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Human rights, harm, and climate change mitigation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Brian Berkey
Brian Berkey*
Affiliation:
Department of Legal Studies and Business Ethics, Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA
*
E-mail: bberkey@wharton.upenn.edu
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Abstract

A number of philosophers have resisted impersonal explanations of our obligation to mitigate climate change, and have developed accounts according to which these obligations are explained by human rights or harm-based considerations. In this paper I argue that several of these attempts to explain our mitigation obligations without appealing to impersonal factors fail, since they either cannot account for a plausibly robust obligation to mitigate, or have implausible implications in other cases. I conclude that despite the appeal of the motivations for rejecting the appeal to impersonal factors, such factors must play a prominent role in explaining our mitigation obligations.

Keywords

Human rightsharmnon-identity problemfuture generationsSimon CaneyElizabeth HarmanDavid Boonin
Type
Articles
Information
Canadian Journal of Philosophy , Volume 47 , Issue 2-3: Special issue: Ethics and Future Generations , 2017 , pp. 416 - 435
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Journal of Philosophy 2016

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