Climate change poses grave threats to many people, including the most vulnerable. This prompts the question of who should bear the burden of combating ?dangerous? climate change. Many appeal to the Polluter Pays Principle. I argue that it should play an important role in any adequate analysis of the responsibility to combat climate change, but suggest that it suffers from three limitations and that it needs to be revised. I then consider the Ability to Pay Principle and consider four objections (...) to this principle. I suggest that, when suitably modified, it can supplement the Polluter Pays Principle. (shrink)

This article considers the question of the responsibility of present generations for injustices committed by previous ones. It asks whether the descendants of victims of past injustice have claims against the descendants of the perpetrators of injustice. Two modes of argument are examined: the individual responsibility approach, according to which descendants cannot have claims against other descendants, and the collective responsibility approach, according to which descendants do have strong claims. Both approaches are criticized, but for different failings. An alternative view, (...) building on the individualist approach, is defended. This view argues that some people may have to bear responsibility for past injustice if lines of responsibility can clearly be drawn. This is most likely when certain kinds of corporate agents persist over generations, even after original members of such corporations have ceased to exist. Key Words: responsibility • justice • injustice • aborigines • history. (shrink)

The wrongdoing that feminists critique often occurs at the level of social practice where social acceptance of oppressive practices and the absence of widespread moral critique impede the wrongdoer’s awareness of wrongdoing. This chapter argues that under these circumstances individuals are not blameworthy for participating in conventionalized wrongdoing. However, because social vulnerability to reproach is necessary to publicizing moral standards and conveying the obligatory force of moral requirements, it is sometimes reasonable to reproach moral failings even when individuals are excused.