Individual Obligations, Climate Change, and Shared Responsibility

Abstract

Eff ectively addressing climate change has proven to be intractable, even as the impacts of increased climate variability have become more prominent. In this paper, I consider the existence of individual moral obligations regarding climate change. Through an engagement with Walter-Sinnott-Armstrong and Avram Hiller’s debate concerning the moral signifi cance of individual level GHG emis-sions, I diagnose a fi t problem that exists in the application of our ordinary ways of thinking about individual moral obligations (what I call the causal liability model) to the ethical challenges of climate change. In light of this fi t problem, I argue that the question of individual moral obligations concerning climate change should be preceded by an analysis the nature of climate change as a moral problem. I argue that, given certain features, climate change is a matter of social justice and suggest that models of shared responsibility off er a path forward for articulating individual obligations in this context.