Causing Global Warming
Do I cause global warming, climate change and their related harms when I go for a leisure drive with my gas-guzzling car? The current verdict seems to be that I do not; the emissions produced by my drive are much too insignificant to make a difference for the occurrence of global warming and its rel...
| Auteur principal: | |
|---|---|
| Type de support: | Électronique Article |
| Langue: | Anglais |
| Vérifier la disponibilité: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | En cours de chargement...
|
| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Publié: |
Springer Science + Business Media B. V
[2019]
|
| Dans: |
Ethical theory and moral practice
Année: 2019, Volume: 22, Numéro: 2, Pages: 399-424 |
| Classifications IxTheo: | NCG Éthique de la création; Éthique environnementale VA Philosophie |
| Sujets non-standardisés: | B
Causal influence
B Walter Sinnott-Armstrong B Causation B Causing harm B Global warming B David Lewis |
| Accès en ligne: |
Accès probablement gratuit Volltext (Resolving-System) |
| Résumé: | Do I cause global warming, climate change and their related harms when I go for a leisure drive with my gas-guzzling car? The current verdict seems to be that I do not; the emissions produced by my drive are much too insignificant to make a difference for the occurrence of global warming and its related harms. I argue that our verdict on this issue depends on what we mean by 'causation'. If we for instance assume a simple counterfactual analysis of causation according to which 'C causes E' means 'if C had not occurred, E would not have occurred', we must conclude that a single drive does not cause global warming. However, this analysis of causation is well-known for giving counterintuitive results in some important cases. If we instead adopt Lewis's (2000) analysis of causation, it turns out that it is indeterminate whether I cause global warming (etc.) when I go for a single drive. Still, in contexts where we seek to control or understand global warming, there is a pressure to adopt a more fragile view of this event. When we adopt such a view, it turns out that a single drive does cause global warming (etc.). This means that we cannot like Sinnott-Armstrong (2005) and Kingston and Sinnott-Armstrong (2018) reject the idea that I should refrain from going for a leisure drive simply because such a drive does not cause global warming. |
|---|---|
| ISSN: | 1572-8447 |
| Contient: | Enthalten in: Ethical theory and moral practice
|
| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1007/s10677-019-09990-w |