Kant, Individual Responsibility, and Climate Change

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Notes

¹ Baatz takes the principle from Seager et al., who use the principle to call into question an individual obligation to reduce emissions given skepticism about whether ‘individuals can realistically reduce [global] climate emissions’ when individual reductions can ‘incentiviz[e] others to increase their emissions’ (Seager et al., 2011, p. 40). Baatz seems to think Seager's game theoretic considerations are not sufficient to justify the claim that individual GHG reductions will not in at least some small way reduce global GHG levels (5), so for Baatz, it's not literally impossible for individuals to reduce global GHG.

² Seager uses the principle in the same way.

³ For much more detailed explications of this point, see Kant's Perpetual Peace and On the Common Saying, ‘That may be correct in theory, but is of no use in practice’ both included in Practical Philosophy (ed. Mary Gregor, Cambridge University Press, 1996).