Causation and Collective Harms: Non-Causal Responses to the Inefficacy Argument.

Description

Since a leisure drive with a gas-guzzling car does not make a difference for climate change and its related harms, I don’t have a climate change-related reason to refrain from going from such a drive. Or so, some people argue (e.g. Sinnott-Armstrong 2005). More generally, people sometimes argue that since -ing does not make a difference for harm H, I don’t have any H-related reason to refrain from -ing, and they argue so even though they know that H will occur if enough people . This is the inefficacy argument (Nefsky 2019). Many would disagree with this argument. Still, it not easy to pinpoint where it goes wrong (if it does). Some argue that you might have a climate change-related reason to refrain from going from a leisure drive even if your drive does not make a difference for the climate. There are two basic ways of doing so. You might argue that a you have such a reason since a single drive is a cause (one of many) of climate change even if such a drive does not make a difference for the climate; or you might argue that you have such a reason even if such a drive is not a cause of climate change. Let’s take a closer look at the latter alternative. You might think that it would be unfair to go for a leisure drive while others refrain from doing so (Cullity 2000), or you might think that refraining from such a drive would be the virtuous thing to do (Jamieson, 2007; Sandler, 2010). Alternatively, you might think that you should refrain from going for a leisure drive since doing so would make you complicit in climate change-related harm, since doing so would make you part of the group that causes harm (Schwenkenbecher 2014; cf Parfit 1984), or since doing so would help to bring about harm (Nefsky 2017). Finally, you might think that you lack climate change-related reasons to refrain from going for leisure drive, but that you instead have reason to form or join a collective that aims to redress climate change (Collins 2019; cf. Held 1970,). I will argue that the mentioned non-causal approaches fail to explain why you have a reason to refrain from going for a leisure drive unless we can show that a single drive is a cause of climate change. For instance, as Parfit (1984) and Nefsky (2019) argue, the argument from unfairness basically states that it is unfair not to contribute while others do. Now, if refraining from going for a leisure drive truly does not contribute (causally) to redress climate change, it is unclear why it would be unfair of me not to refrain even if others do. Further, if there truly is no climate change-related reason (causality-based or otherwise) to refrain from a leisure drive with a gas-guzzling car, it is hard to see why doing so would be the virtuous thing to do. The other non-causal approaches face similar problems.

References

Collins, Stephanie. 2019. Group duties: Their existence and their implications for individuals. Oxford University Press.

Cullity, Garrett. 2000. Pooled beneficence. In Imperceptible harms and benefits, ed. Michael J. Almeida, 1-23. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers.

Held, Virginia. 1970. Can a random collection of individuals be morally responsible? Journal of Philosophy 67: 471-81.

Jamieson, Dale. 2007. When utilitarians should be virtue theorists. Utilitas 19: 160-83.

Nefsky, Julia. 2017. How you can help, without making a difference. Philosophical Studies 174: 2743-67.

Nefsky, Julia. 2019. Collective harm and the inefficacy problem. Philosophy Compass 14:e12587.

Period	2021 Aug 9
Event title	Social Ontology 2021
Event type	Conference
Location	San Diego, United States, CaliforniaShow on map
Degree of Recognition	International