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HOW SHOULD WE THINK ABOUT INDIVIDUAL CULPABILITY FOR CLIMATE CHANGE?
Zac Cogley
Northern Michigan University
[email protected]
(1) Assumptions: Climate change is happening due to global warming, much of the warming is due
to human activities, there are going to be serious problems, the costs of dealing with the
problem are going to be enormous, the major governments of the world have an obligation to
mitigate the damage, if the major governments of the world don’t mitigate the damage, they will
be culpable/blameworthy for doing so.
(2) Moral issues: We can ask a number of ethical questions about climate change.
a. What is the best way to respond?
b. How should we understand the harms?
c. Who is responsible for the problem?
i. Forward looking: who has an obligation to do what things?
ii. Backward looking: who is culpable/who is blameworthy?
(3) The Question of this talk: suppose we don’t mitigate greenhouse gasses when we can. Are we
culpable/blameworthy for doing so? Are we blameworthy for going for a drive, just for fun?
(4) The Simple Harm Argument
a. The Argument
i. We are blameworthy when we act in a way that causes harm to others.
ii. When we fail to mitigate our greenhouse gas emissions, we cause harm to others.
iii. Therefore, we are blameworthy for failing to mitigate our GHG emissions.
(5) The No Harm Argument
a. What’s left out? The enormity of the effect and the insignificance of my emissions.
b. The Argument
i. The harms of climate change will still occur no matter whether I mitigate my
GHG emissions or not. My emissions aren’t necessary.
ii. The harms of climate change will not occur unless lots of other people besides
me emit GHG. My emissions aren’t sufficient.
iii. If my emissions aren’t necessary or sufficient for the harms of climate change,
my emissions don’t cause any harm.
(6) The Complex Harm Argument
a. What’s left out? My emissions must have some effect.
b. The Argument
i. Given the state of the world today, if I fail to mitigate my GHGs, there will be a
positive net increase in the amount of global warming.
ii. If there is a positive net increase in the amount of global warming, there is a
positive amount of harm that will result from it.
iii. I am culpable for causing that amount of harm.
c. How much harm? Nolt’s calculations: an American’s total lifetime GHG emitting
activities causes serious harm to one or two people.
Hiller’s update: ¼ of a day’s emissions (going on a drive) = ¼ of a day’s worth of
serious harm.
HOW SHOULD WE THINK ABOUT INDIVIDUAL CULPABILITY FOR CLIMATE CHANGE?
Zac Cogley
Northern Michigan University
[email protected]
(7) The Nonexistence Argument
a. What’s left out: ¼ of a day’s emissions has no effect on anyone absent (enough of) the
emissions of everyone else.
b. The Argument.
i. Even if I had never lived, the people who will be harmed by climate change
would suffer equivalent harms.
ii. None of my GHG emissions (while living) have any appreciable effect on harms
to others.
iii. None of my acts that emit GHG are responsible for any significant amount of
harms to others.
(8) The Aggregation Argument
a. What’s left out? Our individual nonharmful actions, together with the actions of others,
cause harm. There may be other, analogous cases where people are blameworthy for
acting in ways that don’t have appreciable effects on harms to others.
b. (Parfit 1984)’s cases:
i. Bad Old Days
ii. Harmless Torturers
c. Application to Climate Change
d. Problems
i. Problematic aggregation
ii. No malicious intent
(9) The Participation Argument
a. What’s left out? Participation in practices that characteristically cause harm is
blameworthy, even if no harm is caused.
b. The Argument
i. When we knowingly participate in kinds of activity that reliably lead to harms, we
are blameworthy.
ii. Going for joyrides is a kind of activity that reliably leads to climate harms.
iii. Therefore, we are blameworthy for joyriding.
Partial Bibliography
Hiller, Avram. 2011. “Climate Change and Individual Responsibility.” The Monist 94 (3): 349–68.
Kutz, Christopher. 2000. Complicity: Ethics and Law for a Collective Age. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Nolt, John. 2011. “How Harmful Are the Average American’s Greenhouse Gas Emissions?” Ethics,
Policy and Environment 14 (1): 3–10.
Parfit, Derek. 1984. Reasons and Persons. New York: Oxford University Press.
Schwenkenbecher, Anne. 2012. “Is There an Obligation to Reduce One’s Individual Carbon
Footprint?” Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy, 1–21.
Sinnott-Armstrong, Walter. 2010. “It’s Not My Fault: Global Warming and Individual Moral
Obligations.” In Climate Ethics: Essential Readings, edited by Stephen M Gardiner, Simon
Caney, Dale Jamieson, and Henry Shue, 332–46. New York: Oxford University Press.
Smith, Ian A. 2013. “On Explaining Individual and Corporate Culpability in the Global Climate
Change Era.” Journal of Business Ethics 112 (4): 551–58. doi:10.1007/s10551-012-1556-3.