Holly Lawford-Smith

Political Feasibility: A Conceptual Exploration

To date there is no systematic exploration of the concept of ‘political feasibility’. We believe that feasibility is a central issue for political philosophy, conceptually as well as practically, and that it has been given background status for far too long. Roughly, a state of affairs is feasible if it is one we could actually bring about. But there are many questions to ask about the conditions under which we are justified in thinking that we could bring about a political state of affairs. In this article we bring together several aspects of the concept of feasibility defended in the literature thus far, and build upon them to give an analysis of the notion of political feasibility. We suggest that the notion involves a relation between agents and the pursuit of certain actions and outcomes in certain historical contexts, and that there are two important roles for feasibility to play in political theory, corresponding to two feasibility ‘tests’: one categorical, the other comparative. We show how the tests operate in the assessment of three different levels of a normative political theory: core normative principles, their institutional implementation and the political reforms leading to them. Focusing on the third level, which has received the least attention in the literature, we proceed to explain how feasibility considerations interact with desirability and epistemic considerations in the articulation of normative political judgments.

Unethical Consumption and Obligations to Signal

There are many different ways to try to bring about an end to the harms involved in the production of consumer goods. In this article I will start at the bottom, with the individual whose ordinary choices about how to travel, what to eat, what to wear, where to shop, and which policies to support all cause her to confront the possibility of involvement in these harms to the environment, nonhuman animals, and persons. Having dismissed the claim that an individual has a straightforward duty of justice not to consume unethically produced goods, in the second section I map out a few different approaches, all of which I take to be promising avenues for generating duties in individuals to consume ethically. I argue that the last approach is the most promising and spend the third section of this article developing it. Specifically, I argue that as a first step in collectivizing to act against unjust global labor practices, an individual ought to signal to others her commitments to ethical consumption. In section four I ask whether some signals are too cheap to function as a step toward collectivization, and defend the deliberate consumption of only ethically produced goods as a moderately costly and therefore reliable signal. In the last section I consider a challenge to the proposal in terms of whether it imposes unacceptable costs on consumers.

The Motivation Question: Arguments from Justice, and from Humanity

Two dominant arguments within international political theory, arguments from humanity and arguments from justice, can be distinguished along the lines of the well-known distinction between omissions and actions, respectively. The discussion in this paper shows that people in general are psychologically biased towards thinking that omissions producing harm are less morally grave than actions producing equivalent harm. It also canvasses evidence suggesting that greater moral gravity correlates with heightened guilt, and that heightened guilt is more likely to lead to action that would alleviate it, i.e. remedial or compensatory action. For those reasons, it is suggested that we should expect arguments from justice, which track actions, to be a more feasible means to the desired outcome of (local commitment to) global justice than arguments from humanity, which track omissions.

Does ought imply can

Most philosophers believe that a person can have an obligation only insofar as she is able to fulfil it, a principle generally referred to as “Ought Implies Can”. Arguably, this principle reflects something basic about the ordinary concept of obligation. However, in a paper published recently in this journal, Wesley Buckwalter and John Turri presented evidence for the conclusion that ordinary people in fact reject that principle. With a series of studies, they claimed to have demonstrated that, in people’s judgements, obligations persist irrespective of whether those who hold them have the ability to fulfil them. We argue in this paper that due to some problems in their design, Buckwalter & Turri’s conclusions may not be warranted. We present the results of a series of studies demonstrating the problems with their design and showing that, with an improved design, people judge that obligation depends on ability after all.

[Comment] A brief note on the ambiguity of ‘ought’. Reply to Moti Mizrahi’s ‘Ought, Can and Presupposition: An Experimental Study’.

Moti Mizrahi provides experimental evidence according to which subjects judge that a person ought to ? even when she cannot ?. He takes his results to constitute a falsification of the alleged intuitiveness of the ‘Ought Implies Can’ principle. We point out that in the light of the fact that (a) ‘ought’ is multiply ambiguous, that (b) only a restricted set of readings of ‘ought’ will be relevant to the principle, and that (c) he did not instruct his subjects appropriately – or otherwise ensure that in their ‘ought’ judgements they applied the relevant concept(s) – Mizrahi’s conclusions appear premature. We suggest two ways in which the experimental design could be adjusted or supplemented. First, Mizrahi could instruct (or prime) subjects to read the ‘ought’ question in a particular way. Second, he could complement his experiment by asking follow-up questions aimed at uncovering the implications for blame of subjects’ judgements. Once these adjustments are applied, an experiment with a similar outcome would be more significant.

Accelerating the carbon cycle: the ethics of enhanced weathering

Enhanced weathering, in comparison to other geoengineering measures, creates the possibility of a reduced cost, reduced impact way of decreasing atmospheric carbon, with positive knock-on effects such as decreased oceanic acidity. We argue that ethical concerns have a place alongside empirical, political and social factors as we consider how to best respond to the critical challenge that anthropogenic climate change poses. We review these concerns, considering the ethical issues that arise (or would arise) in the large-scale deployment of enhanced weathering. We discuss post-implementation scenarios, failures of collective action, the distribution of risk and externalities and redress for damage. We also discuss issues surrounding ‘dirty hands’ (taking conventionally immoral action to avoid having to take action that is even worse), whether enhanced weathering research might present a moral hazard, the importance of international governance and the notion that the implementation of large-scale enhanced weathering would reveal problematic hubris. Ethics and scientific research interrelate in complex ways: some ethical considerations caution against research and implementation, while others encourage them. Indeed, the ethical perspective encourages us to think more carefully about how, and what types of, geoengineering should be researched and implemented.

Collectives’ and individuals’ obligations: a parity argument

Abstract Individuals have various kinds of obligations: keep promises, don’t cause harm, return benefits received from injustices, be partial to loved ones, help the needy and so on. How does this work for group agents? There are two questions here. The first is whether groups can bear the same kinds of obligations as individuals. The second is whether groups’ pro tanto obligations plug into what they all-things-considered ought to do to the same degree that individuals’ pro tanto obligations plug into what they all-things-considered ought to do. We argue for parity on both counts.

The Comparative Culpability of SAI and Ordinary Carbon Emissions

In his article “Carbon Emissions, Stratospheric Aerosol Injection, and Unintended Harms,” Christopher J. Preston compares the culpability of carbon emitters versus that of geoengineers deploying stratospheric aerosol injection (SAI). This comparison relies on a parallel between carbon emitters and SAI deployers that requires both to be agents. However, both are not. While the harms of geoengineering will be caused by culpable agents acting intentionally, the harms connected to climate change emerge out of the uncoordinated actions of billions of people. Taken as a large group, carbon emitters cause harm but do not constitute an agent. Taken individually, carbon emitters are agents but do not cause the harms of climate change. As a result, the parallel collapses, and Prestons “surprising” conclusion is one that he is not entitled to reach.