180103 SE Climate Ethics (2021W)

Major climate change, such as the increase of global temperatures due to atmospheric accumulation of greenhouse gases and the consequent rise of average sea level, as well as their undeniable harmful consequences, have called for transformations of both technology and human behavior. Mitigation based on emission cuts has been the main focus of our response strategies to keep the increase of temperature as far below under 2ºC as possible.

This seminar will consider some of the moral questions raised by climate change. In particular, we will discuss questions about how to best conceive of climate change as a moral problem, about fairness in sharing the associated economic burden among countries, about justice towards climate refugees, future generations, and non-human sentient species, as well as questions about moral motivation and individual moral obligations in the context of possibly catastrophic climate change.