Tim Mulgan

Il cambiamento climatico presenta caratteristiche inedite che mettono in di- scussione il pensiero morale cui siamo abituati. In questo saggio, si rico- struiscono le modifiche che sarebbero necessarie per pensare le questioni morali poste dalla prospettiva di un mondo che subisca gli effetti del cam- biamento climatico: si potrebbe trattare di un mondo in frantumi, dove non ci sono più le condizioni minime di benessere, e le nozioni cui siamo abi- tuati – come certi diritti o l'ideale dell'eguaglianza – non valgono più e debbono venire sostituite da una nuova etica, che non potrà più affidarsi a intuizioni morali, per quanto solide e radicate.Climate change has new features that challenge our standard ethical thought. In this paper, the changes that are needed to deal with the moral is- sues raised in a world affected by the consequences of climate change are outlined. A climate-change-affected world might be a broken world, where no favorable conditions hold and notions which we were used to – such as rights or the ideal of equality – are no longer valid and should be replaced with a new ethic. No appeal to entrenched moral intuitions will work in such a new world

What do we owe to our descendants? How do we balance their needs against our own? Tim Mulgan develops a new theory of our obligations to future generations, based on a new rule-consequentialist account of the morality of individual reproduction. He also brings together several different contemporary philosophical discussions, including the demands of morality and international justice. His aim is to produce a coherent, intuitively plausible moral theory that is not unreasonably demanding, even when extended to cover future people. While the book focuses on developing this new account, there are also substantial discussions of alternative views, especially contract-based accounts of intergenerational justice and competing forms of consequentialism.

The article discusses Michael Slote's Satisficing Consequentialism, which is the view that moral agents are not required to maximise the good, but merely to produce a sufficient amount of good. It is argued that Satisficing Consequentialism is not an acceptable alternative to Maximising Consequentialism. In particular, it is argued that Satisficing Consequentialism cannot be less demanding in practice than Maximising Consequentialism without also endorsing a wide range of clearly unacceptable actions. It is then argued that Slote's inability to provide adequate reasons for moral satisficing stems from a mistaken analogy between rationality and morals. The sense of 'good enough' which is relevant to morality is one which focusses on the effort an agent puts in, rather than on the outcome she produces. However, replacing outcomes with efforts would undermine Slote's Consequentialist project. Finally, it is suggested that similar problems will be faced by others who seek to construct essentially Consequentialist theories which are not unduly demanding.

An introductory ethics course serves many and often disparate ends, so much so that it may be difficult to find a theme or question that can tie these ends together in a coherent course narrative. This paper shares the author’s attempt to do so. In addition to high student interest in the subject, the topic of our obligation to future generations has the advantage of naturally leading a course through several systematic areas of philosophical importance. This topic lends itself not only to moral theory (e.g. the Nonidentity Problem), but also metaphysics (e.g. the metaphysics of personhood underpinning the Nonidentity Problem), political theory (e.g. utilitarian vs. Rawlsian answers to the question), and applied ethics (e.g. population policies). The author speaks to this topic’s adaptability to various levels of study (introductory, advanced, and graduate) and explains how the theme is taught at each level.