Most normative advice to individuals about what they should do to help prevent climate change focuses on reductions in personal emissions. This is consistent with an accountancy model of morality, with perpetrators held responsible for the harms they individually cause. An alternative focus receiving less popular and philosophical attention, but with greater potential to achieve substantial mitigation outcomes, is citizen activism for systemic reforms. Rather than perpetration priority moral concern can be directed to bystanding. To more effectively guide action, reformist (...) ethics need to be informed by psychosociological research on motivation and societal transformation. (shrink)

And in this book the distinguished scholar Amartya Sen offers a powerful critique of the theory of social justice that, in its grip on social and political ...

Many people, including many egalitarian political philosophers, professa belief in equality while enjoying high incomes of which they devotevery little to egalitarian purposes. The article critically examinesways of resolving the putative inconsistency in the stance of thesepeople, in particular, that favouring an egalitarian society has noimplications for behaviour in an unequal one; that what''s bad aboutinequality is a social division that philanthropy cannot reduce; thatprivate action cannot ensure that others have good lives; that privateaction can only achieve a ``drop in (...) the ocean''''; that private effortis not called for, since justice is a matter for the state to enforce;that private effort cannot remove the fundamental injustice, whichis inequality of power; and that private effort involves an unreasonablylarge psychological burden. (shrink)

The prospect of dangerous climate change requires Humanity to limit the emission of greenhouse gases. This in turn raises the question of how the permission to emit greenhouse gases should be distributed and among whom. In this article the author criticises three principles of distributive justice that have often been advanced in this context. He also argues that the predominantly statist way in which the question is framed occludes some morally relevant considerations. The latter part of the article turns from (...) critique and advances a new way of addressing the problem. In particular, first, it proposes four key theses that should guide our normative analysis; and, second, it outlines how these four theses can be realised in practice. (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)

How do we acquire moral obligations to others? The most straightforward cases are those where we acquire obligations as the result of particular actions which we voluntarily perform. If I promise you that I will trim your hedge, I face a moral Obligation to uphold my promise, and in the absence of some morally significant countervailing reason, I should indeed cut your hedge. Moral obligations which arise as a result of wrongdoing, as a function of corrective justice, are typically thought (...) to be of a similar nature. (shrink)

How do we acquire moral obligations to others? The most straightforward cases are those where we acquire obligations as the result of particular actions which we voluntarily perform. If I promise you that I will trim your hedge, I face a moral Obligation to uphold my promise, and in the absence of some morally significant countervailing reason, I should indeed cut your hedge. Moral obligations which arise as a result of wrongdoing, as a function of corrective justice, are typically thought (...) to be of a similar nature. (shrink)

The primary aim of this paper is to analyze the concept of degrees of causal contribution for actual events and examine the way in which it can be formally defined. This should go some way to filling out a gap in the legal and philosophical literature on causation. By adopting the conception of a cause as a necessary element of a sufficient set (the so-called NESS test) we show that the concept of degrees of causation can be given clear and (...) even empirical meaning. We then apply a game theoretical framework to derive a measure of causal contribution. Our favoured measure turns out to be a generalised version of the normalized Penrose-Banzhaf index of voting power. (shrink)

The primary aim of this paper is to analyze the concept of degrees of causal contribution for actual events and examine the way in which it can be formally defined. This should go some way to filling out a gap in the legal and philosophical literature on causation. By adopting the conception of a cause as a necessary element of a sufficient set (the so-called NESS test) we show that the concept of degrees of causation can be given clear and (...) even empirical meaning. We then apply a game theoretical framework to derive a measure of causal contribution. Our favoured measure turns out to be a generalised version of the normalized Penrose–Banzhaf index of voting power. (shrink)

This paper examines the structure of moral responsibility for outcomes. A central feature of the analysis is a condition that we term the ‘avoidance potential’, which gives precision to the idea that moral responsibility implies a reasonable demand that an agent should have acted otherwise. We show how our theory can allocate moral responsibility to individuals in complex collective action problems, an issue that sometimes goes by the name of ‘the problem of many hands’. We also show how it allocates (...) moral responsibility in the classic Frankfurt example. (shrink)

In an earlier article I argued that individuals are obligated not to exceed their fair share of emissions entitlements, that many exceed their fair share at present and thus ought to reduce their emissions as far as can reasonably be demanded. The peer commentators raised various insightful and pressing concerns, but the following objections seem particularly important: It was argued that the fair share argument is insufficiently justified, that it is incoherent, that it would result in more far-reaching duties than (...) acknowledged by me, that it is unable to provide a clear account of individual duties, and that duties to reduce individual emissions are not Kantian imperfect duties. This reply aims at clarifying the fair share argument and at addressing the major challenges. (shrink)

Although actions of individuals do contribute to climate change, the question whether or not they, too, are morally obligated to reduce the GHG emissions in their responsibility has not yet been addressed sufficiently. First, I discuss prominent objections to such a duty. I argue that whether individuals ought to reduce their emissions depends on whether or not they exceed their fair share of emission rights. In a next step I discuss several proposals for establishing fair shares and also take practical (...) considerations into account. I conclude that individuals should not always be obliged to reduce their emissions to what is their fair share for they may depend on carbon-intensive structures. Instead, they have a Kantian imperfect duty to reduce their emissions ‘as far as can reasonably be demanded of them’. In addition, they should press governments to introduce proper regulation. At the end, I further specify both duties. (shrink)

Given that mitigating climate change is a large-scale global issue, what obligations do individuals have to lower their personal carbon emissions? I survey recent suggestions by Walter Sinnott-Armstrong and Dale Jamieson and offer models for thinking about their respective approaches. I then present a third model based on the notion of structural violence. While the three models are not mutually incompatible, each one suggests a different focus for mitigating climate change. In the end, I agree with Sinnott-Armstrong that people have (...) limited moral obligations to directly lower personal emissions, but I offer different reasons for this conclusion, namely that the structural arrangements of our lives place a limit on how much individuals can restrict their own emissions. Thus, individuals should focus their efforts on changing the systems instead (e.g., the design of cities, laws and regulation, etc.), which will lead to lower emissions on a larger scale. (shrink)

A survey of various candidates shows that there is no defensible moral principle that shows that individuals have an obligation to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions.

Moral duties concerning climate change mitigation are – for good reasons – conventionally construed as duties of institutional agents, usually states. Yet, in both scholarly debate and political discourse, it has occasionally been argued that the moral duties lie not only with states and institutional agents, but also with individual citizens. This argument has been made with regard to mitigation efforts, especially those reducing greenhouse gases. This paper focuses on the question of whether individuals in industrialized countries have duties to (...) reduce their individual carbon footprint. To this end it will examine three kinds of arguments that have been brought forward against individuals having such duties: the view that individual emissions cause no harm; the view that individual mitigation efforts would have no morally significant effect; and the view that lifestyle changes would be overly-demanding. The paper shows how all three arguments fail to convince. While collective endeavours may be most efficient and effective in bringing about significant changes, there are still good reasons to contribute individually to reducing emission. After all, for most people the choice is between reducing one’s individual emissions and not doing anything. The author hopes this paper shows that one should not opt for the latter. (shrink)

The paper argues against the assumption that citizens of industrialized countries bear responsibility for greenhouse emissions in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. An array of arguments for such a historic responsibility is refuted. The crucial role of the assumption of a liability for bona fide misappropriation in a state of nature (Lockean strict liability) is pointed out.

“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)

To what extent is any individual morally obligated to live environmentally sustainably? In answering this, I reject views I see as constituting two extremes. On one, it depends entirely on whether there exists a collective agreement; and if no such agreement exists, no one is obligated to reduce her/his consumption or pollution unilaterally. On the other, the lack of a collective agreement is morally irrelevant, and regardless of what others are doing, each person is obligated to limit her/his pollution and (...) consumption to a level that would be sustainable if everyone were to act in this way. I argue that the truth is somewhere between these, but that a very precise specification of the extent of one's responsibility is impossible. Roughly, what can be said is that each individual ought constantly to strive to do more than she/he does currently and to push her/himself into new, uncomfortable territory, though no one is obligated to martyr her/himself for an environmental cause. (shrink)

This article start from two opposing intuitions in the environmental duties debate. On the one hand, if our lifestyle causes environmental harm, then we have a duty to reduce that impact through lifestyle changes. On the other hand, many people share the intuition that environmental duties cannot demand to alter our lifestyle radically for environmental reasons. These two intuitions underlie the current dualism in the environmental duties debate: those arguing for lifestyle changes and those arguing that our duties are limited (...) to promoting just environmental institutions. The paper has two goals: first, to grasp the underlying reasons for the two intuitions, and, second, to provide a proposal that integrates both intuitions. The paper consists of two main parts. The first part examines the ‘our-duties-should-be-limited’ intuition. Two interpretations are discussed, one under the title ‘what I do make no difference’, dealing with causality and collective action, and one under the title ‘my duty cannot be to change my lifestyle completely’, which discusses demandingness, fairness and value conflict. The second part shows how the ‘lifestyle-matters’ intuition can still play an important role. This part consists of two sections, one on ‘how to make a difference’, which deals with the idea of a cooperative ethos, and the other with ‘why lifestyle matters’, discussing expressive rationality and integrity. These ideas allow giving an important place to lifestyle duties, while avoiding the possible counterproductive effect of a private duties account. (shrink)

Obligations to reduce one’s green house gas emissions appear to be difficult to justify prior to large-scale collective action because an individual’s emissions have virtually no impact on the environmental problem. However, I show that individuals’ emissions choices raise the question of whether or not they can be justified as fair use of what remains of a safe global emissions budget. This is true both before and after major mitigation efforts are in place. Nevertheless, it remains difficult to establish an (...) obligation to reduce personal emissions because it appears unlikely that governments will in fact maintain safe emissions budgets. The result, I claim, is that under current conditions we lack outcome, fairness, promotional, virtue or duty based grounds for seeing personal emissions reductions as morally obligatory. (shrink)

This paper proposes an answer to what Sandler calls ‘the problem of inconsequentialism’; the problem of providing justification for the claim that individuals should engage in unilateral reductions of their personal consumption, even though doing so will make an inconsequential contribution to mitigating the harmful impacts of the global environmental problems that the aggregate of such consumption causes. I provide an answer to this problem by developing a virtue ethics-based argument that a limited but significant class of consumption actions performed (...) by typical consumers in rich, industrialised economies in the global North are moral wrongdoings, and the corresponding unilateral reductions in personal consumption are morally obligatory. I make this argument by drawing an analogy between a typical Northern consumer and a member of a golf club who has discovered that his club causes harm—by dumping used golf balls into a nature reserve—to which he inconsequentially contributes. I advance a moral evaluation of remaining a member of a harming group, based on the attitudes to the harm expressed by so remaining, and on Sandler’s virtue-grounded agent-relative target principle of right action. I examine a number of objections to this argument. I use Elizabeth Cripps’s notion of a ‘harming putative group’ to respond to the objection that the set of individuals whose aggregated consumption causes environmental problems is merely an arbitrary abstract set, membership of which is not justifiable grounds for moral evaluation. I then present two responses to the objection that withdrawal from this harming putative group—by refraining to perform those consumption actions which constitute membership—is unduly demanding. (shrink)

Our thesis is that there is no moral requirement to refrain from emitting reasonable amounts of greenhouse gases solely in order to enjoy oneself. Joyriding in a gas guzzler provides our paradigm example. We first distinguish this claim that there is no moral requirement to refrain from joyguzzling from other more radical claims. We then review several different proposed objections to our view. These include: the claim that joyguzzling exemplifies a vice, causes or contributes to harm, has negative expected value, (...) exceeds our fair share of global emissions, and undermines political duties. We show why none of these objections succeeds and conclude that no good reason has yet been proposed that shows why joyguzzling violates a moral requirement. (shrink)

This article is a response to Marion Hourdequin, 'Climate, Collective Action and Individual Ethical Obligations', Environmental Values 19 (2010): 443—464. As Hourdequin argues, we have an obligation to reduce our individual emissions of greenhouse gases. This obligation is not, however, to reduce to the level that would be sustainable if everyone else did likewise. We are obligated to make limited reductions in the service of our primary obligation to organise and embrace collective schemes to ensure that everyone reduces emissions and (...) that benefits to the environment are proportionate to the sacrifices made. She and I can agree on the existence of an obligation if she recognises that there is a fundamental difference between the obligations we have to avoid individually harmful actions and our obligations in a tragedy of the commons. (shrink)

Both Walter Sinnott-Armstrong and Baylor Johnson hold that under current circumstances, individuals lack obligations to reduce their personal contributions to greenhouse gas emissions. Johnson argues that climate change has the structure of a tragedy of the commons, and that there is no unilateral obligation to reduce emissions in a commons. Against Johnson, I articulate two rationales for an individual obligation to reduce one's greenhouse gas emissions. I first discuss moral integrity, which recommends congruence between one's actions and positions at the (...) personal and political levels. Second, I draw on a Confucian, relational conception of persons to offer a critique of the collective action/tragedy of the commons framework itself. Under the relational conception, commons problems can be reconceptualised so as to dissolve the stark contrast between the individually and the collectively rational. This perspective can inform our approach to climate change and help reconcile individual and political action to mitigate it. (shrink)

John Nolt argues in ‘How harmful are the average American's greenhouse gas emissions?’ that, on average, individual Americans are responsible for the severe suffering and/or death of...

Do I cause global warming, climate change and their related harms when I go for a leisure drive with my gas-guzzling car? The current verdict seems to be that I do not; the emissions produced by my drive are much too insignificant to make a difference for the occurrence of global warming and its related harms. I argue that our verdict on this issue depends on what we mean by ‘causation’. If we for instance assume a simple counterfactual analysis of (...) causation according to which ‘C causes E’ means ‘if C had not occurred, E would not have occurred’, we must conclude that a single drive does not cause global warming. However, this analysis of causation is well-known for giving counterintuitive results in some important cases. If we instead adopt Lewis’s analysis of causation, it turns out that it is indeterminate whether I cause global warming when I go for a single drive. Still, in contexts where we seek to control or understand global warming, there is a pressure to adopt a more fragile view of this event. When we adopt such a view, it turns out that a single drive does cause global warming. This means that we cannot like Sinnott-Armstrong and Kingston and Sinnott-Armstrong reject the idea that I should refrain from going for a leisure drive simply because such a drive does not cause global warming. (shrink)

Debates about individual responsibility for climate change revolve mainly around individual mitigation duties. Mitigation duties concern future impacts of climate change. Unfortunately, climate change has already caused important harms and it is foreseeable that it will cause more in the future, in spite of our best efforts. Thus, arguably, individuals might also have duties related to those harms. In this paper, I address the question of whether individuals are obligated to provide compensation for climate related harms that have already occurred. (...) I explore two possible strategies to answer that question. The straightforward strategy answers in the affirmative. Two approaches embrace this strategy: the ‘ecological citizenship’ approach and the benefits-based approach. I challenge those two approaches and rule out an affirmative answer. The alternative strategy answers in the negative but provides a way to respond to why currently living individuals should pay for burdens created for past individuals. Two possible approaches embrace this alternative: the community-based approach and my own state-based benefits approach. I will argue that individual duties do not fall under the realm of compensatory justice, but they have nonetheless a duty to bear compensatory burdens allocated to their states. (shrink)

This article provides theoretical foundations to the widespread intuition that an individual duty to reduce one's carbon emissions should not be overly demanding, and should leave some space to personal life-projects. It does so by looking into the moral structure of aggregative problems such as climate change, and argues that contributing to climate change is less wrong than causing the same amount of harm in paradigm cases of harm-doing. It follows that strong agent-relative reasons, such as consideration of the agent's (...) most important life-projects, are likely sometimes to outweigh the reasons for refraining from contributing to climate change, especially when there is no alternative course of action. This, however, does not mean that individual carbon-emitters are off the hook, since a lot can be done to reduce carbon emissions without jeopardising one's most important life-projects. (shrink)

Theories of social justice are necessarily abstract, reaching beyond the particular and the immediate to the general and the timeless. Yet such theories, addressing the world and its problems, must respond to the real and changing dilemmas of the day. A brilliant work of practical philosophy, Frontiers of Justice is dedicated to this proposition. Taking up three urgent problems of social justice neglected by current theories and thus harder to tackle in practical terms and everyday life, Martha Nussbaum seeks a (...) theory of social justice that can guide us to a richer, more responsive approach to social cooperation. The idea of the social contract--especially as developed in the work of John Rawls--is one of the most powerful approaches to social justice in the Western tradition. But as Nussbaum demonstrates, even Rawls's theory, suggesting a contract for mutual advantage among approximate equals, cannot address questions of social justice posed by unequal parties. How, for instance, can we extend the equal rights of citizenship--education, health care, political rights and liberties--to those with physical and mental disabilities? How can we extend justice and dignified life conditions to all citizens of the world? And how, finally, can we bring our treatment of nonhuman animals into our notions of social justice? Exploring the limitations of the social contract in these three areas, Nussbaum devises an alternative theory based on the idea of capabilities. She helps us to think more clearly about the purposes of political cooperation and the nature of political principles--and to look to a future of greater justice for all. (shrink)

Climate change is the most difficult threat facing humanity this century and negotiations to reach international agreement have so far foundered on deep issues of justice. Providing provocative and imaginative answers to key questions of justice, informed by political insight and scientific understanding, this book offers a new way forward.

From the 1992 Rio Earth Summit to the 2009 Copenhagen Climate Conference there was a concerted international effort to stop climate change. This book is about what climate change is, why we failed to stop it, and why it still matters what we do.

Esteemed philosopher John Broome avoids the familiar ideological stances on climate change policy and examines the issue through an invigorating new lens. As he considers the moral dimensions of climate change, he reasons clearly through what universal standards of goodness and justice require of us, both as citizens and as governments. His conclusions—some as demanding as they are logical—will challenge and enlighten. Eco-conscious readers may be surprised to hear they have a duty to offset all their carbon emissions, while policy (...) makers will grapple with Broome’s analysis of what if anything is owed to future generations. From the science of greenhouse gases to the intricate logic of cap and trade, Broome reveals how the principles that underlie everyday decision making also provide simple and effective ideas for confronting climate change. Climate Matters is an essential contribution to one of the paramount issues of our time. (shrink)

Climate Change and the Moral Agent examines the moral foundations of climate change and makes a case for collective action on climate change by appealing to moralized collective self-interest, collective ability to aid, and an expanded understanding of collective responsibility for harm.

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)

Carbon offsetting can be loosely characterized as a mechanism by which an organization or individual contributes to a scheme that is projected either to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere or to deliver carbon dioxide emission reductions on the part of other organizations or individuals. An activity that has been offset therefore purports to make no long-term net contribution to atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations. The ethical basis for using carbon offsetting as an approach to tackling climate change is very much (...) contested. We seek to expose some of the underlying reasons for these ethical disagreements. We show that they relate both to empirical disagreements about what the likely benefits of offsetting are and, more fundamentally, to principled disagreements about the right way to discharge duties to deliver carbon reductions. (shrink)

Climate change appears to be a classic aggregation problem, in which billions of individuals perform actions none of which seem to be morally wrong taken in isolation, and yet which combine to drive the global concentration of greenhouse gases (GHGs) ever higher toward environmental (and humanitarian) catastrophe. When an individual can choose between actions that will emit differing amounts of GHGs―such as to choose a vegan rather than carnivorous meal, to ride a bike to work rather than drive a car, (...) or to take a reusable bag to the supermarket rather than send another plastic bag to landfill―does she have any reason to choose the lower-emitting actions? In this chapter I'll reject the claim that individuals don't make a difference when it comes to climate change. I first discuss making a difference with every action, as a way of getting clearer about how individuals' actions impact causally on the harms resulting from climate change, making a distinction so far overlooked in the climate ethics discussion between 'macro' thresholds like ice-cap melt, and 'micro' thresholds like severe weather events. I set aside making a difference with every action as implausible, and then move on to discuss both low probability of major difference, and high probability of minor difference. I argue that both of these are plausible characterizations of individuals' causal contributions to climate change. I conclude by noting some policy implications of having (probabilistic) individual difference-making back in play. (shrink)

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)

Tackling climate change has often been considered the responsibility of national governments. But do individuals also have a duty to act in the face of this problem? In particular, do they have a duty to adopt a greener lifestyle or to press their government to act? This review critically examines the arguments provided for and against such duties in the relevant philosophic literature. It first discusses the problem of causal inefficacy—namely the fact that individual greenhouse gas emissions appear to make (...) no difference to the harmful consequences of climate change—and whether it clears individuals from any moral obligations related to climate change. Then, it considers various other arguments for the existence of such duties, including integrity, fairness, universalizability, or virtue. Finally, it assesses the existence of a duty to promote collective action through active citizenship. The conclusion emphasizes that most writers agree on the fact that individuals have at least some duties to take action against climate change, but that disagreement remains about the exact nature and, above all, the extent of these duties. (shrink)