Olle Torpman

One of the principles on how to act under moral uncertainty, My Favourite Theory, says roughly that a morally conscientious agent chooses an option that is permitted by the most credible moral theory. In defence of this principle, we argue that it prescribes consistent choices over time, without relying on intertheoretic comparisons of value, while its main rivals are either plagued by moral analogues of money pumps or in need of a method for making non-arbitrary intertheoretic comparisons. We rebut the arguments that have been levelled against My Favourite Theory and offer some arguments against intertheoretic comparisons of value

There is a fixed limit on the greenhouse gas emissions that the atmosphere can absorb before triggering dangerous climate changes. One of the debates in climate ethics concerns how the available emissions should be divided between people. One popular answer, sometimes called “Emissions Egalitarianism” (EE), proposes a distribution of emissions permits that gives everyone an equal per capita share of the atmospheric absorptive capacity. However, several debaters have objected to EE. First, it has been argued that there is no principled reason to accept EE, since it cannot be justified on the basis of any moral theory. Second, it has been argued that there is neither any pragmatic reason to accept EE, since it is impracticable, politically unfeasible, and fails to reach its goal. This paper defends EE against these objections. First, it shows that EE can be justified on libertarian, utilitarian, and fairness grounds, respectively. Second, it shows that EE is neither more impracticable, nor more politically unfeasible, than its rivals. It also argues that EE does not fail to reach its goal. Consequently, there is a case to be made for EE.

In this dissertation, I investigate the implications of libertarian morality in relation to the problem of climate change. This problem is explicated in the first chapter, where preliminary clarifications are also made. In the second chapter, I briefly explain the characteristics of libertarianism relevant to the subsequent study, including the central non-aggression principle. In chapter three, I examine whether our individual emissions of greenhouse gases, which together give rise to climate change, meet this principle. I do this based on the assumption that we are the legitimate owners of the resources we use in those activities. In the fourth chapter, I question this assumption and scrutinize libertarianism’s restrictions on appropriations of climate-relevant resources, which leads me to distinguish between some different versions of the libertarian view. Toward the end of the chapter, I also examine libertarianism’s answer to the political question regarding how emission rights should be distributed. The fifth chapter investigates libertarianism’s verdicts for mere risks of infringement, as stemming from people’s emissions and acts of appropriations. In chapter six, I investigate the libertarian right to self-defense against both the effects of climate change and other people’s climate-relevant activities. In chapter seven, I discuss two intergenerational issues related to climate change: what libertarianism says concerning future generations and how libertarianism might deal with the problem of historical emissions. The eighth chapter explores the implications of libertarianism regarding collective moral wrongdoing in connection to climate change. In chapter nine, I take a look at the libertarian room for governmental responses for tackling climate change. The tenth and final chapter is a summary. The overall conclusion of the dissertation is that libertarianism recommends that we reduce our emissions and decrease our extraction of natural resources such as forests and fossil fuels. Furthermore, governments are permitted to undertake some quite substantial actions in order to fight the causes of climate change. I end with some bottom-up reflections on what these conclusions might say about the plausibility of libertarianism. I claim that although libertarianism after all manages to explain some of our moral intuitions regarding climate change, it is questionable whether libertarianism’s explanation is better than those offered by alternative moral theories.

Much has been written about climate change from an ethical view in general, but less has been written about it from a libertarian point of view in particular. In this paper, I apply the libertarian moral theory to the problem of climate change. I focus on libertarianism’s implications for our individual emissions. I argue that even if our individual emissions cause no harm to others, these emissions cross other people’s boundaries, although the boundary-crossings that are due to our ‘subsistence emissions’ are implicitly consented to by others, there is no such consent to our ‘non-subsistence emissions’, and there is no independent justification for these emissions. Although offsetting would provide such a justification, most emitters do not offset their non-subsistence emissions. Therefore, these emissions violate people’s rights, which means that they are impermissible according to libertarianism’s non-aggression principle.

It has been argued that the most impactful choice an individual could make, with respect to mitigating greenhouse gas emissions, is to have fewer children. This paper brings up a related aspect of individuals’ reproductive choices that has been neglected in the climate ethics literature: the timing aspect. It is argued that, from a climate change perspective, it does not matter only how many children people bring into existence, but also when they are brought into existence. The reason is that the age at which parents choose to procreate affects the number of people that will live simultaneously on the planet, which is in turn relevant for climate change. This provides individuals another means by which they can decrease their emissions.

In climate ethics, there is a debate about how the carbon budget, in terms of emissions permits, should be divided between people. One popular proposal, sometimes called The Equal per Capita View, says that everyone should have an equal share of the available emissions permits. Several authors have objected to this view, arguing that: (i) the equal per capita view implies isolationism since it treats emissions permits in isolation from other considerations of justice such as development, poverty and trade; and (ii) isolationism is implausible since it yields a number of problematic implications; therefore (iii) the equal per capita view is implausible. I examine this argument against the equal per capita view by scrutinizing the presumed problematic implications of isolationism. I show that they are either mistakenly inferred from isolationism or irrelevant as to whether isolationism is plausible or not. I conclude that the equal per capita view should not be discarded for being an isolationist approach. Rather, both isolationism and the equal per capita view should be considered as potential action guides. This result is of relevance to the climate political debate, since it could promote progress in the climate negotiations that are needed for limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, as set by the Paris Agreement.

This paper argues that, unlike the production-based emissions accounting (on which emissions are attributed to producers of goods and services), the consumption-based emissions accounting (on which emissions are attributed to consumers of these goods and services) can solve the problem of historical emissions. This problem concerns the question of how to assign remedial responsibility for emissions that were made by people who are now dead. Since historical emissions are embedded in the goods consumed by present consumers, and since present consumers can (unlike past producers) do something about their emissions, a consumption-based accounting can contribute to solving the climate crisis.

The core idea of libertarianism, considered as a basic moral theory, is that people have certain negative rights and that those rights determine morally right action. Libertarianism is supposed to provide robust explanations to some of our intuitions, such as that it is wrong to steal, kill, rape or enslave other people. However, its exclusive focus on negative rights (i.e., rights to non-interference) makes it incapable of explaining some other intuitions, such as that the utterly rich should help the utterly poor. Although libertarianism can explain why we should never do bad to others, it cannot explain why we should sometimes do good to others. For this reason, libertarianism is not satisfactory as it stands. A natural suggestion, therefore, is that we should either abandon libertarianism in favor of some of its better faring rivals, or revise the theory in order to get rid of the features that make it unsatisfactory. This paper proposes a new libertarian theory of morality: a theory that endorses a utilitarian proviso for use of external resources. I call this theory mid-libertarianism. The basic idea of mid-libertarianism is that individuals are free to do as they want as long as they do not violate the rights of others, given that they maximize utility whenever they use external resources. The paper is divided into four main sections. In this frst section, I introduce mid-libertarianism as a normative ethical theory. In the second main section, I put forward the key arguments for mid-libertarianism, which are, roughly, that it maintains the main explanatory powers of existing versions of libertarianism, while it avoids some of the most severe problems that these theories face. In the third section, I answer some potential objections to midlibertarianism. In the fourth section, I conclude that mid-libertarianism deserves to be taken seriously as a new contender in the normative ethics debate.