Alex Mathie

It is generally accepted that science sometimes involves reasoning with analogies. Often, this simply means that analogies between disparate objects of study might be used as heuristics to guide theory development. Contemporary black hole physics, however, deploys analogical reasoning in a way that seems to overreach this traditional heuristic role. In this chapter, I describe two distinct pieces of analogical reasoning that are quite central to the contemporary study of black holes. The first underpins arguments for the existence of astrophysical Hawking radiation, and the second underpins arguments for black holes being ‘genuinely’ thermodynamical in nature. I argue that while these are distinct analogical arguments, they depend on one another in an interesting way: the success of the second analogical argument presupposes the success of the first. This induces a tension for those who wish to take black hole thermodynamics seriously, but who are sceptical of the evidence provided for astrophysical Hawking radiation by the results of analogue gravity. I consider three ways to resolve this tension, and show that each fails.

A central task of climate justice is to agree upon a just distribution of the right to emit greenhouse gases. According to the equal per capita shares view, the right to emit should be divided equally between every inhabitant of Earth, since to emit is to use up the resource of atmospheric absorptive capacity, and this is a resource to which no one person has any stronger claim than any other. The fact that a significant proportion of the Earth’s ability to absorb and sequester greenhouse gases actually comes not from the atmosphere, but from terrestrial climate sinks that are located within national borders, and that are therefore plausibly subject to legitimate territorial claims, poses a serious challenge to the intuitive egalitarian simplicity of the equal per capita shares view. A defence of this view, then, is tantamount to a defence of the redistribution of terrestrial sink capacity, and therefore must involve either (1) an argument against the legitimacy of territorial claims to terrestrial sink capacity, or (2) an argument for why legitimate territorial claims to terrestrial sink capacity should nevertheless be ignored in favour of an equal per capita distribution of emissions shares. One strategy for doing so involves applying Charles Beitz’s resource redistribution principle to terrestrial sink capacity. Some authors have argued that this strategy will fail due to important differences between the nature of ‘conventional’ natural resources, and the nature of a resource link climate sink capacity. In this paper, I consider five arguments to this effect that seek to establish the legitimacy of territorial claims to terrestrial sink capacity. Respectively, they appeal to attachment, identity, self-determination, improvement and fairness in order to do so. I argue that each one either fails to establish the legitimacy of territorial claims to terrestrial sink capacity, or, where they do plausibly establish legitimacy, they do so in a way that renders them vulnerable to type-(2) objections that suggest territorial claims to terrestrial sink capacity should nevertheless be ignored. I conclude that, if one is willing to adopt the resource redistribution principle, a just distribution of emissions shares need not respect territorial claims to terrestrial sink capacity.