Climate Matters: Ethics in a Warming World, John Broome (New York: W. W. Norton, 2012), 210 pp., $23.95 cloth (original) (raw)
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Book Review: Climate Matters: Ethics in a Warming World by John Broome
Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal, 2014
John Broome's Climate Matters is a timely, elegant, and accessible book. His book is deliberately interdisciplinary, as is much of his work in moral philosophy more generally. The discussion of what should be done, and by whom, to prevent the adverse effects of climate change is informed by many years of philosophical engagement with economic theory, especially problems arising in the conceptualization and technical implementation of cost-benefit analysis. The central arguments in the book are informed as well by a longstanding engagement with climate change science. Broome brings to bear a perspective forged in the work of his role as a lead author-and occasional critic-of the report of Working Group III of the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. At the heart of the book is a somewhat unconventional thesis regarding the way we should view the moral division of labor between nation-states and individuals in mitigating the serious harm produced by climate change. Roughly, Broome's thesis is that nation-states primarily have impersonal duties of beneficence-duties to bring about good consequences-while individuals have duties of justice, which on Broome's account are largely negative duties, or duties not to cause severe, avoidable harm to specific, identifiable others. There are, of course, critics who deny that the distinction between the domain of justice and the domain of beneficence is as conceptually sharp or as normatively significant as often supposed. Indeed, Broome concedes some lack of sharpness but asserts that the normative difference is real (50). In particular, Broome's claim is that "governments have a stronger moral mandate to make things better," especially for their own citizens (188), but such duties are impersonal, or ones that are not owed to particular people (530). By contrast, the "key defining feature" of duties of justice is that they are owed to particular people who have rights not to be harmed (52). Many of Broome's claims regarding the distinction between beneficence and justice are not developed in much philosophical detail even though it
The 'consequentialist' and 'welfarist' approach − the assessment of a policy in terms of its consequences for individual welfare − that is embodied in standard welfare economics is highly relevant to the ethics of climate change. In Section 2.3, we described the standard approach to ethics in welfare economics i.e. the evaluation of actions in terms of their consequences for consumption by individuals of goods and services. We emphasised that 'goods and services' in consumption were multi-dimensional and should be interpreted broadly. In this appendix we examine that approach in a little more detail and compare it with different ethical perspectives of relevance to the economics of climate change. For many applications of the standard theory, the community is defined as the nation-state and the decision-maker is interpreted as the government. Indeed this is often seen as sufficiently obvious as to go unstated. This is not, of course, intended to deny the complexities and pressures of political systems: the results of this approach should be seen as an ethical benchmark rather than a descriptive model of how political decisions are actually taken. Nevertheless, questions such as 'what do individuals value', 'what should be their relation to decisions and decision-making', 'what is the decision-making process' and 'who are the decision-makers' arise immediately and strongly in the ethical analysis of climate change. These questions take us immediately to different perspectives on ethics. Economics, together with the other social sciences, has in fact embraced a much broader perspective on the objectives of policy than that of standard welfare-economic analysis. Amartya Sen 1 , for example, has focused on the capabilities and freedoms of individuals to live a life they have reason to value, rather than narrowly on the bundles of goods and services they consume. His focus is on opportunities and the processes that create them, rather than on outcomes only. Similar emphases come from discussions of equity 2 (with its focus on opportunity), empowerment 3 , or social inclusion 4. While such perspectives are indeed different, in practice many of the indicators arising from them would overlap strongly with the areas of focus in the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and other indicators commonly used by international institutions. Indeed, the MDGs were the outcome of analyses and discussions which themselves embraced a range of ethical approaches. Impacts of climate change on future generations and other nations raise very firmly questions of rights. Protection from harm done by others lies at the heart of many philosophical approaches to liberty, freedom and justice. 5 Protection from harm is also expressed in many legal structures round the world in terms of legal responsibility for damage to the property or well-being of others. This is often applied whether or not the individual or firm was knowingly doing harm. A clear example is asbestos, whose use was not prohibited 6 when it was placed in buildings with the worthy purpose of protecting against the spread of fire. Nevertheless insurance companies are still today paying large sums as compensation for its consequences.
The Effects of Morality on Acting against Climate Change
Suppose you are a moral error theorist, i.e., you believe that no moral judgment is true. What, then, ought you to do with regard to our common practice of making such judgments? Determining the usefulness of our ordinary moral practice is exacerbated by the great number and variety of moral judgments. In-depth case studies may thus be more helpful in clarifying error theory’s practical implications than reflections about morality in general. In this chapter I pursue this strategy with regard to a particularly important matter, namely climate change. First, I establish general conditions for when a moral judgement has any effect on those who accept it. Second, I show that the judgement that individuals in industrialized countries are morally obliged to act against climate change does not fulfil these conditions, and is thus neither beneficial nor harmful. Finally, I sketch several strategies for increasing people’s non-moral motivation to act against climate.
Climate protection as an ethical challenge
Studia Ecologiae et Bioethicae
Mitigation of the global climate change is one of the most important challenges facing humanity in the 21st century. It will require significant changes in the economy, consumption, the style of life. However, the climate protection is also an ethical problem. It is a problem of responsibility for the climate – the common good of all creatures. This article discusses selected ethical issues that are related to the implementation of climate policy. It was indicated that the acceptance of research results indicating human responsibility for climate change is a prerequisite for active climate action. It has also been found that the common but differentiated responsibility of individual countries is primarily due to their historical greenhouse gas emissions. It also results from the fact that most of the significant negative impacts of climate change will occur in the poorest countries, whose share of greenhouse gas emissions is very small. The rejection of human responsibility for clim...
Jahrbuch für Wissenschaft und Ethik, 2012
Literature on climate change is abundant. Beside the scientific, economic, technological, and political literature, there is also a substantial body of ethical analysis of the many moral problems embedded in climate change. The term "climate ethics" (CE) is used for such analyses. Our aim in this chapter is to present a systematic overview of CE. We distinguish different domains (topics) of CE. 2 A comprehensive CE will be established if well-substantiated positions in each domain can be coherently conjoined. We provide an outline of the main components of such theory. At its core, CE refers to a triangular structure of how to reduce the negative impacts of climate change by a) mitigation (reduction of greenhouse gas emissions), b) adaptation, and c) climate engineering. Some sections below refer to this structure, but, prior to that, we refer to the ethical profile of climate change, followed by a reflection on climate economics. In addition, we discuss distribution schemes for remaining emissions entitlements. We assume some familiarity with the basics of climate science and with mainstream economics.
Climate Change: A Challenge for Ethics
English through Climate Change, 2012
Climate change – and its most dangerous consequence, the rapid overheating of the planet – is not the offspring of a natural procedure; instead, it is human-induced. It is only the aftermath of a specific pattern of economic development, one that focuses mainly on economic growth rather than on quality of life and sustainability. Since climate change is a major threat not only to millions of humans, but also to numerous non-human species and other forms of life, as well as to the equilibrium and the viability of the very planet, addressing it is of dire importance. In this chapter it will be argued that addressing the threat of climate change is primarily a task and a challenge for ethics, since the stabilization and gradual amelioration of the situation requires abandoning an up to now dominant model of life, longestablished customs and a so far cogent system of moral values. It will be further maintained that this for ethics might – or, even, should – become a new categorical imperative, since preserving the viability of the planet is a fundamental moral duty not only towards the existing members of the moral community, but also towards future generations. The chapter provides a glossary of the most important terms used in the text presented in the first part. It also provides different exercises aiming either to further consolidate student understanding of these terms or / and strengthen student grammatical and syntactical skills.