Abstract
Many environmental problems are longitudinal collective action problems. They arise from the cumulative unintended effects of a vast amount of seemingly insignificant decisions and actions by individuals who are unknown to each other and distant from each other. Such problems are likely to be effectively addressed only by an enormous number of individuals each making a nearly insignificant contribution to resolving them. However, when a person’s making such a contribution appears to require sacrifice or costs, the problem of inconsequentialism arises: given that a person’s contribution, although needed (albeit not necessary), is nearly inconsequential to addressing the problem and may require some cost from the standpoint of the person’s own life, why should the person make the effort, particularly when it is uncertain (or even unlikely) whether others will do so? In this article I argue that justifications for making the effort to respond to longitudinal collective action environmental problems are, on the whole, particularly well supported by virtue-oriented normative theories, on which character traits are evaluated as virtues and vices consequentially or teleologically and actions are evaluated in terms of virtues and vices. If ethical theories are to be assessed on their theoretical and practical adequacy, and if providing a compelling response to the problem of inconsequentialism is an instance of such adequacy, then this is a reason for preferring virtue-oriented ethical theory over non-virtue-oriented ethical theories, such as Kantian, act utilitarian, and global utilitarian theories.
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Notes
Not all environmental problems are longitudinal collective action problems. Some widespread environmental problems were brought about by the actions of a relative small number of people, e.g., problematic invasive species such as milfoil or gypsy moth. Other environmental problems or issues are localized, e.g., neighborhood green space management.
The cumulative or collective aspect of these problems is due to their being tied to consumption of resources. Any one of us—even the very wealthy of us—can consume only a very small, seemingly inconsequential amount of the overall planetary or regional resources; and, with few exceptions, each person has very little control over the consumption patterns of others. The distance aspects of these problems are mediated by climactic and ecological interconnectedness. The problems are longitudinal because alterations of climactic and ecological systems can take considerable time to mature and spread, but often are persistent once they do.
Varieties of act utilitarianism are generated by different value axiologies and different accounts of best (or good enough) consequences (e.g., proportional, absolute, or minimizing bad). For example, a hedonistic value axiology yields the following version of act utilitarianism: “actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness. By happiness is intended pleasure and the absence of pain; by unhappiness, pain, and the privation of pleasure” (Mill 1972, p. 7). In what follows, a generic version of act utilitarianism is considered, one that applies the principle of utility at the level of individuals acts, without a specified value axiology or account of best (or good enough) consequences.
Exceptional cases include those with significant social or political authority or influence over others (e.g., President of the United States or the Catholic Pope), as well as those who create and disseminate significantly powerful relevant technologies, for example.
Baylor Johnson has argued that taking on costs associated with individual responsiveness to a collective action environmental problem is not rational if one’s actions are inconsequential and not part of a collective effort to address the problem (Johnson 2003). However, as discussed above, even if there is a collective effort in place, the problem arises: Why should one make the effort, given that one’s contribution is insignificant to whether it will succeed? What drives the problem is not the absence of a collective response, but the insignificance of one’s impact on the problem and the costs associated with responding to it.
Not all longitudinal collective action environmental problems are this way. For example, with deforestation to create farmland, the deforestation is a necessary means to the end sought; and factory farming involves treating animals as a means to a sought end. So, responsiveness to some longitudinal collective action problems can be justified (even required) by some versions of Kantian ethics (e.g., one on which animals are considered ends in themselves; Korsgaard 2004; Regan 1983).
An additional difficulty for Kantian ethics with respect to longitudinal collective action problems is that the problems characteristically involve future generations. Future generations are non-existent, so the individuals that comprise them cannot be treated as a means to an end by anything that we do. Moreover, individuals in future generations cannot be harmed or benefitted. They can be badly off, but not worse off than they otherwise would have been, since they would not have come into existence under any other scenario. As a result, Kantian ethics have difficulty supporting consideration of future generations as ethically relevant. Thus, to the extent that longitudinal collective action environmental problems involve the welfare of future generations (whoever they turn out to be) and this is ethically significant, Kantian ethics has difficulty fully characterizing the ethical dimensions of the problems.
A virtue-oriented ethical theory need not include a continuum theory of right action on which rightness and wrongness is a matter of degree. However, among the considerations in favor of a continuum theory is that it can provide these categories (Sandler 2007). Also, some virtues and vices (e.g., those that are self-regarding) might not be as relevant to these categories as others (e.g., those that are other-regarding).
Jamieson also believes that a focus on character better positions virtue-oriented ethical theory with respect to amplifying effects responses: “Focusing on the virtues helps to regulate and coordinate behavior, express and contribute to the constitution of community through space and time, and helps to create empathy, sympathy, and solidarity among moral agents” (Jamieson 2009, p. 15). If these empirical claims are true, this is an additional strength of virtue-oriented ethical theory over act-oriented and duty-oriented theories for responding to longitudinal collective action environmental problems.
This coincidence is possible because emulator utilitarianism is not a normative theory, it is meta-normative. It can, therefore, generate a virtue-oriented normative theory under particular conditions, while denying that such is the correct normative theory generally.
Jamieson’s other primary argument against indirect theories (such as virtue-oriented ethics) is that they cannot support non-complacency: “Non-complacency refers to the fact that ways of life and patterns of action should be dynamically responsive to changing circumstances, taking advantage of unique opportunities to produce goodness, and always striving to do better” (Jamieson 2009, p. 15). It is important, for example, that one-off situations where acting contrary to a norm (e.g., virtue) would bring about great goods are accommodated by the theory, i.e., that it would not be wrong (and would be right) for an agent to take advantage of such situations. It is also important that the theory have a positive evaluation of “striving to do better,” even if an agent is acting good enough. Virtue-oriented ethical theory can accommodate non-complacency. As discussed above, it is an open question, qua virtue-oriented ethical theory, how demanding a particular virtue-oriented ethical theory is, and ideals of character and action can be set that exceed that of those who to a substantial extent are already virtuous and acting well (Sandler 2007). Moreover, one-off situations where there is a great good to be gained only at the expense of acting contrary to some virtue will be cases of conflicting virtues. There will be some virtue operative in the situation that is more salient in that situation and that favors performing the action. Moreover, if such cases are common enough, sensitivity to them will inform the substantive content of the virtues (which, after all, are evaluated consequentially or teleologically). To the extent that such one-off cases arise within the domain of particular virtues, those virtues will involve appropriate responsiveness to them.
It is also worth noting that Jamieson’s argument is not likely to resonate with many neo-Aristotelian virtue-oriented ethicists, even ones that are teleological in their evaluation of character traits (so committed in that sense to realizing or bringing things about), since they need not be committed to the point of ethics being realizing “the best state of affairs.” Neo-Aristotelian ethics might, instead, ground ethics in human goodness or flourishing (Sandler 2007; Foot 2001; Hursthouse 1999). In this way, its meta-normative commitments would privilege (teleological) character level evaluation, even in those contexts where that level of evaluation does not bring about the best consequences (in the utilitarian sense). Jamieson might respond that this only betrays the rigidity of neo-Aristotelian ethical theory, and thus bolster the case that utilitarians should be “Aristotelians” sometimes but not others. Yet, again, this argument will only gain traction if the point of ethics is to bring about the best (or a good enough) state of affairs, which is an issue beyond the scope of this article.
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Acknowledgments
I thank Philip Cafaro, John Basl, Ben Miller, two anonymous referees, and participants at the 2008 meeting of the Inland Northwest Philosophy Conference for their helpful comments on earlier versions of this article.
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Sandler, R. Ethical Theory and the Problem of Inconsequentialism: Why Environmental Ethicists Should be Virtue-Oriented Ethicists. J Agric Environ Ethics 23, 167–183 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10806-009-9203-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10806-009-9203-4