Political Responsibility for Climate Change

Ethical Institutions and Fact-Sensitive Theory

Theresa Scavenius, Theresa Birgitta Brønnum Scavenius

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• eBook ISBN:
  9780429576706
• Subtopic: Ecology
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This book offers new perspectives on how social and political institutions can respond more effectively to climate change.

Theresa Scavenius presents a concept of moral responsibility that does not address the obligations of individual citizens, but instead assesses the moral responsibility of institutionalised actors, such as governments, parliaments, and other governmental agencies. This focus on political responsibility is something that up until now has largely been neglected by moral theory, but Scavenius argues in this book that accountability must be assigned to institutionalised group agents. With this new research, she outlines building blocks for a new agenda of climate studies by offering an innovative approach to climate governance and democratic climate action at a time when many political initiatives have failed and crucially outlines the necessity of approaching moral dilemmas from a fact sensitive political theoretical approach.

Written in a clear and engaging style, this volume will be an invaluable reference for researchers interested in moral philosophy, climate change, environmental politics and policy, and institutional theory.

Part 1
Fact-sensitivity and normativity

1
Fact-sensitive political theory

The goal of Part 1 is to show that the fact-sensitive account of normativity allows for an integration of facts into the normative theory whilst sustaining a robust justification in fundamental principles. More particularly, the fact-sensitive account is a fruitful approach to climate responsibility because concrete ought-assignments require a fact-sensitive component.

The fact-sensitive account is developed over three chapters. In this first chapter, I elaborate on the distinction between abstract and concrete fact-sensitive principles by arguing that one of the main differences between these two principles concerns the contingent on abstract or concrete facts. In Chapter 2, I demonstrate that abstract principles fail to determine who ought to do what, and in Chapter 3, I elaborate on the link between the fact-sensitive normativity (Part 1) and moral responsibility for climate change (Parts 2 and 3) by defending how the fact-sensitive normativity provides a suitable framework for identifying the normative criteria for can-conditions for fulfilment of ought-statements. In Part 3, I argue that this has implications for how to construct the normative theory of moral responsibility for climate change.

Concrete and abstract principles

The purpose of the following section is to show how fact-sensitive normativity can be understood as concrete principles which are contrasted to abstract principles but nonetheless dependent on the latter. The difference between abstract and concrete principles is a question of the level of abstraction. According to Onora O’Neill’s definition, abstraction is

a matter of selective omission, of leaving out some predicates from descriptions and theories. Selective omission can hardly be objected to. It is unavoidable. No use of language can be fully determinate. Abstraction is a precondition for logic, for scientific reasoning, and for many highly respected (and lucrative) forms of practical reasoning, such as legal and commercial reasoning. Abstraction is also needed if we are to reason in ways that can be taken seriously by others who disagree with us. By abstracting we may succeed in reasoning in ways that are detachable from commitment to the full detail of our own beliefs. The less abstract our reasoning, the greater the likelihood that it hinges on premises that others will dispute and that its conclusions will seem irrelevant to those others.

(O’Neill 1988, 11)

When we embrace this notion of abstraction, which I believe we should, we can distinguish between abstract and concrete principles dependent on the level of abstraction. An example of the former could be that each human being is entitled human rights, whilst an example of the latter could be that global institutions should be democratic. A different way to put it is to say that the abstract moral principles aim to define what is good and bad, whereas the concrete normative principles aim to define what is just.

Abstract normative principles are contingent upon abstract facts, whilst concrete principles are contingent upon concrete facts. In this context, I take abstract facts to be general facts, such as there exist human beings and there is life on the earth, with which most people would agree. In contrast, concrete facts are facts such as nation-states are important political entities and global wealth is distributed unequally, about which there is less agreement. The reason for this is that the relative importance of concrete facts about politics and the economy may not always apply.¹

Concrete facts can be subdivided into two categories. One concrete set of facts concerns facts about political circumstances. This includes a broad set of concrete facts about nationality, stateness, citizenship, and democratic institutions. Another set of facts concerns facts about the feasibility and can-conditions of agency. In contrast to the concrete principles that are contingent upon concrete facts about the world and political systems, the principles primarily concerned with the normative criteria for sound ought-assignment to particular agents are concrete ethico-normative ought-judgements.

An important premise for concrete ought-judgements is methodologically embedded theories about human agency and rationality. These ought-judgements can be contrasted with the abstract ought principles which say something about the general principle what ought to be done. A different way to stress the difference is to say that the purpose of the abstract ought-judgements is to answer the question of what ought to be done, whilst the purpose of the concrete ought-judgements is to answer the question of who ought to do what. By combining the two distinctions, it becomes possible to differentiate four types of normativity, based on two distinctions between (1) abstract and concrete principles and (2) moral principles and ought-judgements (cf. Table 1.1).

Table 1.1 Four types of normativity

	Moral principles	Ought-judgements
Abstract facts	1. Abstract fundamental principles	3. Abstract ought principles
Concrete facts and agency assumptions	2. Concrete normative principles	4. Fact-sensitive ought- assignments

In Chapter 3, I discuss the concrete ethico-normative principles in contrast to the abstract ones. It should be noted that one reason for why it is essential to outline the four types of normativity is that abstract moral principles are frequently confused with concrete ought-assignments. This is unfortunate because the former depends on highly abstract ideas about humanity, whilst the latter depend on methodologically embedded ideas about human agency under specific circumstances. This distinction has great implications for the discussion of who ought to be held morally responsible for climate change.

Facts and principles

Two related points should be considered with regard to the definition of concrete fact-sensitive principles. The first is that these normative principles are dependent on concrete facts; the second is that they are dependent on abstract principles. Let us consider the dependency between concrete fact-sensitive principles and facts first.

One strategy is to argue that the common distinction between descriptive judgements and normative judgements has only analytical purposes (Putnam 2002, 13). Whilst it might be possible to distinguish between the two, what the fact-sensitive political theory is interested in are the relevant research questions that lie in what some have called, ‘the tension field between is and ought’ (Rasmussen 1971, 47; Rasmussen 1989, 461). Consider one example. Climate change is an important research area for social and political theory because it is factually important and a hard case with regard to its normative implications. Put differently, the factual and normative aspects of climate change depend on each other: we are morally concerned about climate change because of the factual changes in the earth’s climate and atmosphere, and we are factually concerned about climate change because we have several moral principles that suggest climate change is morally wrong.

One way to provide some plausibility for what we could call ‘the dependency thesis’ is to accept that some types of judgements about facts and norms cannot be completely disentangled. In this regard, Hilary Putnam offered a productive theorisation for this. In order to understand Putnam’s argument, I find it fruitful to point to two aspects: the study of that p is dependent on epistemic values for what is good research. Scientific knowledge presupposes epistemic values such as plausibility and cohesion (Putnam 2002, 13). Putnam then argued more controversially that the study of that p depends on normative values about what is a good society.

Putnam argued in support of his second point that scientific descriptions of facts frequently use words and concepts whose content is not merely descriptive but contains evaluation aspects as well. He calls these types of words and concepts ‘ethical concepts’ (Putnam 2002, 34–37). According to Putnam, a description of a political dictator as ‘evil’ is not only an empirical description but also contains a moral evaluation of whether the acts and policies of the dictator are morally unjustifiable (Putnam 2002, 37). More generally, he argued that knowledge about empirical facts presupposes ‘knowledge about values’ (Putnam 2002, 136–137). However, when we consider the dictator example, it might be more fruitful to suggest that we assume a symmetrical relationship between this specific set of facts and values in the sense that the facts about the dictatorship presuppose values and values against dictatorships presuppose facts.

An opponent of the dependency thesis, however, might argue that it is possible to study the number of neo-Nazis in Denmark, for example, independently of whether it is presumed that it is good or bad that there are few or many Nazis. This argument implies that empirical judgements (that p) can be justified and studied independently of whether it is good or bad that p because the values are ‘irrelevant for the answering of empirically relevant questions’ (Lippert-Rasmussen 2005a, 284). Proponents of the dependency thesis, however, may re-join this claim: they might ask whether it makes sense to talk about what is ‘empirically relevant’ independently of what may be politically and morally relevant.

How do we determine what is empirically relevant if no political or moral standards are allowed? Is it possible to claim that the question of empirical relevance depends on the question of what is politically wishful, legitimate, morally permissible, and acceptable? If this is accepted, it is unclear whether there is independency between empirical relevance and normative relevance. Thus, the proponent of the dependency thesis can maintain that the empirical study of Nazis in Denmark contains a judgement about whether it is good or bad that there are many or few Nazis and moreover that it is the normative judgement that makes the empirical study relevant to pursue. The argument here is that the empirical relevance is dependent on the political and moral significance of the study.

But is the Nazi example a strong argument that empirical judgements cannot be kept distinct from normative judgements? If we talk about attributes such as evil, good, and the like, it seems plausible that is and ought may overlap in ethical concepts. It becomes more difficult if the description does not concern a dictator, but concerns complex cases such as climate change. How do we know whether climate change is bad or good? Or even more difficult, how do we know whether certain acts and policies that might (indirectly) contribute to climate change are good or bad? In these cases, it might be impossible to identify an overlap between the descriptive and evaluative components of the concept. Do we know that certain acts in themselves are good or bad? Does the concept of climate unfriendliness contain ideas about whether it is a politically and morally good or bad property?

Relational value judgements

A different way of framing this challenge is to say that the concept does not in itself contain these judgements but requires relational value judgements (Lippert-Rasmussen 2005a). Here we come to the second question of how concrete fact-sensitive norms can be justified in abstract principles.

Relational value judgements can be conceptualised in different ways. We can distinguish a non-fundamental from a fundamental type of value judgements. The non-fundamental type is commonly known as coherentism, which takes all justification to be inferential, which means that all judgements cohere with other beliefs. Yet consider this difficulty. How to justify value A if A’s validity depends on other values B and C? If A justifies B and C, and B and C justify A, the justification is circular. If A justifies B and B justifies C, etc., the challenge might be an infinite regress (Lippert-Rasmussen 2005a, 276). On the other hand, the fundamental variant takes fundamental judgements to be non-inferentially justified – that is, they are not derived from other value judgements.

However, there might be a third option, a hybrid position which takes fundamental judgements to be non-inferentially justified but at the same time appreciates that non-fundamental value judgements are justified by virtue of their relational value and coherence with the fundamental value judgements. The hybrid position cannot be used as an argument for the distinction between abstract and concrete normative principles since the distinction is presumed in the definition. Nonetheless, it provides reasons for why it may be a plausible and fruitful approach to political theoretical considerations in which con...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of tables
• Introduction
• PART 1 Fact-sensitivity and normativity
• PART 2 Fitness-conditions of moral responsibility
• PART 3 Moral responsibility for climate change
• Conclusion
• Index