Debating Debating Climate Ethics

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Notes

1. Posner and Weisbach (2010) makes similar though not identical arguments. I offer a more detailed discussion of feasibility issues in Weisbach (in press) and a more detailed analysis of the problems with backwards looking theories in Hayner and Weisbach (2016).

2. I am not 100% sure of the connection between the global test and the moral storm. I take the moral storm to be an exploration of the reasons for the failure of the global test, but ultimately, it is failing the global test that is the key. I might, however, be misreading his argument.

3. In Posner and Weisbach (2010, p. 169), we made this point as follows: ‘Wealthy people in rich nations have an obligation to help poor people, including poor people who live in developing countries. To the extent that climate change increases the difference between the rich and poor, this obligation increases.’

4. Here is what I actually said. On page 155 of our book: ‘I think it is important that climate policy engage with philosophy’ and on page 243: ‘ethics and philosophy more generally can bring important insights into the problem [of climate change].’ In my book with Eric Posner, much of chapter 8 is devoted to incorporating ethical concerns into climate policy. Our first claim in that chapter is explicitly ethical, that “the moral worth of individuals transcends spatial and temporal boundaries (Posner & Weisbach, 2010, p. 169). Gardiner similarly mischaracterizes my views when he argues that the so-called economist realists (I take it that this includes me) fail to understand that the economic-realist point of view requires an ethical justification to be ‘intelligible’. On page 152 of our book, I explicitly endorse this argument. In Chapter 8 of Posner and Weisbach, we attempt to find feasible climate policies that are consistent with our view of people’s and nation’s ethical obligations.

5. With a 3% discount rate, the person living in 100 years would account for 95% of the value. With a 1% discount rate, she would account for 73% of the value.

6. Take for example, the following paragraph at the end of his discussion of discounting (p. 295):

… rejecting discounting in no way commits one to endorsing a uniform rate of zero … Even if there are problems with zero rates of discount, these need not undermine the criticisms of normal discount rates considered as such. This point is sufficient to restore the presumption against such rates.

I cannot parse this language to determine what type of policy toward the future he supports.

7. Moreover, Posner and Weisbach (2010) take an explicitly ethical stance to the problem, such as on page 171, where we adopt a cosmopolitan version of welfarism.