Book contents
- Climate Justice and Historical Emissions
- Climate Justice and Historical Emissions
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Contributors
- Introduction
- 1 Climate Ethics, Affirmative Action, and Unjust Enrichment
- 2 Historical Responsibility and Climate Change
- 3 Historical Emissions
- 4 How Legal Systems Deal with Issues of Responsibility for Past Harmful Behavior
- 5 Asking Beneficiaries to Pay for Past Pollution
- 6 Benefiting from Unjust Acts and Benefiting from Injustice
- 7 A Luck-Based Moral Defense of Grandfathering
- 8 In Defense of Emissions Egalitarianism?
- 9 In the Name of Political Possibility
- 10 Right to Development and Historical Emissions
- Index
- References
6 - Benefiting from Unjust Acts and Benefiting from Injustice
Historical Emissions and the Beneficiary Pays Principle
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 February 2017
By
Book contents
- Climate Justice and Historical Emissions
- Climate Justice and Historical Emissions
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Contributors
- Introduction
- 1 Climate Ethics, Affirmative Action, and Unjust Enrichment
- 2 Historical Responsibility and Climate Change
- 3 Historical Emissions
- 4 How Legal Systems Deal with Issues of Responsibility for Past Harmful Behavior
- 5 Asking Beneficiaries to Pay for Past Pollution
- 6 Benefiting from Unjust Acts and Benefiting from Injustice
- 7 A Luck-Based Moral Defense of Grandfathering
- 8 In Defense of Emissions Egalitarianism?
- 9 In the Name of Political Possibility
- 10 Right to Development and Historical Emissions
- Index
- References
Summary
It is commonly believed that the history of behavior that has contributed to the threat of climate change bears in a significant way on the obligations of current people. In particular, a number of philosophers have defended the Beneficiary Pays Principle, according to which those who have benefited from unjust emitting activity have a special obligation to bear costs of mitigation and adaptation. I claim that versions of the BPP that have been defended by others share a common problematic feature. Specifically, they seem to limit the benefits that ground obligations under the principle to those that derive from unjust acts, and thereby implicitly deny that other ways in which individuals might benefit from injustice can ground similar duties. I argue that there is no plausible theoretical basis for this distinction. I conclude that we should take seriously a different type of principle that can be plausibly called a Beneficiary Pays Principle, according to which those who benefit from injustice, all things considered, are obligated to give up the unjust benefits that they enjoy.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Climate Justice and Historical Emissions , pp. 123 - 140Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2017
References
Baatz, C. (2013). Responsibility for the Past? Some Thoughts on Compensating Those Vulnerable to Climate Change in Developing Countries. Ethics, Policy, & Environment, 16, 94–110.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barry, C. and Wiens, D. (2016). Benefiting from Wrongdoing and Sustaining Wrongful Harm. Journal of Moral Philosophy, 13, 530–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Berkey, B. (2014). Climate Change, Moral Intuitions, and Moral Demandingness. Philosophy and Public Issues, 4, 157–89.Google Scholar
Butt, D. (2007). On Benefitting from Injustice. Canadian Journal of Philosophy, 37, 129–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Butt, D. (2014). ‘A Doctrine Quite New and Altogether Untenable’: Defending the Beneficiary Pays Principle. Journal of Applied Philosophy, 31, 336–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Caney, S. (2005). Cosmopolitan Justice, Responsibility, and Global Climate Change. Leiden Journal of International Law, 18, 747–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Caney, S. (2006). Environmental Degradation, Reparations, and the Moral Significance of History. Journal of Social Philosophy, 37, 464–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Caney, S. (2010). Climate Change and the Duties of the Advantaged. Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy, 13, 203–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cohen, G. A. (2000). If You’re an Egalitarian, How Come You’re So Rich? Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Duus-Otterström, G. (2014). The Problem of Past Emissions and Intergenerational Debts. Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy, 17, 448–69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Farrelly, C. (2007). Justice in Ideal Theory: A Refutation. Political Studies, 55, 844–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goodin, R., and Barry, C. (2014). Benefiting from the Wrongdoing of Others. Journal of Applied Philosophy, 31, 363–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gosseries, A. (2004). Historical Emissions and Free-Riding. Ethical Perspectives, 11, 36–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Haydar, B., and Øverland, G. (2014). The Normative Implications of Benefiting from Injustice. Journal of Applied Philosophy, 31, 349–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Huseby, R. (2015). Should the Beneficiaries Pay. Politics, Philosophy, and Economics, 14, 209–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lawford-Smith, H. (2014). Benefiting from Failures to Address Climate Change. Journal of Applied Philosophy, 31, 392–404.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Miller, D. (2009). Global Justice and Climate Change: How Should Responsibilities Be Distributed? Tanner Lectures on Human Values, 28, 117–56.Google Scholar
Moellendorf, D. (2014). The Moral Challenge of Dangerous Climate Change: Values, Poverty, and Policy. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Neumayer, E. (2000). In Defense of Historical Accountability for Greenhouse Gas Emissions. Ecological Economics, 33, 185–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Page, E. (2008). Distributing the Burdens of Climate Change. Environmental Politics, 17, 556–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Page, E. (2011). Climate Justice and the Fair Distribution of Atmospheric Burdens: A Conjunctive Account. Monist, 94, 412–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Page, E. (2012). Give It Up for Climate Change: A Defense of the Beneficiary Pays Principle. International Theory, 4, 300–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pickering, J. and Barry, C. (2012). On the Concept of Climate Debt: Its Moral and Political Value. Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy, 15, 667–85.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rawls, J. (1999). A Theory of Justice, rev. ed. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schuessler, R. (2011). Climate Justice: A Question of Historic Responsibility? Journal of Global Ethics, 7, 261–78.Google Scholar
Shue, H. (1999). Global Environment and International Inequality. International Affairs, 75, 531–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Simmons, A. J. (2010). Ideal and Nonideal Theory. Philosophy and Public Affairs, 38, 5–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wiens, D. (2012). Prescribing Institutions without Ideal Theory. Journal of Political Philosophy, 20, 45–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zellentin, A. (2014). Compensation for Historical Emissions and Excusable Ignorance. Journal of Applied Philosophy, 32, 258–74.Google Scholar
- 5
- Cited by