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Philosophical Foundations of Climate Change Policy
There is widespread agreement that something must be done to combat anthropogenic climate change. And yet what is the extent of our obligations? It would clearly be unjust for us to allow global warming to reach dangerous levels. But what is the nature of this injustice? Providing a plausible philosophical specification of the wrongness of our present inaction has proven surprisingly difficult. Much of this is due to the temporal structure of the problem, or the fact that there is such a significant delay between our actions and the effects that they produce. Many normative theories that sound plausible when applied to contemporaneous problems generate surprising or perverse results when applied to problems that extend over long periods of time, involving effects on individuals who have not yet been born. So while states have a range of sensible climate change policies at their disposal, the philosophical foundations of these policies remains indeterminate.
By far the most influential philosophical position has been the variant of utilitarianism most popular among economists, which maintains that we have an obligation to maximize the well-being of all people, from now until the end of time. Climate change represents an obvious failure of maximization. Many environmental philosophers, however, find this argument unpersuasive, because it also implies that we have an obligation to maximize economic growth. Yet their attempts to provide alternative foundations for policy have proven unpersuasive. Joseph Heath presents an approach to thinking about climate change policy grounded in social contract theory, which focuses on the fairness of existing institutions, not the welfare of future generations, in order to generate a set of plausible policy prescriptions.
By far the most influential philosophical position has been the variant of utilitarianism most popular among economists, which maintains that we have an obligation to maximize the well-being of all people, from now until the end of time. Climate change represents an obvious failure of maximization. Many environmental philosophers, however, find this argument unpersuasive, because it also implies that we have an obligation to maximize economic growth. Yet their attempts to provide alternative foundations for policy have proven unpersuasive. Joseph Heath presents an approach to thinking about climate change policy grounded in social contract theory, which focuses on the fairness of existing institutions, not the welfare of future generations, in order to generate a set of plausible policy prescriptions.
- GenresPhilosophy
348 pages, Hardcover
Published July 9, 2021
46 people want to read
About the author
Joseph Heath
30 books93 followersJoseph Heath (born 1967) is a professor of philosophy at the University of Toronto. He also teaches at the School of Public Policy and Governance. He received his bachelor of arts from McGill University, where his teachers included Charles Taylor, and his master of arts and doctor of philosophy degrees are from Northwestern University, where he studied under Thomas A. McCarthy and Jürgen Habermas. He has published both academic and popular writings, including the bestselling The Rebel Sell. His philosophical work includes papers and books in political philosophy, business ethics, rational choice theory, action theory, and critical theory.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
October 28, 2024
Joseph Heath is my main man every single thing he writes is the best thing I've read on the topic I'm a toxic Heath-bro. Seriously there are so many useful relevant ideas and explanations packed into this book.
Edit: I keep circling back to how insane this book is. This is maybe the single most coherent and convincing explanation of how, like, all society and ethics works with "And that's why we need a carbon tax!" slapped on at the end. Read it!
Edit: I keep circling back to how insane this book is. This is maybe the single most coherent and convincing explanation of how, like, all society and ethics works with "And that's why we need a carbon tax!" slapped on at the end. Read it!
January 23, 2022
Most climate economists recommend we address the central problem of climate change via a carbon tax. If pressed to justify their recommendations, economists tend to invoke a couple of foundational principles of their discipline. The first principle is that policies should be guided by utilitarianism. The second principle is that the consistent utilitarian ought to grant equal weight to the welfare of all persons, both those currently existing and those who will exist in the future.
The political philosopher Joseph Heath argues that the climate economists have drawn the *right* conclusion, but they've done so for the *wrong* reasons. Like most in his discipline, Heath follows John Rawls in thinking that utilitarianism cannot be a foundational principle of justice because it is simply unrealistically demanding. For example, the utilitarian may demand that you eat shit because it will somehow bring about bliss unspeakable for an already better-off person. Whatever else you might think about that demand, it is a political non-starter.
The alternative normative principle that Heath, following Rawls and others, believes can actually justify public policies is called contractualism. The basic idea of contractualism is to pick out a cooperative arrangement (basic political institutions, a set of policies, etc.) that *no one has any good reason to reject.* That is, Heath argues, equivalent to picking out arrangements that have "Pareto efficient" outcomes: ie, arrangements that make at least one person better off without making any person worse off.
Now, a bunch of objections could be lodged at this stage. For one thing, you might think that Pareto efficiency has a problem in the other direction: perhaps it is *insufficiently* demanding. That might be so, but Heath is going to argue it's at least part of any minimally controversial contractualism, and it's all that we need to justify a carbon tax.
But is a carbon tax actually Pareto efficient? If it is, that will surprise the climate economists who support it. Instead, those economists usually say that a carbon tax is "potentially" Pareto efficient, which is their discipline's mealy-mouthed way of saying that it would be Pareto efficient only if the revenue raised by the carbon tax were redistributed in a way that left no member of our society worse off. Heath sides with economists like Amartya Sen in calling this out as a typical bit of economic "sleight of hand." It's also worth pointing out that in the case of a carbon tax, the redistribution that economists have in mind would strike most people as perverse: the carbon tax revenue would disproportionately go to the original polluters, so that literally *nobody* -- including Exxon shareholders -- could gripe about being made worse off by the policy change relative to the status quo.
And that gets to the heart of the matter: Heath argues that economists have missed the deeper application of the Pareto principle and the normative foundational role it can play in regulation: "the status quo point from which all regulatory decisions should be assessed is the outcome in which neither party is exercising any of the rights that are in question (or the 'status quo prior to the interaction')." In other words, the benefits that have accrued to people, like oil execs, under the current policy (carbon tax = $0 per ton) are not the relevant baseline when considering an alternative policy (carbon tax = $37 per ton, say); rather the relevant baseline comparison is with the benefits that would have accrued to people absent any rights to carbon emission ever having been granted by the state (carbon tax = $infinity per ton, if you like). (Alternatively, if you are familiar with Rawlsian device, you can think of it this way: any institutional arrangement that is recommended by economists as *potentially* Pareto efficient relative to our status quo is, from behind the veil of ignorance, *actually* Pareto efficient, and therefore justified.)
What remains is for Heath to sort out how we ought to weigh the interest of future persons. There are several complex lines of argument, and it's interesting stuff filled with trippy metaphysical questions and sci-fi vignettes intended to elicit whatever feeble moral intuitions we can summon about the obligations we have to people who will exist in the far future. I won't attempt to (because couldn't) summarize all of that. But the takeaway point that many people need to hear is that economic growth is (a) a totally incidental consequence of the savings-and-investment schemes we use to care for currently living people as they retire and (b) a tremendous boon to the welfare of all future persons, virtually guaranteeing they are better off than we are; therefore (c) the handwringing and table-pounding about the welfare of future persons is largely a distraction from the central problem of climate change.
OK, so supposing you go along with all of the above, what is the practical political upshot? It's this: climate change is primarily a problem arising from emitting carbon in excess of the socially optimal rate (~ 2 tons per capita per annum), scandalously wasting our collective resources. Some people benefit greatly from this wasteful arrangement (eg, oil execs), while others suffer horribly (eg, people displaced by rising sea levels). The first and most important thing to do is cut out the collective waste via the imposition of a carbon tax (~ $37 per ton) that will, as if by an invisible hand, guide trillions of economic decisions toward optimal usage. Not all greenhouse gas emissions problems can be solved this way (eg, methane requires heavy-handed regulation), but thankfully there are bottlenecks in the production of fossil fuels that make carbon taxation administratively easy.
If you're a leftist, this political upshot might sound like it neglects distributional justice. Heath is upfront about this: there is no special distributional justice issue raised by the core problem of climate change. If you live in a society with disgusting distributional injustice (eg, the US), that is another problem that also has an obvious solution. But it's a different problem from that presented by climate change. Personally, I find Heath's way of thinking about the matter analytically clarifying. It seems to me that it would be politically savvy to exploit the resentments climate change have given rise to and tackle both problems (climate change and inequality) in one go via a policy that weds a carbon tax to a carbon dividend, as a policy paper from the People's Policy Project recommended for the US: https://www.peoplespolicyproject.org/...
The political philosopher Joseph Heath argues that the climate economists have drawn the *right* conclusion, but they've done so for the *wrong* reasons. Like most in his discipline, Heath follows John Rawls in thinking that utilitarianism cannot be a foundational principle of justice because it is simply unrealistically demanding. For example, the utilitarian may demand that you eat shit because it will somehow bring about bliss unspeakable for an already better-off person. Whatever else you might think about that demand, it is a political non-starter.
The alternative normative principle that Heath, following Rawls and others, believes can actually justify public policies is called contractualism. The basic idea of contractualism is to pick out a cooperative arrangement (basic political institutions, a set of policies, etc.) that *no one has any good reason to reject.* That is, Heath argues, equivalent to picking out arrangements that have "Pareto efficient" outcomes: ie, arrangements that make at least one person better off without making any person worse off.
Now, a bunch of objections could be lodged at this stage. For one thing, you might think that Pareto efficiency has a problem in the other direction: perhaps it is *insufficiently* demanding. That might be so, but Heath is going to argue it's at least part of any minimally controversial contractualism, and it's all that we need to justify a carbon tax.
But is a carbon tax actually Pareto efficient? If it is, that will surprise the climate economists who support it. Instead, those economists usually say that a carbon tax is "potentially" Pareto efficient, which is their discipline's mealy-mouthed way of saying that it would be Pareto efficient only if the revenue raised by the carbon tax were redistributed in a way that left no member of our society worse off. Heath sides with economists like Amartya Sen in calling this out as a typical bit of economic "sleight of hand." It's also worth pointing out that in the case of a carbon tax, the redistribution that economists have in mind would strike most people as perverse: the carbon tax revenue would disproportionately go to the original polluters, so that literally *nobody* -- including Exxon shareholders -- could gripe about being made worse off by the policy change relative to the status quo.
And that gets to the heart of the matter: Heath argues that economists have missed the deeper application of the Pareto principle and the normative foundational role it can play in regulation: "the status quo point from which all regulatory decisions should be assessed is the outcome in which neither party is exercising any of the rights that are in question (or the 'status quo prior to the interaction')." In other words, the benefits that have accrued to people, like oil execs, under the current policy (carbon tax = $0 per ton) are not the relevant baseline when considering an alternative policy (carbon tax = $37 per ton, say); rather the relevant baseline comparison is with the benefits that would have accrued to people absent any rights to carbon emission ever having been granted by the state (carbon tax = $infinity per ton, if you like). (Alternatively, if you are familiar with Rawlsian device, you can think of it this way: any institutional arrangement that is recommended by economists as *potentially* Pareto efficient relative to our status quo is, from behind the veil of ignorance, *actually* Pareto efficient, and therefore justified.)
What remains is for Heath to sort out how we ought to weigh the interest of future persons. There are several complex lines of argument, and it's interesting stuff filled with trippy metaphysical questions and sci-fi vignettes intended to elicit whatever feeble moral intuitions we can summon about the obligations we have to people who will exist in the far future. I won't attempt to (because couldn't) summarize all of that. But the takeaway point that many people need to hear is that economic growth is (a) a totally incidental consequence of the savings-and-investment schemes we use to care for currently living people as they retire and (b) a tremendous boon to the welfare of all future persons, virtually guaranteeing they are better off than we are; therefore (c) the handwringing and table-pounding about the welfare of future persons is largely a distraction from the central problem of climate change.
OK, so supposing you go along with all of the above, what is the practical political upshot? It's this: climate change is primarily a problem arising from emitting carbon in excess of the socially optimal rate (~ 2 tons per capita per annum), scandalously wasting our collective resources. Some people benefit greatly from this wasteful arrangement (eg, oil execs), while others suffer horribly (eg, people displaced by rising sea levels). The first and most important thing to do is cut out the collective waste via the imposition of a carbon tax (~ $37 per ton) that will, as if by an invisible hand, guide trillions of economic decisions toward optimal usage. Not all greenhouse gas emissions problems can be solved this way (eg, methane requires heavy-handed regulation), but thankfully there are bottlenecks in the production of fossil fuels that make carbon taxation administratively easy.
If you're a leftist, this political upshot might sound like it neglects distributional justice. Heath is upfront about this: there is no special distributional justice issue raised by the core problem of climate change. If you live in a society with disgusting distributional injustice (eg, the US), that is another problem that also has an obvious solution. But it's a different problem from that presented by climate change. Personally, I find Heath's way of thinking about the matter analytically clarifying. It seems to me that it would be politically savvy to exploit the resentments climate change have given rise to and tackle both problems (climate change and inequality) in one go via a policy that weds a carbon tax to a carbon dividend, as a policy paper from the People's Policy Project recommended for the US: https://www.peoplespolicyproject.org/...
April 4, 2022
Suppose the harm of emissions is restricted to the cost to governments adapting to sea level rise. An optimal policy would tax emissions at a rate which generates revenue equivalent to the cost of adapting to sea level rise. Taxpayers are not made worse off by this policy, and consumers can enjoy a source of energy still cheeper than alternatives in some situations (e.g., running a generator on a cold day). What happens then when the costs of sea level rise fall on future governments? Should this change the policy rationale for taxing carbon? Heath’s answer is that the situation changes very little. Enter the following dialogue between a younger generation (G2) and an older generation (G1):
G2: Your generation benefits from cheep carbon without picking up the associated costs. Morality demands that you sacrifice whatever necessary to confer benefits on future generations. Economic growth is compounding, failing to make sacrifices now could mean magnitudes less welfare in the future.
G1: Maximisation is far too demanding. We do not expect our ancestors to have made sacrifices in this way. In fact, you inherited a society with a GDP higher than ours, does fairness not demand that we maximise our own GDP even if this means emitting more carbon?
G2: The benefits of greater GDP is a side-effect of you pursuing your own interests. We are the ones putting out our hand and offering you pensions and security of your savings, it is you that owe us something in return. If we are to stand in a reciprocal relation to each other, fairness demands you at least pay for damages. With respect to your emissions, the cost of paying us for the damages will far exceed the benefits you gain from emitting, so you would do better to just control your emissions though an appropriately priced carbon tax.
G2: Your generation benefits from cheep carbon without picking up the associated costs. Morality demands that you sacrifice whatever necessary to confer benefits on future generations. Economic growth is compounding, failing to make sacrifices now could mean magnitudes less welfare in the future.
G1: Maximisation is far too demanding. We do not expect our ancestors to have made sacrifices in this way. In fact, you inherited a society with a GDP higher than ours, does fairness not demand that we maximise our own GDP even if this means emitting more carbon?
G2: The benefits of greater GDP is a side-effect of you pursuing your own interests. We are the ones putting out our hand and offering you pensions and security of your savings, it is you that owe us something in return. If we are to stand in a reciprocal relation to each other, fairness demands you at least pay for damages. With respect to your emissions, the cost of paying us for the damages will far exceed the benefits you gain from emitting, so you would do better to just control your emissions though an appropriately priced carbon tax.
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November 30, 2024The idea of this book is unique and interesting. While notionally about climate change, Heath puts forward the idea that you can't really have a view on any political or policy issue without first having a solid philosophical foundation/worldview - and then proceeds to comprehensively lay out what he thinks is the correct philosophical worldview.
This is a point I've written about a lot and think is highly underrated - to have views on most issues, you really do need to know what you're optimizing for, which does require a whole worldview.
Unfortunately, practically nobody ever realizes their disagreements are rooted in completely undiscussed philosophical differences. For example, if you're a consequentialist longtermist, your views on any issue relating to economic growth are likely going to be quite different than a non-longtermist - however this underlying framework is never actually brought up or addressed.
While the book is great at what it is, practically nobody in the world actually cares about having a robust philosophical worldview, so the potential readership is close to nil.
I highly, highly recommend this book to anyone who actually cares about having good policy opinions - as well as any person interested in progress studies or effective altruism.
This is a point I've written about a lot and think is highly underrated - to have views on most issues, you really do need to know what you're optimizing for, which does require a whole worldview.
Unfortunately, practically nobody ever realizes their disagreements are rooted in completely undiscussed philosophical differences. For example, if you're a consequentialist longtermist, your views on any issue relating to economic growth are likely going to be quite different than a non-longtermist - however this underlying framework is never actually brought up or addressed.
While the book is great at what it is, practically nobody in the world actually cares about having a robust philosophical worldview, so the potential readership is close to nil.
I highly, highly recommend this book to anyone who actually cares about having good policy opinions - as well as any person interested in progress studies or effective altruism.
March 4, 2025
last sentence of the book: "This is a domain in which, unfortunately, the philosopher has even less than usual to contribute."
- well i am glad you know that you wasted literally everybody's time, as not only you did not contribute anything new or at least useful, this was, worst of all, so fucking stupid.
- well i am glad you know that you wasted literally everybody's time, as not only you did not contribute anything new or at least useful, this was, worst of all, so fucking stupid.
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