Comments on: Are We Free to Pollute the Atmosphere? Climate Change, Wealth and Liberty – Part 1

By: ana

ana — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 12:28:41 +0000

all of our actions have an impact on our planet
our existence alone requires an endless cycle of
resource consumption waste production that has
gone awry I am angry and sad that most of us are
willingly ignorant and insensitive to the the
destruction We are all responsible

By: James Gray

James Gray — Mon, 11 May 2009 20:20:19 +0000

Even if polluting give us intense amounts of pleasure, how could that override all the harm its doing and will continue to do in the future? Especially when you consider that so many people are going to die.

How much pleasure do we get from burning fossil fuels? The pleasure is little more than profit. We can simply accomplish the same goals without polluting the earth. Do we need gas for cars? No. Do we need cars? Only in a society that becomes dependent on them.

Why the profit doesn’t count much towards pleasure: Corporations want to pollute to make money, but they are costing society a lot of money. If Corporations had to pay for the harm (by being sued and held accountable and so forth), then would it still be profitable?

I don’t know if this helps, but contemporary utilitarians are usually interested in desire-satisfaction and so forth rather than pleasure.

By: Michael Hoexter

Michael Hoexter — Mon, 11 May 2009 18:40:25 +0000

James,Thank you for your comment.
I agree that Kant would have little patience with our polluting ways, at
least wearing his hat as an ethicist. I think though that to reduce
deontology to a virtue ethics(i.e. “be (as an individual) carbon neutral
now”) is a simplification. As I try to outline in the second part of my
post, if you account for the effects of social life and social context,
dutiful moral action might involve using some of the less-polluting fossil
fuels to build the non-polluting infrastructure that we need.
However, I think your account of utilitarianism is sensitized to the harms
rather than the pleasures associated with current fossil fuel use. I
believe if you take a utilitarianism that accounts for the probably future
harms of fossil fuel use including the health impacts of local pollution as
well as the current and growing future climate harms, this type of
utilitarianism will also come to the conclusion that we need to act to stop
our dependence on fossil fuels. It depends then on the time scope and I
think a sober accounting of our current attachment to the pleasures that
fossil fuel use affords.

By: James Gray

James Gray — Mon, 11 May 2009 07:08:48 +0000

Kant, a deontologist, could say, “Could everyone pollute the way you do? (No. We would no longer exist to do it.) If not, don’t do it at all!” Additionally, we would have every reason to have a law against it for that reason. It might actually be a little too harsh.

Pollution has already had harmful effects to many. (Global warming has already caused hurricanes, and pollution kills millions by giving them cancer.) The amount of money made by selling a car might be lower than the cost given to society through the harmful effects and medical bills. Sounds like utilitarianism can do a good job at encouraging the insanity to end.

Long-term goals should also be possible with Utilitarianism. To smoke a cigarette to get momentary pleasure would certainly not be justified. In the same way smoking our way through life using cars isn’t going to be justified if it leads to too many harmful effects.