Hybrid: (i) Physically at Institute for Futures Studies (IFFS), Holländargatan 13, Stockholm, and (ii) online on Zoom: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85904684519
Wednesday September 27
10:00 – 11:45 Julia Nefsky (University of Toronto)
Expected Utility, the Pond Analogy and Imperfect Duties
This talk brings together ideas from two papers that I am co-writing with Sergio Tenenbaum. In the first half of the talk, I will discuss the expected utility approach to individual obligations in collective impact contexts (like climate change). We argue that in addition to concerns that myself and others have raised in the past (which focus on whether the expected utility calculus gives the correct results), there is a more basic problem with the approach – an internal error with the reasoning involved. I will illustrate this new, internal objection using examples like meat consumption, and transportation choices and climate change. I will then, in the second half of the talk, turn to a discussion of our duties to donate money, and specifically Peter Singer’s Pond Analogy and its implications. After arguing briefly that various seemingly promising replies to Singer do not actually succeed, I will set out what we think is the right way to reply. The objection to the expected utility approach presented in the first part of the talk plays an important role. It also informs what we think is the right way to understand our obligations in collective impact contexts – namely, as imperfect duties. I will close by suggesting that the same structure we describe for imperfect duties in those contexts generalizes to other imperfect duties as well.
12:00 – 13:30 Lunch
13:30 – 14:30 Vuko Andric (IFFS & Linköping University)
How could the collective obligations of unstructured groups be grounded in individual obligations?
There are different accounts of how the collective obligation of an unstructured group to phi might be grounded in the fact that the group would (likely) phi if the group members discharged certain individual obligations. What are these individual obligations? Candidates include individual obligations to transform the group into a group agent (collectivization), to identify phi-ing as the optimal solution to a problem that group members cannot solve individually and to deduce individual actions on that basis (we-reasoning), to be prepared to do one’s part in phi-ing should it be sufficiently likely that the other group members would do their parts as well (preparedness), and to be disposed to pick up information about what reactions and actions tend to promote what is morally important and be moved by such information when opportunity arises (caring).
My talk consists of four parts. In the first part, I briefly present my favourite argument for the existence of collective obligations of unstructured groups and explain why this argument supports only the caring proposal.
The second part focuses on the moral status of phi-ing as this collective behaviour features in the specifications of the grounding individual obligations, both on the caring proposal as well as on the other suggestions. Since the collective obligation to phi, on the accounts under discussion, is grounded in individual duties of group members, the individual duties cannot consist in doing something or being a certain way where the doing or being is specified with regard to a collective obligation to phi. But what status does phi-ing have in the individual duties if not that of being obligatory? The discussed suggestions include being morally relevant, being morally optimal, and being a conditional collective moral obligation.
In the third part, I examine the nature of the grounding individual obligations on the caring proposal. Are the obligations in question moral or rational obligations? I will argue that, since it is desirable for an account of collective obligations to be compatible with as many (prima facie plausible) ethical and meta-ethical positions as possible, the obligations in question should be neither classified as purely moral nor as purely rational. Rather, I shall argue, they are rational obligations of moral agents.
The final part, which also takes as its starting point the desideratum that an account of collective obligations be compatible with as many ethical and meta-ethical positions as possible, addresses the question of whether the grounding individual obligations are perspective-dependent. Several authors, both of the caring proposal as well as of the alternative accounts, have suggested a positive answer. I shall argue that there is no need for such a commitment.
14:30 – 14:45 Break
14:45 – 15:45 Anne Schwenkenbecher (Murdoch University) Online
We-mode reasoning about our environmental obligations
Moral agents facing collective-action problems regularly encounter a conundrum: together, we can effect change whereas, individually, we are inefficacious. Further, what appears individually rational can be collectively suboptimal. An individual agent may employ different types of reasoning in deciding how to act vis-à-vis such problems. Reasoning in the I-mode, she takes her individual agency and efficacy in the world as the starting point: What is the best thing she can do given the circumstance and given what others do? It is act-based, best-response reasoning. The preferences of agents deliberating in the I-mode may well be other-regarding: e.g. they may aim at furthering the groupʼs interest or collective good. We-mode reasoning, or ʻwe-reasoningʼ, in contrast, is pattern-based: we infer our course of action from what is collectively best by way of acting as part of the group rather than for the sake of the group. I-mode reasoning with pro-group preferences (pro-group I-mode reasoning) and we-reasoning will often generate the same result, in particular in so-called strict joint necessity cases – where each agentʼs contribution is necessary for realizing a specific collectively available option. I-mode reasoning will regularly generate socially suboptimal results in so-called wide joint necessity cases –such as voting or carbon footprint reductions. Moral deliberating agents use both kinds of reasoning and contextual factors seem to function as important triggers. But how should agents reason vis-à-vis collective moral action problems? Answering this question is crucial for understanding (many if not most of) our moral obligations regarding the environment.
15:45 – 16:00 Break
16:00 – 17:00 Krister Bykvist (Stockholm University & IFFS) & Karsten Klint Jensen (IFFS)
Changing the topic? The costs of solving moral Hi-Lo cases by reframing the choice situation
Moral Hi-Lo cases (sometimes called Gibbard- or Regan-cases) have been used to criticize act-consequentialism, or, more generally, consequence-sensitive theories. If both agents act independently and choose Lo, they act rightly according to act-consequentialism, for if any agent would unilaterally choose Hi, the outcome would be worse. This seems counterintuitive, since they could together bring about a better outcome by each choosing Hi. In short, act-consequentialism fails to be collectively maximizing. A theory is collectively maximizing iff whenever the theory is universally satisfied, the class of all agents produce by their acts taken together the best consequences that they can possibly produce by any pattern of behavior. Many alternative theories have been put forward that are supposed to do better than act-consequentialism in Hi-Lo cases. They can be divided into two groups, the non-reframers and the reframers. We shall show that non-reframers are obvious non-starters, and that reframers can be accused of changing the topic, and that they fail to be collectively maximizing in the reframed situations. The upshot is that it is unclear how much of an improvement these theories are on act-consequentialism when we consider individual duties in Hi-Lo cases.
17:30 Drinks (and dinner for speakers)
Thursday September 28
10:00 – 11:00 Björn Petersson (Lund University) & Olle Blomberg (University of Gothenburg)
Faults and guilt feelings in unstructured groups
On a number of accounts, an unstructured group can have a moral obligation, where this collective moral obligation is not reducible to a set of individual moral obligations (see e.g. Cripps 2013; Björnsson 2014; Blomberg & Petersson 2023). When the group members fail to live up to their collective obligation, it is possible on these accounts that one or more members may not individually be at fault even though the group is blameworthy for violating the obligation-–they may have done everything in their power to get the rest of the group to do their parts of what the group is obliged to do. In this talk, we sketch an account of collective blameworthiness, and address the following questions: (i) What is the appropriate stance for blamers to take toward such individually faultless group members? (ii) How should these individually faultless group members appropriately respond to blame directed at their group?
Drawing on work in social psychology on group identification and collective guilt, as well as our account of collective moral obligation, we argue that it is at least rationally permissible for group members, including those not individually at fault, to feel guilt from the group’s perspective, in light of the group’s failure to act in accordance with its obligation. Similarly, it is rationally permissible to blame the group members, qua group members. We compare and contrast this view, and argue that it is superior to, views according to which collective guilt is fitting because guilt simply does not imply fault (Morris 1987; Sepinwall 2011), or according to which some other moral emotion than guilt is fitting, at least when it comes to faultless individuals whose quality of will is not substandard (e.g. Oshana 2006; Björnsson 2021; Telech 2022), as well as accounts claiming that assignments of collective guilt have no implications for individual members’ guilt (Gilbert 2000; Cooper 2001).
11:00 – 11.15 Break
11:15 – 12:15 Säde Hormio (University of Helsinki & IFFS)
Shared social orientation
Climate change can be construed as a question of collective responsibility not only from the viewpoint of collective agents bearing responsibility for climate change, but also from the viewpoint of how the problem itself is inherently collective (Hormio 2023). This second way to conceptualise climate change as a question of collective responsibility focuses on how climate change is a harm that has been caused collectively and can only be solved collectively. Collective action problem is an aggregation of individual actions that produce an outcome not intended at the level of an individual action. It cannot be solved by any one agent acting unilaterally because remedial action must be enacted and supported by numerous agents.
Unorganised collectives are a set of individuals who are picked out by some normatively relevant fact. When it comes to focusing on the collective harm of climate change, the normatively relevant fact could be about things like the size of one’s ecological footprint, or about their consuming habits (for example, ‘daily consumers of dairy products’). Such aggregates of consumers are unorganised collectives as opposed to collective agents, meaning that they are not organised entities with an established decision-making structure.
I will explain what shared social orientation (SSO) is and how it can help us to conceptualise our responsibility as constituents of unorganised collectives, where we are often constrained by structures, yet also help to shape each other’s actions and values. I suggest that constituents of unorganised collectives should try to pay attention to the harmful structures that we might be part of. More specifically, we should try to become aware of our position within these structures and be willing to take action to make changes for the better should such an opportunity arise. When we become aware of our SSO, change can happen even from unlikely sources.
12:15 – 13:30 Lunch
13:30 – 14:30 Natalie Gold (London School of Economics)
Rational coordination to prevent climate change: team reasoning, social identity, and group goals
Climate change is a collective action problem. It’s a two-headed problem: individual actions have externalities for other people and individual actions may lead to imperceptible benefits. Both of these are a problem for rational cooperation and coordination. I show how the theory of team reasoning can address these problems and how, when an individual reasons as a member of a group, this can make coordinating to solve climate change a rational choice. However, the theory still allows that it is rational to defect when an agent reasons as an individual. That leaves a question of when and why an individual will reason as a group. One idea in the literature draws on ’social identity theory’, suggesting that making group identity salient should increase cooperation. I examine this idea and argue that a more direct and effective solution is to stimulate group goals.
14:30 – 14:45 Break
14:45 – 15:45 Olle Torpman (IFFS)
Climate Change, Compliance, and Emissions Egalitarianism
As a collective, we have strong reasons to make massive emissions reductions in order to avoid even the worst climate change scenarios. From this, however, no specific burden-division or coordination among us as individuals is implied. The reason is that the climate system is not sensitive to how, where or by whom the emissions reductions are made – only that they are made. Settling those issues is up for debate. Unfortunately, it appears to be hard to agree on how the collective emissions reductions should be divided among us. This is at least in part because there is little agreement about which climate justice principle we should base such a division on. And one reason for that is that different such principles exhibit different advantages and disadvantages. For instance, some appear to be fairer, while others appear more effective with respect to climate change mitigation. This observation indicates that there are (at least) two desiderata that a climate justice principle should meet: It should be fair and effective. This paper is concerned with the effectiveness desideratum of climate justice principles, and aims to offer some guidance in the choice of climate principles based on this desideratum. More precisely, it argues that in order for a climate principle to be effective, its recommendation must satisfy a compliance condition, requiring that people are not unwilling to accept or do what it tells them to do. In doing so, I first explicate the options we have when it comes to the division of the work that needs to be done in terms of emissions reductions. Then, I argue that one of these options is expected to perform better than the others with respect to compliance, and that one climate justice principle in particular recommends this option.
15:45 – 16:00 Break
16:00 – 17:00 Mark Budolfson (University of Texas at Austin & IFFS)
The reciprocity view about the ethics of partiality, collective action, and reasonableness
In this talk, I will identify a particular principle of reciprocity, and examine how far it can go to help resolve a number of classic puzzles about partiality, collective action, and reasonableness. I will also suggest that we should expect such a principle to be at the core of ethics, given the function of ethical concepts in our lives and thought.