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Confronting climate change: Ethical issues Paul Benson October, 2006 Overview of issues • The fact-value distinction: – How are ethical judgments related to scientific judgments about empirical issues? • The ethical domain: – How are ethical values related to values in general? • Uncertainty: – What principles should guide ethical decisions in the face of uncertainty (not merely risk)? Overview of issues (cont.) • Cost-benefit analysis (CBA): – Is CBA an ethically acceptable method for guiding responses to the possibility of global climate change? • Historical considerations: – Do industrialized nations have special responsibilities to limit GHG emissions that do not apply to developing nations? • Special ethical status of climate: – Does protection of basic earth systems, such as climate, have unique ethical value? Questions from last class • What are the implications for public policy of the “messiness” of the data re. climate change? • What level of empirical certainty should be required in order to justify major change in public policy? • Why not err on the side of precaution? Where does the burden of the argument rest? • What time scale is most germane to present public policy decisions? • Discussion question #1: – Are decisions about what constitutes “dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate” value judgments which necessarily reach beyond scientific sources of evidence? (IPCC 2001) • Discussion question #2: – Do you agree with Gardiner’s contention that “…the temptation to defer to experts in other disciplines should be resisted. Climate change is fundamentally an ethical issue”? Philosophy is not a luxury … “…the public and political debate surrounding climate change is often simplistic, misleading, and awash with conceptual confusion. Moral philosophers should see this as a call to arms. Philosophical clarity is urgently needed.” (Gardiner 2004, 595) The “fact-value” distinction • Science aims at description; evaluative judgments aim at prescription • Belief-guiding inquiry vs. action-guiding inquiry – Difference in “direction of fit” between beliefs and decisions or intentions • “Bridge concepts” (e.g., health/disease, sustainability, natural) The “fact-value” distinction • David Hume’s challenge: “Reason is, and ought only to be, a slave of the passions.” Can passions be more or less reasonable? • Preferences derived from unreasonable inferences • Perverse preferences • Imprudent preferences (neglect of “future self”) • Mere preferences vs. preferences about what to prefer (higher-order preferences) Conclusion: Difference between mere passions and value judgments susceptible to reasoning The domain of ethical value • Many domains of value; many reasonable ways to assess what should matter or has value • How often is climate change approached from a distinctively ethical perspective? • Some marks of the ethical: – – – – – Impartiality of reasons Equality of persons Universalizability of reasons (role-reversal tests) Promotion of benevolence, concern for common good Certain types of emotional responsiveness… New Orleans, September 2005 Apply to discussion questions … • Discussion question #1: – Are decisions about what constitutes “dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate” value judgments? • Discussion question #2: – Is Gardiner correct that climate change is fundamentally an ethical issue”? Uncertainty • Decision-theoretic risk vs. uncertainty • Are the possible harms of global climate change risks, or are they uncertainties? • When is it reasonable to act in the face of uncertainty (not mere risk)? Acting in the face of uncertainty • Inaction is not, in general, a reasonable response to genuine uncertainty • Acting in the face of uncertainty is fairly common • Various components of uncertainty: – What kind of information is missing? – What is the relationship between the uncertainty and one’s deepest values? What is at stake? – What are the respective time-frames for resolving the uncertainty and for taking appropriate action? The maximin principle • Def: Act so as to maximize well-being should the worst-case scenario occur; act so as to prioritize reasonable protection for the worst-off. The maximin principle • Circumstances when maximin is reasonable: – Probability estimates highly unreliable – Very high stakes: what is at stake has grave importance; some outcomes would be unacceptable – Reasonable to care little about potential gains beyond securing tolerable worst-off case • Do these conditions apply, given current level of information about climate change (cf. 577)? Cost-benefit analysis (CBA) • Two kinds of cost-benefit comparisons: – Cost-effectiveness, where social goals have been set – CBA as basis for setting social goals [e.g., adopt those goals most likely to maximize net social benefit] • Ethical problems with exclusive reliance on CBA: – Lack of relevant information about long-term effects – Equal costs aren’t necessarily equivalent ethically – Social discount rates function as unethical bias toward the present (“presentism”?) • Total value of land in Denmark, over 500 years (572, n.53) CBA (cont.) • In practice, CBA ignores many kinds of costs, benefits (due to anthropocentrism; econocentrism) • Some costs are beyond price ethically … Historical considerations • Do industrialized nations ethically have the responsibility to take the lead? (Cf. Kyoto) – “Fair shares” are partly shaped by past actions, past distributions of benefit and burden • How important should fairness – as opposed to efficiency – be in determining future-oriented policies? Special ethical status of climate? • Basic conditions for the habitability of the planet may be at issue • Persistent, intergenerational dilemma: “a seriously tragic structure” (595) • Lost sense of the planet as gift; “the end of nature” (Bill McKibben) – Analogy with value of preserving wild places