Philosophy and Climate Change (Engaging Philosophy)

✍ Scribed by Mark Budolfson (editor), Tristram McPherson (editor), David Plunkett (editor)

• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Year: 2021
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 425
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

Climate change is poised to threaten, disrupt, and transform human life, and the social, economic, and political institutions that structure it. Philosophy and Climate Change argues that understanding climate change, and discussing how to address it, should be at the very center of our public conversation. It shows that philosophy can make an enormous contribution to that conversation, but only if both philosophers and non-philosophers understand what it can contribute. The sixteen original articles collected in this volume both illustrate the diverse ways that philosophy can contribute to this conversation, and ways in which thinking about climate change can help to illuminate a range of topics of independent interest to philosophers.

✦ Table of Contents

Cover
Philosophy and Climate Change
Copyright
Contents
Acknowledgments
List of Figures
List of Tables
List of Contributors
Abstracts of Chapters
Section I. Valuing Climate Change Impacts
1 A Convenient Truth? Climate Change and Quality of Life
2 Animals and Climate Change
3 Discounting under Risk: Utilitarianism vs. Prioritarianism
4 A Philosopher’s Guide to Discounting
5 Does Climate Change Policy Depend Importantly on Population Ethics? Deflationary Responses to the Challenges of Population Ethics for Public Policy
Section II. Cognition, Emotions, and Climate Change
7 The Wages of Fear? Toward Fearing Well About Climate Change
8 Climate Change and Cultural Cognition
Section III. Climate Change and Individual Ethics
9 Climate Change and Individual Obligations: A Dilemma for the Expected Utility Approach, and the Need for an Imperfect View
10 The Puzzle of Inefficacy
11 On Individual and Shared Obligations: In Defense of the Activist’s Perspective
12 How Much Harm Does Each of Us Do?
Section IV. Climate Change and Politics
13 How Quickly Should the World Reduce its Greenhouse Gas Emissions? Climate Change and the Structure of Intergenerational Justice
14 Political Realism, Feasibility Wedges, and Opportunities for Collective Action on Climate Change
15 Pareto Improvements and Feasible Climate Solutions
16 Climate Change, Liberalism, and the Public/Private Distinction
Introduction
Section I: Valuing Climate Change Impacts
Chapter 1: A Convenient Truth?: Climate Change and Quality of Life
1. Introduction
2. The Nature and Measure of Subjective Well-Being
3. Subjective Well-Beingand Its Correlates
4. Affect as Information and Guidance
5. Affect and Subjective Well-Being
6. A Recent Critique
7. Subjective Well-Beingand Climate
References
Chapter 2: Animals and Climate Change
1. Introduction
2. Farmed Animals, Climate Change, and a Duty to Resist
3. Wild Animals, Climate Change, and a Duty to Assist
4. Animals, Climate Change, and a Life Worth Living
5. Animals, Climate Change, and a Life Worth Creating
6. Conclusion
References
Chapter 3: Discounting under Risk: Utilitarianism vs. Prioritarianism
1. Introduction
2. Choice of the Social Welfare Framework: Utilitarianism vs. Prioritarianism
2.1 Risk and Equity: Aggregation Issues
2.2 Social Welfare Function
3. Implications for Discounting
3.1 Preliminaries
3.2 Utilitarianism and the Ramsey Rule
3.3 Utilitarian Discounting and the Precautionary Effect
3.4 Discounting under Alternative Welfare Frameworks
4. Conclusions
References
Chapter 4: A Philosopher’s Guide to Discounting
1. Introducing and Defending the Ramsey Rule
2. Why the Terms of Measurement Matter
3. Descriptivism and Prescriptivism in Discounting Methodology
4. The Role of Moral Experts in Parameter Assignments
5. Conclusion
References
Chapter 5: Does Climate Change Policy Depend Importantly on Population Ethics?: Deflationary Responses to the Challenges of Population Ethics for Public Policy
1. Introduction
2. Population Axiology and the Repugnant Conclusion
3. First Deflationary Response: Axiologies May Agree about Climate Change
4. Second Deflationary Response: Bounded Population Principles
4.1 Axiology with Population Size Bounds
4.2 Possibility Proof for Escaping the Repugnant Conclusion while Satisfying Bounded Versions of Population Ethics Desiderata
5. Conclusion
Appendix: A Smoothness Axiom and a New Argument for Total Utilitarianism
References
Section II: Cognition, Emotions, and Climate Change
Chapter 6: Way to Go, Me
1. Introduction
2. Climate Change as a Creeping Environmental Problem
3. Different Orientations
4. Switching Between Orientations and Mindset M
5. Seeking Self-Praiseversus Avoiding Self-Blame
6. Conclusion
References
Chapter 7: The Wages of Fear?: Toward Fearing Well About Climate Change
1. The Promise of Fear
2. The Wages of Fear
3. The Possibility of Hope
4. The Perils of Hope
5. Civic Fear
6. Conclusion
References
Chapter 8: Climate Change and Cultural Cognition
1. Introduction
2. Cultural Cognition
3. Values or Beliefs?
4. Cultural Cognition and Coincidence
5. Geoengineering
6. Conclusion
References
Section III: Climate Change and Individual Ethics
Chapter 9: Climate Change and Individual Obligations: A Dilemma for the Expected Utility Approach, and the Need for an Imperfect View
1. Introduction
2. A Dilemma for the Expected Utility Approach
3. Diagnosis
4. The Imperfect Approach
5. Extension to Other Cases
References
Chapter 10: The Puzzle of Inefficacy
1. Introduction
2. Introducing the Puzzle of Inefficacy
3. Ethical Structure and Social Structure
4. Contribution Ethics: A Sketch
5. Negligibility and Interaction
6. Conclusions
References
Chapter 11: On Individual and Shared Obligations: In Defense of the Activist’s Perspective
1. The Activist’s Perspective
2. Two Problems of Individual Incapability and Group Agency
3. Obligations
4. Irreducibly Shared Obligations
5. Collective Obligations in Spite of Individual Incapability
6. Remaining Problems of Collective Capability and Individual Incapability
References
Chapter 12: How Much Harm Does Each of Us Do?
1. Sorts of Harm and Their Quantity
2. New Data and Estimates
3. Lives for Money
4. The Consequences of Discounting
5. Conclusion and Why It Matters
References
Section IV: Climate Change and Politics
Chapter 13: How Quickly Should the World Reduce its Greenhouse Gas Emissions?: Climate Change and the Structure of Intergenerational Justice
1. Introduction
2. Reflections on the Dominant Approach
2.1 Basic Notions of Welfare Economics
2.2 Our Runaway Emissions Are Not in Fact Pareto-Inefficient
2.3 Kaldor-Hicks Efficiency Likewise Cannot Recommend Significantly Cutting Our Emissions
2.4 The Collapse of Climate Economics into a Narrow Form of Total Utilitarianism
2.5 Economic Analysis of Climate Policy Is Subject to the Repugnant Conclusion
2.6 The Need for Discounting Consumption Possibilities in the Future
2.7 Welfarism Is At Best a Class of Pro Tanto Reasons
2.8 We Do Not Owe It to Future People to Bring Them into Existence
3. Outline of a More Adequate Approach
3.1 The Real Puzzle of Intergenerational Justice
3.2 Understanding the Full Measure of the Problem
3.3 Elements of a Solution: Two Supporting Considerations
3.4 Elements of a Solution: Two Ideas Needed to Side-step the Non-Identity Problem
3.5 Extending the Reasoning Indefinitely Backwards and Forwards in Time
3.6 The Duty to Avoid Allowing Catastrophes to Take Place in the Distant Future
4. Conclusion
References
Chapter 14: Political Realism, Feasibility Wedges, and Opportunities for Collective Action on Climate Change
1. Overview
2. The Realist Argument and Efficiency Without Sacrifice
3. Posner, Weisbach, and Sunstein’s Version of Efficiency Without Sacrifice: Intratemporal Transfers
4. Broome’s Version of Efficiency Without Sacrifice: Intergenerational Transfers
5. Is Broome’s Proposal Feasible? How Realistic Is It?
6. Why the Realist Argument for Efficiency Without Sacrifice Is Invalid
7. Feasibility Wedges and a Meta-Architecture for Global Agreement
References
Chapter 15: Pareto Improvements and Feasible Climate Solutions
1. Introduction
2. The Concept of ‘Political Feasibility’
2.1 A Working Definition of ‘Political Feasibility’
2.2 Feasibility and Self-Interest
3. International Paretianism and Climate Change
3.1 Prospects for IP Climate Treaties
3.1.1 Climate Change as a Coordination Game
3.1.2 Climate Change as a Prisoners’ Dilemma
3.2 Does ‘Self-Interest’Suffice?
4. The Feasibility of IP Climate Deals
References
Chapter 16: Climate Change, Liberalism, and the Public/Private Distinction
1. Climate Change and the Anthropocene
2. Liberalism and the Public/Private Distinction
3. The Distinction Under Pressure
4. Pressure Drop?
5. Concluding Remarks
References
Index