CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2011
| Author | Ellis, Zachary Foster |
|---|---|
| Title | Normative Analysis of Climate Change |
| Summary | This thesis investigates global climate change and the moral dilemmas that arise from it. The thesis is argued from two specific positions in relation to the correlating problems which climate change presents: the question of international duties and the question of intergenerational duties. Throughout, the methodology used is one of normative analysis, although at times, the thesis is peppered with insights from evolutionary theory. The author grounds his arguments on an account of human rights and the subsequent duty not to cause deficits or violations of these rights. As regards the question of whether climate change creates international duties of justice, the author adapts Thomas Pogge’s institutional cosmopolitanism and his theory of our stringent negative duties not to harm. The author argues that there are indeed international duties of justice, as climate change is a cooperative process that will create harm via foreseeable deficits in human rights. On the question of intergenerational justice, the author puts forth a Prioritarian account of distributive justice, claiming that the best way to avoid human rights deficits is to act immediately in mitigating climate change and alleviating abject poverty. This is supported by Thomas Schelling’s argument which disaggregates “the social discount rate,” demonstrating that the worst off population in the intergenerational question will be the current poor. |
| Supervisor | Miklosi, Zoltan |
| Department | Political Science MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2011/ellis_zachary.pdf |
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