ETHICS AND CLIMATE CHANGE

Due Monday, November 9.

Throughout his book The Ethics of Climate Change, James Garvey argues that climate change has ethical dimensions, and he claims that policy-makers and the public (in the UK and the US) are not taking these dimensions seriously enough.

 

Garvey’s arguments are wide-ranging, from the question of who has responsibility to the question of whether policy actions should focus on countries with high rates of per capita consumption or on countries with growing populations and growing energy use.

Frame one ethical issue and propose a way of working through it based on one of our four ethical frameworks. The moral problem you propose may be broad (e.g., that people living today have a moral responsibility not to ignore the problem of climate change) or it may be specific (e.g. that the U.S. should invest in reconfiguring the electrical grid in ways that encourage the development of renewable forms of energy). If you choose to  evaluate a very specific policy proposal, then please give a citation to a source of information about it. [Hint: narrower, more focused problems usually make for more successful arguments because there is less confusion about what the issue is.]

The ethical frameworks we have studied include deontology, utilitarianism, virtue ethics, and the justice framework. I encourage you to try to apply a framework that you have not used so far because working through this assignment is one way of preparing for the final exam.

This outline is different from previous ones in that you may use up to 5 sentences to describe the issue. Please continue to write concisely. You may find that you can describe the issue you are framing in only 1 sentence. That would be fine. But a very specific policy proposal may require more background.

You may perform additional internet research, but please cite your sources. Additional research is not required, but I do give credit for research that improves your work.