavioural principles more immediately applicable? To achieve this, we have undertaken qualitative research to analyse the content (i.e. verses) of the holy Qur’an. Our findings yield a framework that proposes key behavioural application principles (how) of Eco-Islam. Examples of practical applications of the framework and policy implications are discussed. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to explore the potential contribution of Axel Honneth's critical theory of recognition to empirical and normative debates on global justice. I first present, very briefly, an overview of recent theories of global distributive justice. I argue that theorists of distributive justice do not pay enough attention to sources of self-respect and conditions for identity formation, and that they are blind toward the danger of harming people's sense of self even by well-intentioned redistributive policies. Honneth's (...) theory suffers from complementary shortcomings; it is anti-technocratic but largely oblivious to the global nature of many contemporary justice claims. Given this situation, I seek to broaden the theory's scope by outlining transnational extensions of the recognition principles of love, rights and solidarity identified by Honneth. In conclusion, I show how utilizing a broadened conceptualization of the struggle for recognition allows us to better understand the changing logic of justice-oriented foreign policies. (shrink)

Both modernist and post-modern social criticism of power presuppose that agents frequently consent to power relations, which a political theorist may wish to critique. This raises the question: from what normative position can one critique power which is, as a sociological fact, legitimate in the eyes of those who reproduce it? This paper argues that "symbolic violence" is a useful metaphor for providing such a normative grounding. In order to provide an epistemological basis of critique, it is further argued that (...) social actors have multiple interpretative horizons available to them as part of their everyday social practices. Thus, they are not caught in a preconstituted web of meaning from which there is no escape, as is sometimes implicit in the over-socialized perceptions of agency associated with post-modernism. (shrink)

For over two decades, international environmental equity - the fair and just sharing of the burdens associated with environmental changes - has been the subject of much debate by philosophers, activists and diplomats concerned about climate change. It has been manifested in many international environmental agreements, notably the Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Kyoto Protocol. The question arises as to whether it is being put into practice in this context. Are the requirements of international environmental equity merely words (...) and principles in international instruments, or are they having a practical effect on the policies of state governments? This article aims to start answering these questions. It examines whether the European Union (EU) and its member states are sharing the burdens of climate change. The article introduces equity in the context of the climate change agreements and looks at some normative and practical considerations. It suggests that Europe has been a leader on international equity in the climate change negotiations over the last decade, and it points to what European states and the EU have done to take on some of the burdens of climate change. Europe's actions are briefly assessed from practical and normative perspectives. Europe is doing more than any other part of the world to address climate change and to share the burdens associated with it. Nevertheless, Europe is not doing as much to address this problem as it can and should do. Both practical and normative imperatives demand more urgent action by Europe to implement climate equity. (shrink)

The first United Nations Millennium Development Goal calls for a distinct reduction of worldwide poverty. It is now widely accepted that the private sector is a crucial partner in achieving this ambitious target. Building on this insight, the ‹Bottom of the Pyramid’ concept provides a framework that highlights the untapped opportunities with the ‹poorest of the poor’, while at the same time acknowledging the abilities and resources of private enterprises for poverty alleviation. This article connects the idea of business with (...) the poor to sustainable development and especially to the notions of inter- and intragenerational justice. These principles of justice can be linked with the ‹Bottom of the Pyramid’ approach directly through the Rawlsian principles to foster holistic thinking. On this basis, the article offers a normative-ethical reasoning of corporations’ possible responsibilities for the poorest of the poor. Today’s state of worldwide inequalities is likely to generate future tensions between the privileged western world and the uncounted mass of poor (let alone the ethical dubiousness of this status). However, it is at the same time problematic if not even impossible to improve the situation of the poor by simply copying the resource intensive western way of living to the ‹Bottom of the Pyramid’ due to the limited carrying capacity of the earth. After highlighting possible moral dilemmas which may occur through such a potential trade off, this article concludes with an outlook on how the concepts ‹Bottom of the Pyramid’ and sustainable development could be combined. (shrink)

The paper adopts the co-evolutionary perspective on the human society/natural environment relationship developed, particularly, by the economist Richard Norgaard. This implies that human environmental knowledge is necessarily dynamic and incomplete. By extension, it is also fragmentary, in the sense that what may hold true when considering particular spatial and/or temporal scales may otherwise be false. The paper briefly explores the implications for rationality and belief, focusing particularly on the powerful role of metaphor in our collective and individual sense-making. The implications (...) of one particular metaphor—that of natural capital—are explored. Tentative conclusions about useful educational design are proposed, drawing on recent research. (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)

This study examined the drivers of climate change innovations and the effects of these innovations on firm outcomes in a sample of 203 firms in the South Australian wine cluster. The results of structural equation modeling analysis suggest that absorptive capacity has a direct effect on climate change innovations, and stimulates knowledge exchanges between firms in the cluster. KEs between firms in the cluster in turn directly affect the climate change innovations. The findings suggest a perhaps counterintuitive interrelationship between firm- (...) and cluster-level impacts, in which KEs between firms in the cluster play a partial mediating role in the innovation process. The study further finds that climate change innovations are related to firm performance and reductions in greenhouse gases : mitigative innovations lead to greater GHG reductions while adaptive innovations impact on FP. Contributions of the findings are discussed, as are future research directions. (shrink)

Decisions in the environmental and in particular the climate domain are burdened with uncertainty. Here, we focus on uncertainties faced by individuals when making decisions about environmental behavior, and we use the statistical sampling framework to develop a classification of different sources of uncertainty they encounter. We then map these sources to different public policy strategies aiming to help individuals cope with uncertainty when making environmental decisions.

Climate change presents us with a problem of intergenerational justice. While any costs associated with climate change mitigation measures will have to be borne by the world’s present generation, the main beneficiaries of mitigation measures will be future generations. This raises the question to what extent present generations have a responsibility to shoulder these costs. One influential approach for addressing this question is to appeal to neo-classical economic cost–benefit analyses and so-called economy-climate “integrated assessment models” to determine what course of (...) action a principle of intergenerational welfare maximization would require of us. I critically examine a range of problems for this approach. First, integrated assessment models face a problem of underdetermination and induction: They are very sensitive to a number of highly conjectural assumptions about economic responses to a temperature and climate regime, for which we have no empirical evidence. Second, they involve several simplifying assumptions which cannot be justified empirically. And third, some of the assumptions underlying the construction of economic models are intrinsically normative assumptions that reflect value judgments of the modeler. I conclude that, while integrated assessment models may play a useful role as “toy models,” their use as tools for policy optimization is highly problematic. (shrink)

This paper argues that there are good reasons to limit the scope of luck egalitarianism to co‐existing people. First, I outline reasons to be sceptical about how “luck” works intergenerationally and therefore the very grounding of luck egalitarianism between non‐overlapping generations. Second, I argue that what Kasper Lippert‐Rasmussen calls the “core luck egalitarian claim” allows significant intergenerational inequality which is a problem for those who object to such inequality. Third, luck egalitarianism cannot accommodate the intuition that it might be required (...) to leave future generations better off than we are, even if it would come at no cost to ourselves. Finally, I argue that following another, broader, version of luck egalitarianism would require us to level down future generations and possibly even ourselves, which is a problem for those persuaded by the levelling‐down objection. (shrink)

Consider any choice that affects some social policy. A decision that considers evidence will, at its heart, contain some kind of explicit or implicit “because” statement: “We are doing X because the evidence says Y.” But can evidence ever truly speak for itself, in the sense of being reducible to objective utterances that are either correct or in need of correction? Before answering, consider what you'd prefer. Would you rather receive evidence that was free of any value judgments imposed by (...) human actors, that was laden with value judgments that you agree with, or laden with value judgments that you disagree with? The central assertion of this essay is that, throughout policy analysis but especially in assessments of the costs and benefits of regulating versus encouraging new technologies (cost‐benefit analysis, or CBA), the first possibility above is a mirage, and the second and third are self‐contradictory. Instead, we are overwhelmingly confronted with a fourth possibility: we receive evidence that appears to be (or is deliberately touted as) value neutral but is suffused with hidden value judgments.In the second part of this essay, entitled “A Guided Tour through Inevitable Value Judgments,” I identify in a systematic way approximately sixty‐five value judgments that are routinely (in some cases, invariably) made in CBA, but that are kept hidden. For each judgment, I discuss its genesis as it is most commonly invoked in CBA, explain how it is hidden in plain sight, and offer one or more value judgments that could be made instead of or in addition to the conventional one. The alternative judgments highlight the width of the spectrum of reasonable conclusions an analyst could reach merely by substituting other judgments for the ones currently embedded.Bringing hidden value judgments to light is doubly valuable. First, it allows discussion to ensue on a level playing field; instead of conclusory statements about what the evidence says, transparency permits statements taking the form of “when channeled through these value judgments, the evidence says this.” Perhaps more importantly, transparency about value judgments permits participants in the discussions to offer interpretations of evidence contingent on there being different value judgments chosen at one or more points in the analysis, interpretations that may suggest that alternative course(s) of action are preferable to the one being championed. (shrink)

This paper delves into the work of Clive L. Spash, a British radical ecological economist well-known in his field who currently holds a professorship at the Vienna University of Economics and Business. We start with an examination of the principles of his “social ecological economics.” We then critically evaluate his attack on economic growth and his perspective on the standard economic models of climate change. Lastly, we explore his approach to science as a theoretical pursuit and his policy recommendations. The (...) first version of this paper was given as a keynote lecture at the 7th Austrian Economics Meeting Europe, May 12-13, 2023, Université Catholique de l’Ouest, Angers, France, and a second version at the Summer University in Political Economy, July 20-22, 2023, Aix-Marseille University, France. I wish to thank the organizers of these conferences, and also the anonymous referees whose remarks have been taken into account to improve the paper. (shrink)

Abstract Environmental and public health-focused sciences are increasingly characterised as constituting an emerging discipline—planetary medicine. From a governance perspective, the ethical components of that discipline may usefully be viewed as bestowing upon our ailing natural environment the symbolic moral status of a patient. Such components emphasise, for example, the origins and content of professional and social virtues and related ethical principles needed to promote global governance systems and policies that reduce ecological stresses and pathologies derived from human overpopulation, selfishness and (...) greed—such as pollution, loss of biodiversity, deforestation and greenhouse gas emissions, as well as provide necessary energy, water and food security. Less well explored in this context, however, is the ethics that should underpin global use of emerging technologies such as nanotechnology as forms of planetary therapeutics. Nanotechnology may be particularly important, for instance, as a mechanism for improving upon photosynthesis and engineering it into human structures for localised production of carbon-neutral hydrogen based-fuel and carbohydrate-based food and fertilizer. Artificial photosynthesis, because of its unique and widespread public and environmental benefits in this period of human history, may even be termed the moral culmination of nanotechnology, assisting this planet to move beyond the Anthropocene epoch to that of the Sustainocene. This paper explores practical steps towards planetary nanomedicine involving governance of artificial photosynthesis, including a UNESCO Universal Declaration on the Bioethics and Human Rights of Natural and Artificial Photosynthesis (Global Solar Fuels and Foods ). Content Type Journal Article Category Original Paper Pages 1-13 DOI 10.1007/s11569-012-0144-4 Authors Thomas Faunce, College of Medicine, Biology and the Environment and College of Law (joint Appointment), Australian National University, Acton, Australia Journal NanoEthics Online ISSN 1871-4765 Print ISSN 1871-4757. (shrink)

In this essay we develop and argue for the adoption of a more comprehensive model of research ethics than is included within current conceptions of responsible conduct of research (RCR). We argue that our model, which we label the ethical dimensions of scientific research (EDSR), is a more comprehensive approach to encouraging ethically responsible scientific research compared to the currently typically adopted approach in RCR training. This essay focuses on developing a pedagogical approach that enables scientists to better understand and (...) appreciate one important component of this model, what we call intrinsic ethics . Intrinsic ethical issues arise when values and ethical assumptions are embedded within scientific findings and analytical methods. Through a close examination of a case study and its application in teaching, namely, evaluation of climate change integrated assessment models, this paper develops a method and case for including intrinsic ethics within research ethics training to provide scientists with a comprehensive understanding and appreciation of the critical role of values and ethical choices in the production of research outcomes. (shrink)

Many of the ethical problems that are posed by development can be illuminated by clarifying some of the differences between development that is worthwhile and ethically undesirable ?maldevelopment?. So it is with development projects that displace communities that physically stand in their way: typically the ?oustees? are victimized and disempowered, in some cases by projects that are also indefensible in other ways. Can this help us to clarify what is owed to people who are displaced by climate change, the ?climate (...) migrants? or ?climate refugees?? These people, I will show, have a distinctive set of moral entitlements, which may include compensation and aid for resilience or resettlement; in addition, they are entitled to be included in decision-making in ways that are empowering. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:The literatures of business ethics and international business have generally had little influence on each other. Nevertheless, the decline in the power of nation states, the emergence of non-governmental organizations, the proliferation of self-regulatory bodies, and the changing responsibilities, roles, and structure of multinational corporations make constructive engagement between these two disciplines imperative. This changing institutional landscape creates many areas of common concern. In this article, we describe the changing institutional context of global business and suggest ways in which both (...) business ethics and international business may inform each other more fruitfully. (shrink)

Work on global ethics looks at ethical connections on a global scale. It should link closely to environmental ethics, recognizing that we live in unified social-ecological systems, and to development ethics, attending systematically to the lives and interests of contemporary and future poor, marginal and vulnerable persons and groups within these systems and to the effects on them of forces around the globe. Fulfilling these tasks requires awareness of work outside academic ethics alone, in other disciplines and across disciplines, in (...) public debates and private agendas. A relevant ethics enterprise must engage in systematic description and understanding of the ethical stances that are expressed or hidden in the work of influential stakeholders and analysts, and seek to influence and participate, indeed embed itself, in the expressed and hidden choice-making involved in designing and conducting scientific research and in policy analysis and preparation; it will contribute in value-critical and interpretive policy analysis. It will explore how the allocation of attention and of concern in research and policy depend on perceptions of identity and of degrees of interconnection, and are influenced by the choice or avoidance of humanistic interpretive methodologies. The paper illustrates these themes with reference to the study of climate change. (shrink)

The language of ‘human security’ arose in the 1990s, including from UN work on ‘human development’. What contributions can it make, if any, to the understanding and especially the valuation of and response to the impacts of climate change? How does it compare and relate to other languages used in describing the emergent crises and in seeking to guide response, including languages of ‘externalities’, public goods and incentives, cost-benefit and cost-effectiveness analysis? The paper examines in particular the formulations in those (...) terms in Stiglitz's Making Globalization Work and Stern's The Economics of Climate Change and Blueprint for a Safer Planet, and how these authors are left groping for frameworks to motivate the changes required for global sustainability. It undertakes comparison also with the languages of human development and human rights, and suggests that, not least through enriching our skills of ‘narrative imagination’, the human security framework supports a series of essential changes in orientation—in our conceptions of selfhood, well-being and situatedness in Nature—and supports a required greater solidarity and greater awareness of our inter-connectedness. (shrink)

The argument has been made that future generations of human beings are being harmed unjustifiably by the actions individuals commit today. This paper addresses what it might mean to harm future generations, whether we might harm them, and what our duties toward future generations might be. After introducing the Global Health Impact (GHI) concept as a unit of measurement that evaluates the effects of human actions on the health of all organisms, an incomplete theory of human justice is proposed. Having (...) shown that the negative GHIs of our current generation cause unfair harm to future generations, I argue that each human being must be allocated a fair threshold of negative GHIs that should not be exceeded. By emphasising the need to consider all the GHIs of human actions, the theory of human justice developed here is highly relevant to evaluate human actions that might affect future generations, for example those related to climate change. (shrink)

In a previous work, I argued that all human beings should possess the right to adequate health protection and that we have good reasons to believe that not all human beings are or will be able to enjoy this right. I introduced the ?Global Health Impact? or ?GHI? concept as a unit of measurement to evaluate the effects of human actions on the health of human and nonhuman organisms and argued that the negative GHIs produced by our current generation jeopardise (...) the right to adequate health protection of future generations unjustifiably. In this article, this incomplete theory of human justice is applied to the negative GHIs associated with the consumption of farmed animal products. Since the negative GHIs of such products generally exceed those associated with other diets, I argue that those who exceed their fair share of negative GHIs might curtail their consumption and that the costs of reducing negative GHIs in this domain might be lower than the costs associated with other things that could be done to reduce negative GHIs. (shrink)

The prominent burden-sharing principles in the emerging literature of the political theory of climate change fail to sufficiently tackle the task they set out to solve. This paper sets out properties that an alternative principle should aim to meet. Based on these properties, it develops a consequentialist moral principle – the wastefulness principle. This principle holds that it is wrong to waste a shared, scarce resource. The paper argues that this principle can be used to solve the question of who (...) should bear the burdens of anthropogenic climate change in a more suitable way than existing principles. After developing the wastefulness principle, this paper discusses in a non-exhaustive manner how it can be employed in the real world, which challenges it might meet, and how additional principles might solve them. (shrink)