Dan Boscov-Ellen

One of the questions raised by this special edition is how the climate crisis is «changing and expanding the conceptual spectrum and epistemic field of contemporary philosophy». In this paper I attempt to understand why, in important sectors of contemporary philosophy, the climate crisis has actually failed to effect a meaningful transformation. In particular, I note that the observed changes in the field of normative political philosophy, for which one might expect climate breakdown to be especially disruptive, have in fact been quite modest. I argue that an expanded model of climate denialism – one that understands denialism concerning the existence of climate change and denialism concerning its structural causes and political-theoretical entailments as two species with a common underlying source – can help to explain this gap between the current state of normative political philosophy and the exigencies of our planetary reality.

Dipesh Chakrabarty has drawn criticism from leftist thinkers for his insistence that humanity as a whole is responsible for climate change, and thus that humanity as a whole has a shared responsibility to confront it. While it has been repeatedly pointed out that this highly abstract universalism covers over massive and analytically crucial disparities in responsibility for and vulnerability to climate change, few critics have closely examined Chakrabarty's pivot from a staunchly anti-universalist stance to this strong universalist humanism. I argue that reconstructing and critiquing the intellectual-historical arc that lead Chakrabarty to this surprising shift can help to soften antagonisms between Marxism and postcolonial thought that currently stand in the way of an adequate understanding of the climate problem.

Mainstream ethical debates concerning responsibility for climate change tend to overemphasise emissions and consumption while ignoring or downplaying the structural drivers of climate change and vulnerability. Failure to examine the political-economic dynamics that have produced climate change and made certain people more susceptible to its harms results in inapposite accounts of responsibility. Recognition of the structural character of the problem suggests duties beyond emissions reduction and redistribution – including, potentially, a responsibility to fundamentally restructure our political and economic institutions.

Much mainstream political philosophy assumes that states have a broad right to decide who is granted entry and membership into their political community. On this conventional view, admission of migrants and refugees is understood as mostly a matter of general humanitarian duty or voluntary beneficence rather than as a specific obligation of justice. Through an analysis of climate-related migration from Central America's Dry Corridor to the United States, I argue that many such migrants may in fact be owed admission as reparation for injustice, and that the character of this injustice raises broader challenges for the conventional view.