Values and Harms in Loss and Damage

Abstract

This paper explores what is meant by ‘loss and damage’ within the area of climate policy focused on loss and damage. I present two possible understandings of loss and damage, one of which connects it to harm and one of which connects it to value. In both cases, I argue that the best contemporary philosophical understandings of these concepts suggest a much broader range of losses and damages than is currently being considered within the usual discussions in this area. I argue that a broader understanding of loss and damage would allow a more complete assessment of potential climate impacts. I conclude by offering recommendations for evaluating loss and damage according to this broader understanding.

Notes

An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Second Workshop on Ethics and Adaptation at the University of Buffalo. The author thanks workshop participants for their many helpful comments and suggestions. The editors of this special issue and an anonymous referee also provided detailed and valuable feedback on the ideas presented here.

1. Here I follow the convention used by most discussions of loss and damage in not treating ‘loss’ and ‘damage’ as importantly different from one another (UNFCCC, 2013, para. 32).

2. Whether increasing someone’s risk counts as a loss to them or just as a risk of loss is an important issue to be sorted out. There are good reasons for thinking that increased risk should be counted as an actual current loss rather than merely as a possible future loss. On this point, see Herington (2012).

3. Warner et al. (2012) finesse this point in presenting a human-centred analysis of loss and damage as follows: ‘Loss and damage refers to impacts on human systems, which are often channelled through the negative impacts of climate change on natural systems’ (p. 21).

4. Within some religious views, it is considered a good thing if the earthly order mirrors the cosmic order, or if the structure of the world exhibits harmony and balance. The value of these states isn’t understood in terms of benefit to anyone or anything; rather, they are considered intrinsically valuable. In contemporary philosophy, this view is implicit in G.E. Moore’s understanding of intrinsic value.

5. Here I follow the UNFCCC in assuming the content and concepts of Western analytic philosophy. See below for some concerns about doing so.

6. Objective List accounts are more common in ancient Greek philosophy, within particular religious doctrines, and in some non-Western philosophical traditions.

7. Here is a worry one might have at this point, but that I think is a red herring: ‘Who decides whether a belief is mistaken or not?’ In practice, this is a very important question. But nothing in the argument above turns on the answer to it. As long as it is possible for a belief to be mistaken, the above worry stands, for it is a worry about the conceptual difference between being valued and being valuable, not a worry about how to sort particular cases using this distinction. Imagine the highest standard for judgments of mistakenness: everyone including the valuer herself agrees that the belief was mistaken, and the relevant facts support this belief. Actual Valuation would say that objects valued on the basis of beliefs that meet this standard are nonetheless valuable.

8. Orthodox Kantians do seem to hold something like this view, and they have been criticized for this implication of it.

9. While the UNFCCC’s Technical Paper on Loss and Damage distinguishes between welfare and well-being, treating the former as denoting economic value, here I follow the convention within philosophy of using them interchangeably to refer to well-being generally, not whatever aspect of well-being is captured by economic value.

10. Some theorists add the requirement ‘self-regarding’ to the description of the preferences in both this account and the Idealized Preference Satisfaction account, to block the possibility that preferences about things that don’t affect someone could nonetheless affect her welfare. Because this constraint is a matter of some controversy, I omit it here.

11. This is likely to be very difficult in practice. James et al. (2014) point out that in the context of the UNFCCC, it requires distinguishing the anthropogenic component of climate change from the non-anthropogenic component, something that current climate models are not well-equipped to do. Theoretical problems have also been raised for using this conception of harm as an ethical standard (Parfit, 1983).

12. The accounts of harm will differ, of course, on how and how far the notion of harm can be extended to nonhumans. The Mental State account is only applicable to organisms that are capable of having the relevant mental states; the Preference Satisfaction account is only applicable to things capable of having preferences; the Idealized Preference Satisfaction account is only applicable to things that have preferences and could meet whatever idealization conditions are required; a Perfectionist account is only applicable to things whose nature is such that some possible set of states could count as ‘a good life’ for it. For all of these accounts, however, at least some nonhuman animals will count as bearers of welfare. Plants, microbes, ecosystems, and the like are a different matter—whether they can be harmed in any literal sense is controversial.

13. Morrissey and Oliver-Smith (2013) explicitly claim that loss and damage should be understood in terms of value. However, they also say, ‘Despite efforts at mitigation and adaptation, it is now clear that historic and on-going emission of greenhouse gasses will have negative impacts on human well-being. Such impacts need to be recognized as losses and damages …’ (p. 17) and ‘non-economic losses pertain to many goods that are central to people’s contemporary well-being’ (p. 18), descriptions which suggest a harm conception.

14. The researchers were required to study impacts on vulnerable groups as well, so the research group asked two questions about the impact on women. They asked these questions of heads of household, almost entirely men. The study revealed that the women have to walk farther to fetch water. One wonders whether interviewing more women or asking about the areas of expertise typically belonging to women would have revealed other impacts (Nishat, Mukherjee, Hasemann, & Roberts, 2013).

15. Methods for assessing various aspects of quality of life are certainly available to those who wish to measure it. The UN itself has used the Human Development Index and the World Happiness Report in other contexts. Many similar measures exist.

16. The relationship between price and value is a matter of some theoretical controversy within economics, however. Some economists regard value as nothing more than beliefs about how price will change over time. In this case, price and value could still differ, though not in the way that Morrissey and Oliver-Smith (2013) describe.