Module 14: Sinnott-Armstrong, "It's Not My Fault: Global Warming and Moral Obligations"

2. The Problem

Even assuming all of this, it's still not clear what individuals morally ought to do about global warming. Some of its complications follow: Individual moral obligations do not always follow directly from collective moral obligations. Certain things are the governments job not ours but we ought to encourage the government to fulfill its obligations (but we don't have to take on those obligations ourself). We don't have to take on some moral obligations when the governments fails but sometimes we do. -When it comes to global warming, if the government fails there are lots of ways individuals can help (protest against bad government policies and vote for candidates who will make the government fulfill its moral obligations, support private organizations that fight global warming, boycott companies that contribute too much to global warming). His example is wasteful driving. Some people drive because they have no choice but some drive for fun. His question is whether we have a moral obligation not to drive a gas guzzler just for fun (just focusing on global warming not other moral reasons). The author feels inclined to say yes but doesn't feel confident in that. The issue of global warming generates strong emotions because of its political implications and because of how scary its effects are. Its a peculiarly modern case because it operates on a much grander scale than his moral intuitions evolved to handle long ago when acts didn't have such long term effects on future generations. He doubts that we are justified i trusting our moral intuitions alone and need some kind of confirmation. One way to confirm the truth of his moral intuitions would be to derive them from a general moral principle. A principle could tell us why wasteful driving is morally wrong, so we would not have to depend on bare assertion. and a principle might be supported by more trustworthy moral beliefs. The problem is which principle?

4. Internal Principles

Kant's formulas -THE UNIVERSALIZABILITY PRINCIPLE:we have a moral obligation not to act on any maxim that we cannot will to be universal law. The claim is that some maxims cannot even be thought as a universal law of nature without contradiction. For the drive, my maxim is to have fun and not to expel greenhouse gases. -THE MEANS PRINCIPLE: we have a moral obligation not to treat any other person as a means only. The most natural interpretation is that for me to treat someone as a means implies my using harm to that person as a part of my plan to achieve my goals. -THE DOCTRINE OF DOUBLE EFFECT: we have a moral obligation not to harm anyone intentionally (either as an end or as a means) . This fails to apply to the drive both because the driving doesn't cause harm and because I don't intend harm to anyone. -THE VIRTUE PRINCIPLE: we have a moral obligation not to perform an act that expresses a vice or is contrary to virtue. Wasteful driving is not essentially vicious or contrary to virtue. -Some virtue theorists say life would be better if more people were to focus on general character traits including green virtues but changing our focus will not bring any moral obligation into existence.

5. Collective Principles

Maybe our mistake is focusing on individual persons instead on institutions. THE IDEAL LAW PRINCIPLE: we have a moral obligation not to perform an action if it ought to be illegal. If the government ought to pass such laws, then even before they are passed, I have a moral obligation not to go for the drive just for fun. The first weakness is the assumption that wasteful driving ought to be illegal. Also the connection between law and morality can't be so simple. We as individuals have no moral obligations to abide by the ideal tax law instead of the actual tax law. Also if these gas guzzler cars are legal , we don't have a moral obligation not to drive them. Which laws are best depends on side effects of formal institutions such as enforcement costs and loss of freedom. Might be better to look at informal groups. Different groups involve different relations between members but gas-guzzler drivers don't share goals, don't make plans together and don't adjust their acts to each other. The only feature that hold this group together is that they all perform the same kind of act. The collective bad effect is supposed to make it morally wrong to perform any act of that kind according to THE GROUP PRINCIPLE: we have a moral obligation not to perform an action if this action makes us a member of a group whose actions together cause harm. This principle is implausible or questionable in many cases. Maybe there should be certain rules or laws, but if there isn't then it doesn't seem immoral to do what others do as long as they are going to do it anyway so the harm is going to occur anyway.

6. Counterfactual Principles

One counterfactual is built into the common question "what would happen if everybody did that?" and suggests a principle THE GENERAL ACTION PRINCIPLE: i have a moral obligation not to perform an act when it would be worse for everyone to perform an act of the same kind. This is indefensible because just because it's disastrous if every human had no children that doesn't make it morally wrong for an individual to choose not to have children. THE GENERAL PERMISSION PRINCIPLE: I have a moral obligation not to perform an act whenever it would be wise for everyone to be permitted to perform an act of that kind. It wouldn't be disastrous for everyone to be permitted to steal if nobody knew that they were permitted to steal but if everyone knew then we need to add a qualification THE PUBLIC PERMISSION PRINCIPLE: I have a moral obligation not to perform an act whenever it would be worse for everyone to know that everyone is permitted to perform an act of that kind. This runs into trouble still. Disaster occurs when too many people burn too much fossil fuel but that doesn't make it wrong in either case for one individual to perform an individual act that is harmless by itself. It only creates an obligation on the part of the government to pass regulations to keep too many people from acting that way. -THE CONTRACTUALIST PRINCIPLE: I have a moral obligation not to perform an act whenever it violates a general rule that nobody could reasonably reject as a public rule for government action in society. The test of what can be rejected reasonably depends on moral intuitions. Environmentalists might think it unreasonable to reject a principle that prohibits me from driving a gas guzzler for fun but others will think it's reasonable to reject such principle because it restricts my freedom to perform an act that harms nobody. The appeal to reasonable rejection itself begs the question in the absence of an account of why such rejection is unreasonable. environmentalists might be able to specify reasons why it is unreasonable but then it is those reasons that explain why this act is morally wrong.

3. Actual Act Principles

One principle refers to causing harm. If one person had to inhale the exhaust from my car, this would harm him and give me a moral obligation not to drive my car just for fun. -THE HARM PRINCIPLE: we have a moral obligation not to perform an act that causes harm to others. -driving for fun doesn't cause harm in normal cases. In contrast, global warming will still occur even if I do not drive just for fun. My individual act is neither necessary nor sufficient for global warming. There are special circumstances in which an act causes harm without being either necessary or sufficient for that harm. When I intend a harm to occur, my intention provides a reason to pick my act out of all the other background circumstances and identify it as a cause. When my act is unusual (most people wouldn't act that way) that also provides a reason to pick out my act and call it a cause. In moral cases there are additional reasons not to call something a cause when it is usual. If people who are doing no worse than average are condemned, then people who are doing much worse than average will suspect that they will still be subject to condemnation even if they start doing better and even if they improve enough too bring themselves up to the average. We should distribute blame and praise to give incentives for the worst offenders to get better (reserve our condemnation for those who are well below average). -it isn't unusual to go for joyrides and those drivers don't intend harm so we shouldn't see that as a cause of global warming or its harms. The harms of global warming result from too much greenhouse gases in the atmosphere but the joyride itself doesn't cause the massive quantities that are harmful. Driving for fun isn't a cause of global warming. Different from helping famine relief because donating helps an individual but refraining from driving for fun doesn't help anyone. -global warming by itself causes no harm without climate change. Since my individual act of driving doesn't cause any climate change, it causes no harm to anyone. -the point is simply that my individual boyfriend doesn't cause global warming, climate change or any of their resulting harms at least directly. -THE INDIRECT HARM PRINCIPLE: we have a moral obligation not to perform an act that causes harm to others indirectly by causing someone to carry out acts that cause harm to others. -we aren't as influential as we would like to think and wasteful driving isn't habit forming, and won't undermine my devotion to environmentalism. The indirect harm principle is misleading because my moral obligation cannot depend on the factors cited by this principle. As long as I don't intend harm or do anything unusual, my act can't cause climate change since the scale of climate change is just too big for me to cause it. -but if i don't cause climate change and seem to contribute to it, another principle applies THE CONTRIBUTION PRINCIPLE: we have a moral obligation not to make problems worse. -the problem with this is that my act of driving doesn't even make climate change worse and climate change would be just as bad if i didn't drive. global warming and climate change occur on such a massive scale that my individual driving makes no difference to the welfare of anyone. -THE GAS PRINCIPLE: we have a moral obligation not to expel greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Hard to accept this principle because there is nothing immoral about greenhouse gases in themselves. The problem is just the high quantities. If this principle were true, we couldn't boil water or exercise. -sometimes it's morally wrong to create a risk of harm even if that harm doesn't occur THE RISK PRINCIPLE: we have a moral obligation not to increase the risk of harms to other people. -the problem is that with global warming, it isn't easy to identify a particular victim. this principle implies that almost everything we do violates a moral obligation. -we need to specify the reasons why some risks are considered significant

Thesis/Intro

The author addresses the question: Given the enormity of the problem of global warming, what moral obligations does an individual (living in relative affluence) have in light of all this? He considers whether it is morally wrong for him take a Sunday drive in a gas-guzzling car just for fun. To answer he appeals to a wide range of moral principles and argues that applying them doesn't imply that he or other similarly situated individuals has a moral obligation to refrain from taking the Sunday drive. He admits that it is still morally better or ideal for individuals not to engage in such activities. Governments do have a moral oblation to address the problem of global warming partly because only they are in a position to help fix the problem. -Even if scientists establish that global warming is occurring, even if economists confirm that its costs will be staggering, and even if political theorists agree that governments must do something about it, it is still not clear what moral obligations regarding global warming devolve upon individuals like you and me

1. Assumptions

These are roughly accurate but none is certain and the author takes them for granted for the sake of the argument. 1. Global warming has begun and is likely to increase over the next century. We can't be sure exactly how much or how fast, but hot times are coming. 2. A significant amount of global warming is due to human activities. The main culprit is fossil fuels. 3. Global warming will create serious problems for many people over the long term by causing climate changes, including violent storms, floods from sea level rises, droughts, heat waves, and so on. Millions of people will probably be displaced or die. 4. the poor will be hurt most of all. The rich countries are causing most of the global warming, but they will be able to adapt to climate change more easily. Poor countries that are close to sea level might be devastated. 5. governments (especially the biggest and richest) are able to mitigate global warming by imposting limits on emissions, requiring or giving incentives for increased energy efficiency, stopping deforestation and fun reforestation, developing ways to sequester carbon dioxide in oceans or underground. These will help but the only long run solution lies in alternatives to fossil fuels and these can be found soon if governments start massive research projects now. 6. It is too late to stop global warming because there is so much carbon dioxide in the atmosphere already, because carbon dioxide remains in the atmosphere for so long, and because we will remain dependent on fossil fuels in the near future (but we can slow it down and reduce its severity) Governments need to adapt, build seawalls, reinforce houses that can't withstand storms, they need to move populations form low-lying areas. 7. These steps will be costly. increased energy efficiency can reduce expenses, adaptation will create some jobs, and money will be made in the research and production of alternatives to fossil fuels. Still any steps that mitigate or adapt to global warming will slow down our economies at least in the short run which will hurt people especially many poor people. 8. Despite these costs, the major governments throughout the world still morally ought to take some of these steps. The clearest moral obligation falls on the US since the US caused and continues to cause more of the problem than any other country. The US can spend more resources on a solution without sacrificing basic necessities and has the scientific expertise to solve technical problems. Other countries sometimes follow its lead so the US has a special moral obligation to help mitigate and adapt to global warming.

7. What is Left?

We are left with no defensible principle to support the claim that I have a moral obligation not to drive a gas guzzler just for fun. Doe this result show that this claim is false? Not necessarily. Some say we shouldn't look for general moral principles to back up our moral intuitions. They see his arguments as a view that moral obligations depend on principles. Since principles are unavailable we should instead focus on particular cases (according to particularism). The fact that we can't find principles doesn't show that we don't need one. Since the case is controversial, emotional, modern, and likely to be distorted suggests that we need a moral principle to back up our intuitions in this case (but we don't have one). This doesn't show that wasteful driving is not morally wrong, it only shows that we do not know whether it is morally wrong. If someone comes up with a defensible principle then the situation changes . Since the principles don't apply to wasteful driving, and since moral intuitions are unreliable in cases like this, we cannot know that wasteful driving is morally wrong. Even if individuals have no moral obligations it is still morally better for individuals not to waste gas. We can praise those who save fuel and express dislike for people who don't but they aren't violating a moral obligation with wasteful driving. Governments still have a moral obligation to fight global warming because they can make a difference. Global warming is such a large problem that it is not individual who cause it or who need to fix it. Environmentalists should focus on those are not doing their job instead of those who take drives for fun. Our goal or moral obligation should be to get governments to do their job to prevent the disaster of excessive global warming.