Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-8kt4b Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-05T21:50:12.378Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The threat of intergenerational extortion: on the temptation to become the climate mafia, masquerading as an intergenerational Robin Hood

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Stephen M. Gardiner
Stephen M. Gardiner*
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy and Program on Values in Society, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA
*
Email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This paper argues that extortion is a clear threat in intergenerational relations, and that the threat is manifest in some existing proposals in climate policy and latent in some background tendencies in mainstream moral and political philosophy. The paper also claims that although some central aspects of the concern about extortion might be pursued in terms of the entitlements of future generations, this approach is likely to be incomplete. In particular, intergenerational extortion raises issues about the appropriate limits to the sway of central values such as welfare and distributive justice. We should be wary of ways in which such values invite us to buy off, or perhaps to join, an intergenerational climate Mafia.

Keywords

Climate justiceJohn Broomeintergenerational justicemaking the grandchildren payluck egalitarianism
Type
Articles
Information
Canadian Journal of Philosophy , Volume 47 , Issue 2-3: Special issue: Ethics and Future Generations , 2017 , pp. 368 - 394
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Journal of Philosophy 2017

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Anderson, Scott. 2011. “Coercion.” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/coercion/.Google Scholar
Bertram, Christopher. 2009. “Exploitation and Intergenerational Justice.” In Intergenerational Justice, edited by Gosseries, Axel and Meyer, Lukas, 147–167. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Broome, John. 2012. Climate Matters. New York: Norton.Google Scholar
Carson, Thomas L. 1985. “Bribery, Extortion, and ‘The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act’.” Philosophy & Public Affairs 14 (1): 66–90.Google Scholar
Gardiner, Stephen. 2011. A Perfect Moral Storm. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195379440.001.0001CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gardiner, Stephen. 2014. “A Call for a Global Constitutional Convention Focused on Future Generations.” Ethics and International Affairs 28 (3): 299–315. 10.1017/S0892679414000379CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gardiner, Stephen. forthcoming. “If a Climate Catastrophe is Possible, is Everything Permitted?” Presented at University of Melbourne, 2014.Google Scholar
Gardiner, Stephen, and Weisbach, David. 2016. Debating Climate Ethics. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199996476.001.0001CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gaspart, F., and Gosseries, A.. 2007. “Are Generational Savings Unjust?” Politics, Philosophy & Economics 6: 193–217. 10.1177/1470594X07073006CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Helm, Dieter. 2008. “Climate-change Policy: Why has So Little Been Achieved?” Oxford Review of Economic Policy 24 (2): 211–238. 10.1093/oxrep/grn014CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lindgren, James. 1993. “The Theory, History and Practice of the Bribery-Extortion Distinction.” University of Pennsylvania Law Review 141 (5): 1695–1740. 10.2307/3312572CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Maltais, Aaron. 2015. “Making Our Grandchildren Pay for Mitigation.” In The Ethics of Climate Governance, edited by McKinnon, Catriona and Maltais, Aaron, 91–109. London: Rowman and Littlefield.Google Scholar
Nozick, Robert. 1969. “Coercion.” In Philosophy, Science, and Method: Essays in Honor of Ernest Nagel, edited by Morgenbesser, Sidney, Suppes, Patrick and White, Morton, 440–472. New York: St. Martin’s Press.Google Scholar
Posner, Eric, and Sunstein, Cass. 2008. “Climate Change Justice.” Georgetown Law Journal 96 (5): 1565–1612.Google Scholar
Posner, Eric, and Weisbach, David. 2010. Climate Change Justice. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. 10.1515/9781400834402CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rendall, Matthew. 2011. “Climate Change and the Threat of Disaster: The Moral Case for Taking Out Insurance at Our Grandchildren’s Expense.” Political Studies 59: 884–899. 10.1111/j.1467-9248.2010.00877.xCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sachs, Stephen. 2006. “Saving Toby: Extortion, Blackmail, and the Right to Destroy.” Yale Law & Policy Review 24 (1): 251–261.Google Scholar
Shue, Henry. 2014. Climate Justice: Vulnerability and Protection. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Singer, Peter. 2016. One World Now. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Sutherland, Sharon and Swan, Sarah. 2011. “This Isn’t a Negotiation.” In The Essential Sopranos Reader, edited by Lavery, David, 232–242. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky.Google Scholar
Wertheimer, Alan. 1987. Coercion. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar