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Climate Ethics Vol. I What should we do with regard to climate change given that our choices will not just have an impact on the GENERATIONS FUTURE AND ETHICS CLIMATE ON STUDIES well-being of future generations, but also determine who and how many Editors: Paul Bowman Katharina Berndt Rasmussen Berndt Katharina Bowman Paul Editors: people will exist in the future? There is a very rich scientific literature on different emission pathways and the climatic changes associated with them. There are also a substantial number of analyses of the long-term macro economic effects of climate policy. But science cannot say which level of warming we ought to be aiming for or how much consumption we ought to be prepared to sacrifice without an appeal to values and normative principles. The research program Climate Ethics and Future Generations aims to offer this kind of guidance by bringing together the nor - m a tive analyses from philosophy, econo- mics, political science, social psychology, P AP G E R and demography. The main goal is to N I S E deliver comprehensive and cutting-edge K R R research into ethical questions in the I E O context of climate change policy. S W Vol. 1 • • This volume showcases a first collection 2 0 1 1 of eleven working papers by researchers 9 : 1 –1 within the program, who address this question from different disciplines. STUDIES ON Find more information at climateethics.se. INSTITUTE FOR FUTURES STUDIES CLIMATE ETHICS Box 519, SE-101 31 Stockholm, Sweden AND FUTURE GENERATIONS Phone: +46 8 402 12 00 Working paper series 2019:1–11 E-mail: info @iffs.se Editors: Paul Bowman & Katharina Berndt Rasmussen Studies on Climate Ethics and Future Generations Vol. I 1 2 Studies on Climate Ethics and Future Generations Vol. I Editors: Paul Bowman Katharina Berndt Rasmussen Institute for Futures Studies Working Papers 2019:1-11 Stockholm 2019 3 The Institute for Futures Studies is an independent research foundation financed by contributions from the Swedish Government and through external research grants. The institute conducts interdisciplinary research on future issues and acts as a forum for a public debate on the future through publications, seminars and conferences. © The authors and the Institute for Futures Studies 2019 Cover: Matilda Svensson Cover image: Annie Spratt Distribution: The Institute for Futures Studies, 2019 4 Contents Preface 7 The Bullet-Biting Response to the Non-Identity Problem Tim Campbell 11 Does the Additional Worth-Having Existence Make Things Better? Melinda A. Roberts 27 Nondeterminacy and Population Ethics Anders Herlitz 41 Can Parfit’s Appeal to Incommensurabilities Block the Continuum Argument for the Repugnant Conclusion? Wlodek Rabinowicz 63 Positive Egalitarianism Gustaf Arrhenius & Julia Mosquera 91 Discounting and Intergenerational Ethics Marc Fleurbaey & Stéphane Zuber 115 Population-Adjusted Egalitarianism Stéphane Zuber 139 ‘International Paretianism’ and the Question of ‘Feasible’ Climate Solutions Katie Steele 171 Sovereign States in the Greenhouse: Does Jurisdiction Speak against Consumption-Based Emissions Accounting? Göran Duus-Otterström 197 On the Alleged Insufficiency of the Polluter Pays Principle Paul Bowman 219 Demographic Theory and Population Ethics – Relationships between Population Size and Population Growth Martin Kolk 245 5 Preface The papers in this collection are among the first to be published as part of the Climate Ethics and Future Generations project. The project, which began in 2018 and will run through 2023, is generously financed by Riksbankens Jubileumsfond (the Swedish Foundation for Humanities and Social Sciences). The project is led by PI Gustaf Arrhenius and co-PIs Krister Bykvist, and Göran Duus-Otterström. Climate change is an intergenerational problem. What we – the current gene- ration – do now with respect to climate change will have far-reaching effects on the lives of future generations. It is widely acknowledged that our choices now will affect the well-being of those who will exist in the future. It is less widely acknowledged that these choices will also inevitably affect both the number and identities of future persons. That is, our choices concerning what to do about climate change will determine both who will exist in the future as well as how many people will exist in the future. The intergenerational aspects of climate change raise urgent questions concer- ning how we should evaluate choices that will have consequences far into the future, and concerning what our obligations are to future generations. The goal of the Climate Ethics and Future Generations project is to draw on both normative theory and empirical sciences to deliver comprehensive and cutting-edge research on these questions in the context of climate change policy. The project brings together researchers from philosophy, political science, economics, sociology, social psy- chology, and demography to work on these questions. The project is organized thematically, in three parts: I. Foundational value questions in population ethics. The overarching ques- tion here is how to evaluate future scenarios in which the number of people, their welfare, and their identities may vary. More specifically, we shall explore whether it is bad if fewer people exist in the future, and whether an increase in population size can compensate for a loss in quality of life. II. Climate justice. Here we focus on three main questions: Do emissions wrong future people, even if they do not harm them? How should burdens and benefits associated with combating climate change be shared in a just way within and across generations? How, if at all, should future people be represented in demo- cratic decision‐making? 7 III. From theory to practice. This part aims to facilitate getting from theory to practice by focusing on three questions: How should we act when we are not certain about which theories to apply? What are the demographic consequences of climate change? How can we change people’s environmental values and atti- tudes? The eleven papers in this volume reflect these different themes. The majority of the papers in the volume (seven of eleven) fall under the first project theme. Each paper considers an important foundational question in popu- lation ethics. In his contribution, Tim Campbell takes up the non-identity problem, which is the problem of explaining why it is wrong to bring into existence a person whose life is seriously and unavoidably flawed when it is both possible and costless to instead bring into existence a person whose life is not similarly flawed. Campbell argues against David Boonin’s defense of the so-called “bullet-biting” response to the non- identity problem, which holds that, despite initial appearances, there is no non- identity problem: it is morally permissible to bring into existence the person whose life is unavoidably and seriously flawed. Campbell criticises Boonin’s argument for the bullet-biting reply, and the argues for a principle that can ultimately help solve the non-identity problem. In her contribution, Melinda Roberts considers a principle she calls Pareto plus, which holds that the mere addition of a life worth living makes an outcome better, other things being equal. Although Roberts concedes that Pareto plus is initially plausible, she argues that the arguments in favor of Pareto plus nevertheless fail. According to Roberts, this is a fortunate result given her belief that Pareto plus is potentially dangerous, insofar as the arguably unreasonable demands that it makes on existing and future generations might reduce motivation to make the somewhat more modest sacrifices necessary to address climate change. In their respective papers, both Anders Herlitz and Wlodek Rabinowicz consider how to avoid the Repugnant Conclusion. This is the conclusion that for some population composed of many people with a high quality of life, there is an outcome that is better that consists of a population composed of a much larger number of people with a positive, but very low quality of life. In his contribution, Herlitz examines Derek Parfit’s last views in population ethics, and argues that the combi- nation of Parfit’s views enables one to refute common arguments for the Repugnant Conclusion, and he also suggests that the general features of the Parfitian view can provide the basis for a more plausible population axiology more generally. For his part, Rabinowicz attempts to ground Parfit’s view in a wider theory of value (the “fitting-attitudes” theory of value). However, Rabinowicz argues that 8 accepting this theory of value would require Parfit to give up some of his other sub- stantive value commitments. In their contribution, Arrhenius and Mosquera note that while most egalitarians have focused on Negative Egalitarianism, which is the view that relations of inequality make things worse, other things being equal, there has been less dis- cussion of Positive Egalitarianism, which is the view that relations of equality make things better, other things being equal. Positive and Negative Egalitarianism diverge, especially in different number cases. Hence, an investigation of Positive Egalitarianism might shed new light on the vexed topic of population ethics and our duties to future generations. In light of some recent criticism, Arrhenius and Mosquera further develop the idea of giving positive value to equal relations. The next paper is co-authored by two philosophically minded economists, Stéphane Zuber and Marc Fleurbaey. Zuber and Fleurbaey consider the practice of social discounting, which is used by economists to calculate the future costs and benefits of some policy. Roughly, social discounting describes how the value of future costs and benefits changes with time. Zuber and Fleurbaey investigate the ethical issues that social discounting raises, and argue that although social discount- ting has been mostly discussed in the context of discussions of utilitarian moral theories, social discounting is relevant to a much wider range of moral theories. Zuber is also the author of the volume’s final paper that falls under the first project theme.
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