Content uploaded by Seumas Miller
Author content
All content in this area was uploaded by Seumas Miller on Aug 13, 2019
Content may be subject to copyright.
Collective Responsibility, Epistemic Action and Climate Change
Abstract
This article undertakes four tasks: (1) outline a theory of joint action, including multi-layered structures of joint action
characteristic of organizational action; (2) utilize this theory to elaborate an account of joint epistemic action – joint
action directed to the acquisition of knowledge, e.g. a team of scientists seeking to discover the cause of climate change;
(3) outline an account of collective moral responsibility based on the theory of joint action (including the account of joint
epistemic action); (4) apply the account of collective moral responsibility to the issue of human-induced, harmful, climate
change with a view to illuminating both retrospective responsibility for causing the harm and also prospective responsibility
for addressing the problem in terms of mitigation and/or adaptation.
... Others, however, aware of the importance of collaborations in science, the relational nature of scientific practice, as well as of the complexity of factors in science that might properly be a target of epistemic and ethical obligations have focused on teams, scientific communities, or institutions as those with particular responsibilities to ensure that science is socially responsible (Kitcher 2001;Miller 2011;Rolin 2015;Dang 2019;Fleisher & Šešelja 2022). On these accounts, conducting science involves both social and epistemic collective ends, e.g., generating knowledge or predictions that can avert future large-scale harms or delivering safe and effective treatments against diseases, that require collective action and call for collective responsibilities. ...
Philosophers of science, particularly those working on science and values, often talk about the need for science to be socially responsible. However, what this means is not clear. In this paper, we review the contributions of philosophers of science to the debate over socially responsible science and explore the dimensions that a fruitful account of socially responsible science should address. Our review shows that offering a comprehensive account is difficult. We contend that broad calls for socially responsible science that fail to attend to relevant dimensions are not the solution, as they preclude meaningful changes to research institutions and practices. We conclude that narrower, more explicit accounts are more likely to lead to substantive transformation.
... Whilst, perceived (self−/collective-) efficacy refers to a belief that individual's actions will be effective and, thus, will meet the desired outcomes (Bradley et al., 2020). Robust evidence has been suggesting that both psychological constructs are particularly related to citizens' engagement in mitigation and adaptation actions related to climate change and risk management (Bateman and O'Connor, 2016;Bradley et al., 2020;Brügger et al., 2015;Janmaimool and Khajohnmanee, 2020;Miller, 2011;Punzo et al., 2019;Reese and Jacob, 2015;Ung et al., 2015;Van Valkengoed and Steg, 2019). For that reason, we argue that this evidence may be exploited in a concerted form, and shall be considered a "window of opportunity" towards the transition from a technocratic coastal management (firmly institutionalized in Portugal) to a participatory integrated coastal management, as favored by participants. ...
Coastal ecosystems are exposed to unprecedented levels of human pressure and to the cumulative effects of climate change. Altogether, these threats have been exposing coastal areas to augmented hazardous processes, leaving communities highly vulnerable to coastal risks and challenging the coastal management paradigm. Disregarding public perceptions of coastal risk management may be myopic and, thus, an obstacle to the success of the efforts towards coastal risks' mitigation and adaptation. Therefore, this study aims at comprehensively ascertain public perception and preferences for coastal risk management, through a mixed-methods approach. The quantitative study accounted for 3028 participants that enrolled in the population-based survey. The qualitative study accounted for 320 participants that responded to the e-interview. Data were analysed independently and triangulated for further interpretation. Evidence from this study suggests that citizens prioritize the intrinsic value of coastal systems, when favouring a risk adaptation strategy. Therefore, ecosystem-based adaptation measures were highlighted, in detriment of grey infrastructure. Additionally, and due to the reported high levels of public authorities' distrust, the public seems to urge for a transition from a technocratic to a participatory coastal management, in which public's preferences are legitimized. Consequently, and in order to decentralize coastal governance, citizens demonstrated a proactive disposition to actively engage in coastal management. Findings from this study were discussed in order to provide guidance to the development of tailored coastal management initiatives and policy tools, which are expected to be effective at enhancing coastal communities' resilience to hazardous processes and augmenting citizens' engagement in coastal management.
... Some authors argue that collective moral obligations distribute to the members of a collective agent by virtue of their institutional roles. Miller (2011) argues that the responsibility of a government to act on climate change should be understood as the joint moral responsibility of its members. In contrast, when an obligation falls on everyone collectively, individual duties are derivative rather than distributive, meaning that the responsibility is borne by the collective itself (Wringe, 2020). ...
Climate change can be construed as a question of collective responsibility from two different viewpoints: climate change being inherently a collective problem, or collective entities bearing responsibility for climate change. When discussing collective responsibility for climate change, “collective” can thus refer to the problem of climate change itself, or to the entity causing the harm and/or bearing responsibility for it. The first viewpoint focuses on how climate change is a harm that has been caused collectively. Collective action problem refers to an aggregation of individual actions which together produce an outcome that is not intended at the level of an individual action. It cannot be solved by any one agent acting unilaterally. Instead, climate change action must be enacted and supported by numerous agents. The second way to conceptualize climate change as a question of collective responsibility focuses on the collective entities that bear responsibility for climate change. As a global problem, climate change is linked to the realm of international politics, where states, governments, and intergovernmental organizations are the main collective entities. Other important agential collectives in terms of climate responsibility are corporations, including carbon majors who have produced the bulk of emissions. Climate change has also been theorized as a structural injustice, which combines elements from both the viewpoints on what is collective about responsibility for climate change.
This article is categorized under: Climate, Nature, and Ethics > Ethics and Climate Change
Climate, Nature, and Ethics > Climate Change and Global Justice
... Cole (1996) took their ideas and added that culture constrains the social interactions in which learning occurs (Nasir & Hand, 2006). Based on this perspective learning is seen as a fluid process of interpretation situated in cultural-historic settings (Miller, 2011). There is an added emphasis that all human interactions function on multiple scales. ...
... Responsibility for climate change is obviously, both at the individual and the collective level, complicated and contested. Various philosophers, and others, have come to opposing conclusions on how responsibility should be attributed in this case (e.g., Caney 2005; Sinnott-Armstrong 2005 ;Miller 2009;Jamieson 2010;Miller 2011;Vanderheiden 2011). Our aim here is not to end these debates; rather, we want to show that on some plausible interpretation, it would be reasonable to maintain that no individual is (in some sense) responsible for climate change whereas the world population is collectively responsible and, therefore, the case may be seen as an example of the problem of many hands. ...
When many people are involved in an activity, it is often difficult, if not impossible, to pinpoint who is morally responsible for what, a phenomenon known as the 'problem of many hands.' This term is increasingly used to describe problems with attributing individual responsibility in collective settings in such diverse areas as public administration, corporate management, law and regulation, technological development and innovation, healthcare, and finance. This volume provides an in-depth philosophical analysis of this problem, examining the notion of moral responsibility and distinguishing between different normative meanings of responsibility, both backward-looking (accountability, blameworthiness, and liability) and forward-looking (obligation, virtue). Drawing on the relevant philosophical literature, the authors develop a coherent conceptualization of the problem of many hands, taking into account the relationship, and possible tension, between individual and collective responsibility. This systematic inquiry into the problem of many hands pertains to discussions about moral responsibility in a variety of applied settings.
In this article on collective responsibility, the concern is twofold. First, several types of collective responsibility are distinguished: principally, collective natural, institutional, and moral responsibility. Second, numerous modes of application of various kinds of collective responsibility are identified and analyzed, including collective responsibility for the outcomes of joint institutional mechanisms (such as voting systems), for organizational action (by multi-layered structures of joint action), and the outcomes of chains of institutional responsibility (such as the verdicts of juries in criminal trials). Throughout, the concept of collective responsibility as joint responsibility is used.
CO 2 emissions reduction of urban residents is one of the main ways to mitigate climate change. Clarifying the key factors of carbon emissions can provide a reference basis for the government to formulate carbon reduction policies. The old urban community that widely exist in most cities in northern China is taken as the research object. Based on the fuzzy interpretive structural model and structural equation model, a new method is proposed to explore the influencing factors of household carbon emissions (HCEs). It is found that behavior change attitude and low‐carbon personal cognition are the two most important factors affecting HCE. Elderly families, high‐income families, and low‐education families are the groups with higher per capita HCE. Different suggestions were proposed to promote HCE reduction for the high‐income young tenants and low‐income elderly local residents in the community. In addition, by introducing multi‐agent judgment, the coupling model proposed in this study reduces the subjectivity caused by excessive reliance on single agent judgment in previous studies. It enhances the credibility of research conclusions and provides a good methodological reference for research in similar fields.
This is the second book in the series Shared Responsibility in International Law, which examines the problem of distribution of responsibilities among multiple states and other actors. In its work on the responsibility of states and international organisations, the International Law Commission recognised that attribution of acts to one actor does not exclude possible attribution of the same act to another state or organisation. However, it provided limited guidance for the often complex question of how responsibility is to be distributed among wrongdoing actors. This study fills that gap by shedding light on principles of distribution from extra-legal perspectives. Drawing on disciplines such as political theory, moral philosophy, and economics, this volume enquires into the bases and justifications for apportionment of responsibilities that can support a critique of current international law, offers insight into the justification of alternative interpretations, and provides inspiration for reform and further development of international law.
There seem to be good reasons that democratic institutions must be reformed in order to minimize the danger of unsustainable policy decisions infringing upon duties of intergenerational justice. This is why there exist a number of different proposals of how to reform democratic states in order to foster their duties towards the future. However, the debate lacks a systematic assessment of these suggested reforms within a coherent theoretical and normative framework. This paper aims at developing such a framework. We suggest two conceptual dimensions defining the spectrum of different justifiable institutional reforms: the relation between democracy and justice as one dimension and the conditions considered relevant for viewing democracies as responsible collective agents as the other. Depending on how we understand this relation and these conditions, it is possible to substantiate a set of types of institutional reforms that will promote democracies’ capacities to comply with their responsibilities towards the future.
To make the issue stark, let us begin with a few assumptions. I believe that these assumptions are probably roughly accurate, but none is certain, and I will not try to justify them here. Instead, I will simply take them for granted for the sake of argument. First, global warming has begun and is likely to increase over the next century. We cannot be sure exactly how much or how fast, but hot times are coming. Second, a significant amount of global warming is due to human activities. The main culprit is fossil fuels. Third, global warming will create serious problems for many people over the long term by causing climate changes, including violent storms, floods from sea-level rises, droughts, heat waves, and so on. Millions of people will probably be displaced or die. Fourth, the poor will be hurt most of all. The rich countries are causing most of the global warming, but they will be able to adapt to climate changes more easily. Poor countries that are close to sea level might be devastated. Fifth, governments, especially the biggest and richest ones, are able to mitigate global warming They can impose limits on emissions. They can require or give incentives for increased energy efficiency. They can stop deforestation and fund reforestation. They can develop ways to sequester carbon dioxide in oceans or underground. These steps will help, but the only long-run solution lies in alternatives to fossil fuels. These alternatives can be found soon if governments start massive research projects now. Sixth, it is too late to stop global warming. Because there is so much carbon dioxide in the atmosphere already, because carbon dioxide remains in the atmosphere for so long, and because we will remain dependent on fossil fuels in the near future, governments can slow down global warming or reduce its severity, but they cannot prevent it. Hence, governments need to adapt. They need to build sea walls. They need to reinforce houses that cannot withstand storms. They need to move populations from low-lying areas.
Recently, the importance of the notion of collective moral responsibility has begun to be realised in relation to, for example, environmental degradation and global poverty. Evidently, we are collectively morally responsible for causing environmental damage of various kinds and degrees; and, arguably, we have a collective responsibility to assist those living in extreme poverty. However, thus far, the focus in theoretical and applied ethics has been on collective responsibility for actions and omissions, that is, for outward behaviour. There has been scant attention paid to collective responsibility for knowledge acquisition and dissemination, that is, for inner epistemic states. Further, although the notion of individual responsibility in relation to computer technology has been the subject of a certain amount of philosophical work, this is not so for collective responsibility. In this chapter, I seek to redress these imbalances somewhat by examining the notion of collective responsibility in so far as it pertains to the communication and retrieval of knowledge by means of information and communication technology. The chapter is in two main parts. In Part A, I apply my collective end theory (Miller 2001, chapters 2 and 5) of joint action, and its associated technical notions of joint procedures, joint mechanisms, and collective ends, to the process of the acquisition of certain forms of social knowledge. The focus here is on analysing the communication, storage, and retrieval of knowledge by means of information and communications technology (ICT) in terms of the collective end theory.
Previous chapters in this volume have focused on scientific research, eco-nomic projections, and government policies. However, even if scientists es-tablish that global warming is occurring, even if economists confirm that its costs will be staggering, and even if political theorists agree that govern-ments must do something about it, it is still not clear what moral obligations regarding global warming devolve upon individuals like you and me. That is the question to be addressed in this essay.
In this book, Seumas Miller examines the moral foundations of contemporary social institutions. Offering an original general theory of social institutions, he posits that all social institutions exist to realize various collective ends, indeed, to produce collective goods. He analyses key concepts such as collective responsibility and institutional corruption. Miller also provides distinctive special theories of particular institutions, including governments, welfare agencies, universities, police organizations, business corporations, and communications and information technology entities. These theories are philosophical and, thus, foundational and synoptic in character. They are normative accounts of a sampling of contemporary social institutions, not descriptive accounts of all social institutions, both past and present. Miller also addresses various ethical challenges confronting contemporary institutional designers and policymakers, including the renovation of the international financial system, the “dumbing down” of the media, the challenge of world poverty, and human rights infringements by security agencies combating global terrorism.
Social action is central to social thought. This centrality reflects the overwhelming causal significance of action for social life, the centrality of action to any account of social phenomena, and the fact that conventions and normativity are features of human activity. This book provides philosophical analyses of fundamental categories of human social action, including cooperative action, conventional action, social norm governed action, and the actions of the occupants of organizational roles. A distinctive feature of the book is that it applies these theories of social action categories to some important moral issues that arise in social contexts such as the collective responsibility for environmental pollution, humanitarian intervention, and dealing with the rights of minority groups. Avoiding both the excessively atomistic individualism of rational choice theorists and implausible collectivist assumptions, this important book will be widely read by philosophers of the social sciences, political scientists and sociologists.
When policies of or activities within one country and generation cause deleterious consequences for those of other nations and later generations, they can constitute serious injustices. Hence, anthropogenic climate change poses not only a global environmental threat, but also one to international and intergenerational justice. The avoidance of such injustice has been recognized as a primary objective of global climate policy, and this book aims to comprehend the nature of this objective-to explore how climate change raises issues of international and intergenerational justice and to consider how the design of a global climate regime might these aims into account. Enlisting conceptual tools from ethics as well as legal and political theory, it treats justice as concerned with equity and responsibility and considers how each is undermined by climate change but might be incorporated into climate policy. Various theoretical problems in applying norms of equity and responsibility across borders, over time, and to nations for their greenhouse emissions are considered, and responses are given to these challenges. Finally, an outline for a global climate policy that adequately incorporates norms of justice is articulated and defended, along with a case for procedural fairness in policy development processes. Demonstrating how political theory can usefully contribute toward better understanding the proper human response to climate change as well as how the climate case offers insights into resolving contemporary controversies within political theory, the book offers a case study in which the application of normative theory to policy allows readers to better understand both.
