Premium
Compensation for Historical Emissions and Excusable Ignorance
Author(s) -
Zellentin Alexa
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
journal of applied philosophy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.339
H-Index - 30
eISSN - 1468-5930
pISSN - 0264-3758
DOI - 10.1111/japp.12092
Subject(s) - ignorance , argument (complex analysis) , individualism , context (archaeology) , economic justice , compensation (psychology) , interpretation (philosophy) , set (abstract data type) , law and economics , veil of ignorance , epistemology , environmental ethics , sociology , positive economics , political science , law , economics , philosophy , computer science , social psychology , psychology , geography , chemistry , biochemistry , linguistics , archaeology , programming language
This article defends the idea of applying principles of corrective justice to the matter of climate change. In particular, it argues against the excusable ignorance objection, which holds that historical emissions produced at a time when our knowledge of climate change was insufficient ought to be removed from the equation when applying rectificatory principles to this context. In constructing my argument, I rely on a particular interpretation of rectificatory justice and outcome responsibility. I also address the individualism objection by showing why we should view states as relevant agents of climate change. This argument is built on the assumption that states are institutions set up to coordinate and regulate human interaction, so as to protect their citizens from the unwanted consequences of such interaction.