nach oben

Erschienen in:

2018 | OriginalPaper | Buchkapitel

5. Utilitarianism, Prioritarianism, and Climate Change: A Brief Introduction

verfasst von : Matthew D. Adler

Erschienen in: Climate Change and Its Impacts

Verlag: Springer International Publishing

Einloggen

Aktivieren Sie unsere intelligente Suche, um passende Fachinhalte oder Patente zu finden.

search-config

KI-gestützte Suche

Aus

Abstract

This chapter compares prioritarianism and utilitarianism as frameworks for evaluating climate policies. Prioritarianism is an ethical view that gives greater weight to well-being changes affecting worse-off individuals. This view has been much discussed in recent moral philosophy but, thus far, has played little role in scholarship on climate change—where the utilitarian approach has, to date, been dominant. Prioritarianism and utilitarianism can be operationalized as policy-evaluation methodologies using the formalism of the “social welfare function” (SWF). Outcomes are converted into vectors (lists) of well-being numbers, one for each person in the population of concern. These lists are then ranked using some rule. The dominant approach in climate economics is to employ a discounted-utilitarian SWF. Well-being numbers are multiplied by a discount factor that decreases with time; these discounted numbers are then summed. The discounted-utilitarian SWF is problematic, both in incorporating an arbitrary preference for earlier generations, and in ignoring the well-being levels of individuals affected by policies. By contrast, the non-discounted prioritarian SWF eschews a discount factor, and adjusts well-being numbers so as to give priority to the worse off. This chapter describes the discounted-utilitarian and nondiscounted-prioritarian SWFs, and compares them with reference to three important topics in climate policy: the Ramsey formula, the social cost of carbon, and optimal mitigation.

Sie haben noch keine Lizenz? Dann Informieren Sie sich jetzt über unsere Produkte:

Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik"

Online-Abonnement

Mit Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik" erhalten Sie Zugriff auf:

über 102.000 Bücher
über 537 Zeitschriften

aus folgenden Fachgebieten:

Automobil + Motoren
Bauwesen + Immobilien
Business IT + Informatik
Elektrotechnik + Elektronik
Energie + Nachhaltigkeit
Finance + Banking
Management + Führung
Marketing + Vertrieb
Maschinenbau + Werkstoffe
Versicherung + Risiko

Jetzt Wissensvorsprung sichern!

Jetzt informieren

Springer Professional "Technik"

Online-Abonnement

Mit Springer Professional "Technik" erhalten Sie Zugriff auf:

über 67.000 Bücher
über 390 Zeitschriften

aus folgenden Fachgebieten:

Automobil + Motoren
Bauwesen + Immobilien
Business IT + Informatik
Elektrotechnik + Elektronik
Energie + Nachhaltigkeit
Maschinenbau + Werkstoffe

Jetzt Wissensvorsprung sichern!

Jetzt informieren

Springer Professional "Wirtschaft"

Online-Abonnement

Mit Springer Professional "Wirtschaft" erhalten Sie Zugriff auf:

über 67.000 Bücher
über 340 Zeitschriften

aus folgenden Fachgebieten:

Bauwesen + Immobilien
Business IT + Informatik
Finance + Banking
Management + Führung
Marketing + Vertrieb
Versicherung + Risiko

Jetzt Wissensvorsprung sichern!

Jetzt informieren

Vorheriges Kapitel Justice in Mitigation After Paris

Nächstes Kapitel Assessing Climate Change Impacts on Hurricane Hazards

To be sure, this transformation function needs to be specified. See below for a discussion of how to do so.

On the possibility of extending prioritarianism to animals, see Holtug (2007).

Although some climate analysis assumes infinite time, it seems exceedingly unlikely that the earth or human species will continue ad infinitum. See Adler and Treich (2015); Adler (2012, pp. 576–79). Thus I assume that all the outcomes under consideration are such that the human species becomes extinct after a finite time T_max. To be sure, we don’t know what T_max is! Such uncertainty, like other sources of uncertainty relevant to climate policy, can be handled by seeing each policy choice as a probability distribution over outcomes. In this instance, outcomes would differ in T_max, and the assignment of probabilities to outcomes would reflect our assessment of the likelihood of different such maximum times. The probability of a given T_max could be exogenous to climate policy or—even more realistically—affected by climate policy itself.

In this chapter, to keep the presentation simple, I generally ignore uncertainty—but it should be stressed that the SWF framework certainly has the resources to take account of uncertainty. See below, briefly discussing SWFs under uncertainty, and citing sources.

This is conceptually straightforward. Let v(.) = v(c, b) be a well-being function defined in terms of both consumption and non-consumption attributes. Arbitrarily choose some specific level b⁺ of the non-consumption attributes. Define u(c) as v(c, b⁺). Now, for a given bundle (c, b), define c^norm as follows: c^norm is such that v(c^norm, b⁺) = v(c, b). Note now that for a given bundle (c, b), u(c^norm) = v(c, b). So well-being comparisons in terms of u(.) applied to normalized consumption perfectly mirror such comparisons in terms of v(.) applied to consumption-nonconsumption bundles.

What is the advantage of expressing the analysis in terms of normalized consumption, rather than simply bundles of consumption and non-consumption attributes? Perhaps none, if we were starting from scratch. However, much existing work in economics (including climate economics) employs utility functions of the form u(c) rather than v(c, b). We can continue in this tradition via the device of normalizing consumption. Reciprocally, if a particular work of climate-policy scholarship has failed to normalize, and individuals are substantially heterogeneous with respect to relevant non-consumption attributes, we can see this as a shortcoming of the work that can be improved upon in subsequent research.

Specifically, in footnote 4 immediately above, v(.) would be a utility function representing the common preference structure, and u(.) = u(c) applied to normalized consumption would be derived from u(.) as per that footnote.

A different concern is that preferences, whether common or heterogeneous, may be poorly informed, irrational, “adaptive,” or otherwise misshapen in ways that undercut their normative relevance. The response to this important worry is to analyze well-being in terms of preferences that are “idealized,” e.g., fully informed and satisfying axioms of formal rationality. (Adler 2012, Chap. 3). To be sure, empirically estimating the preferences that individuals would have, if they met these idealizing conditions, is challenging.

Two further defenses of the time-preference factor are that it reflects uncertainty about the future [as in its use by Stern (2007) to reflect extinction risk] and that it is required for well-defined sums of future well-being in the context of infinite time. For responses, see Adler and Treich (2015).

This axiomatic argument, relating to ratio invariance, and the meaning of c^zero, are elaborated at length in Adler (2012, Chaps. 3 and 5); Adler and Treich (2015); and Adler et al. (2017).

The SWF was clearly understood by pioneering scholars, in particular Bergson (1948, 1954), Samuelson (1947, p. 221), and Harsanyi (1977, Chap. 4), as a tool for ethical deliberation. In the more recent literature, this view is at least implicit insofar as an axiom of “anonymity” is adopted (Weymark 2016; Adler 2012, Chaps. 1 and 5)—this axiom being a formal expression of the ethical norm of impartiality.

The anonymity axiom requires that the SWF be indifferent between a given list of well-being numbers for the population of concern, and all rearrangements of that pattern. Prioritarianism satisfies the anonymity axiom: greater weight is given to well-being changes affecting worse-off individuals—but because they are worse off, and not because of their names, identities, or other ethically irrelevant characteristics. Discounted utilitarianism satisfies the anonymity axiom with respect to rearrangements of well-being within each generation, but violates the axiom intertemporally. This is, indeed, why, the time-preference factor is ethically arbitrary. Adler and Treich (2015, p. 283, n. 7)

Although the reflective-equilibrium methodology originates with John Rawls, who of course had specific views about justice and political liberalism (Rawls 1993, 1999), it can be understood as a general account of moral reasoning that is independent of those views.

It should not be thought that the reflective-equilibrium methodology is solipsistic. A given decisionmaker’s point of reflective equilibrium will surely be shaped by the intuitions and arguments of others. If I have at hand a particular decision to make, then, at the end of the day, I have to determine what I believe to be ethically required with respect to that decision—but I certainly can and, often, should engage in ethical deliberation and debate with others before arriving at this determination.

And, of course, this democratic legal setup has a strong ethical justification. There are strong ethical arguments, in light of human well-being, for creating and maintaining democratic legal systems that empower elected officials.

On the rational permissibility of non-ethical behavior, see Sidgwick (1907); Scheffler (1982); Schelling (1995).

Admittedly, there might be specific legal constraints prohibiting an elected official from adopting an ethical perspective. For example, a statute might specifically mandate that the President take a course of action that is inconsistent with ethical requirements as she sees them. Legislators are not bound by prior statutes, and thus will generally be freer to act ethically.

The recommendation to use some SWF in designing climate policy should, thus, be understood as an ethical recommendation addressed to elected officials—who will generally have some legal discretion to act upon such recommendations, with the precise scope of this discretion keyed to the official and to the legal context in which he operates.

The population in period 1 is P₁, and in period t is P_t. The formulas below are independent of these population sizes.

Total consumption is the sum of individual consumption across the population. Thus the change to per capita consumption in period t is ΔC_t/P_t.

The derivation of this formula, and of the NP Ramsey formula below, uses the standard approximation that log (1 + Δx) ≈ Δx for Δx small.

As can be seen by rearranging terms in Eq. (5.9), \(L = \frac{d(1 - \eta )}{{1 - (c_{1} /c^{zero} )^{\eta - 1} }}\)

As mentioned earlier, Adler and Treich (2015) discuss how uncertainty affects the application of the NP SWF to climate policy.

In the case of the DU SWF, the change to social welfare is approximately ΔC_tr u′(c_tr)/(1 + ρ)^t−1. For the NP SWF, it is approximately ΔC_trg′(u(c_tr))u′(c_tr). These are analogous to the delta formulas used above in deriving the Ramsey formula, but with regional differentiation.

To be sure, this is a simplification. Abatement costs might change investment as well as current consumption, and a more sophisticated calculation of the SCC would reflect that.

The SCC can also be used to price carbon impacts for purposes of cost-benefit analysis (Greenstone et al. 2013). With appropriate distributional weights, cost-benefit analysis approximates an SWF (Adler 2016b).

This assumes η > 0.

Here, we set c^zero, ρ, and γ to central values and compared the two SCCs as a function of η.

In the knife edge case where d = ρ, DU social welfare is indifferent to how much of C is invested.

Adler MD (2009) Future generations: a prioritarian view. George Wash Law Rev 77:1478–1520

Adler MD (2012) Well-being and fair distribution: beyond cost-benefit analysis. Oxford University Press, New York

Adler MD (2016a) Extended preferences. In: Adler MD, Fleurbaey M (eds) The Oxford handbook of well-being and public policy. Oxford University Press, New York, pp 476–517CrossRef

Adler MD (2016b) Benefit-cost analysis and distributional weights: an overview. Rev Environ Econ Policy 10:264–285CrossRef

Adler MD, Treich N (2015) Prioritarianism and climate change. Environ Resour Econ 62:279–308CrossRef

Adler MD, Anthoff D, Bosetti V, Garner G, Keller K, Treich N (2017) Priority for the worse-off and the social cost of carbon. Nat Clim Change 7:443–449CrossRef

Arrow KJ et al (2014) Should governments use a declining discount rate in project analysis? Rev Environ Econ Policy 8:145–163CrossRef

Bergson A (1948) Socialist economics. In: Ellis HS (ed) A survey of contemporary economics, vol 1. Richard D. Irwin, Homewood, pp 412–448

Bergson A (1954) On the concept of social welfare. Q J Econ 68:233–252CrossRef

Blackorby C, Bossert W, Donaldson D (2005) Population issues in social choice theory, welfare economics, and ethics. Cambridge University Press, CambridgeCrossRef

Boadway RW, Bruce N (1984) Welfare economics. Blackwell, Oxford

Botzen WJW, van den Bergh JCJM (2014) Specifications of social welfare in economic studies of climate policy: overview of criteria and related policy insights. Environ Resour Econ 58:1–33CrossRef

Broome J (2008) The ethics of climate change. Sci Am 298:96–102CrossRef

Brown C (2005) Priority or sufficiency … or both? Econ Philos 21:199–220CrossRef

Dasgupta P (2008) Discounting climate change. J Risk Uncertainty 37:141–169CrossRef

Dasgupta P (2012) Time and the generations. In: Hahn RW, Ulph A (eds) Climate change and common sense: essays in honour of Tom Schelling. Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp 101–130CrossRef

Farber DA (2003) From here to eternity: environmental law and future generations. Univ Illinois Law Rev 2003:289–336

Fleurbaey M (2010) Assessing risky social situations. J Polit Econ 118:649–680CrossRef

Gardoni P, Murphy C, Rowell A (eds) (2016) Risk analysis of natural hazards: interdisciplinary challenges and integrated solutions. Springer, Cham

Gollier C (2001) The economics of risk and time. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA

Greenstone M, Kopits E, Wolverton A (2013) Developing a social cost of carbon for U.S. regulatory analysis. Rev Environ Econ Policy 7:23–46CrossRef

Harsanyi JC (1977) Rational behavior and bargaining equilibrium in games and social situations. Cambridge University Press, CambridgeCrossRef

Holtug N (2007) Animals: equality for animals. In: Ryberg J et al (eds) New waves in applied ethics. Palgrave Macmillan, Houndmills, pp 1–24

Holtug N (2010) Persons, interests and justice. Oxford University Press, OxfordCrossRef

Holtug N (2015) Theories of value aggregation: utilitarianism, egalitarianism, prioritarianism. In: Hirose I, Olson J (eds) The Oxford handbook of value theory. Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp 267–284

Kagan S (1998) Normative ethics. Westview Press, Boulder

Kaplow L (2008) The theory of taxation and public economics. Princeton University Press, Princeton

Mongin P, Pivato M (2016) Social evaluation under risk and uncertainty. In: Adler MD, Fleurbaey M (eds) The Oxford handbook of well-being and public policy. Oxford University Press, New York, pp 711–745

Nordhaus WD (2007) A review of the Stern Review on the economics of climate change. J Econ Lit 45:686–702CrossRef

Nordhaus WD (2008) A question of balance: weighing the options on global warming policies. Yale University Press, New Haven

Parfit D (1991) Equality or priority. Lindley Lecture, University of Kansas. Reprinted in Clayton M, Williams A (eds) The ideal of equality (2000). Palgrave, Houndmills, pp 81–125

Parfit D (2012) Another defence of the priority view. Utilitas 24:399–440CrossRef

Pindyck RS (2013) Climate change policy: what do the models tell us? J Econ Lit 51:860–872CrossRef

Pizer W et al (2014) Using and improving the social cost of carbon. Science 346:1189–1190CrossRef

Porter T (2012) In defence of the priority view. Utilitas 24:197–206CrossRef

Ramsey FP (1928) A mathematical theory of saving. Econ J 38:543–559CrossRef

Rawls J (1993) Political liberalism. Columbia University Press, New York

Rawls J (1999) A theory of justice. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA

Samuelson PA (1947) Foundations of economic analysis. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA

Scheffler S (1982) The rejection of consequentialism. Clarendon Press, Oxford

Schelling TC (1995) Intergenerational discounting. Energy Policy 23:395–401CrossRef

Sidgwick H (1907) The methods of ethics, 7th edn. Macmillan, London

Stern N (2007) The economics of climate change: the Stern review. Cambridge University Press, CambridgeCrossRef

Tol RS (2011) The social cost of carbon. Annu Rev Resour Econ 3:419–443CrossRef

Tungodden B (2003) The value of equality. Econ Philos 19:1–44CrossRef

van den Bergh JCJM, Botzen WJW (2014) A lower bound to the social cost of CO₂ emissions. Nat Clim Change 4:253–258

Weitzman M (2007) A review of the Stern Review on the economics of climate change. J Econ Lit 45:703–724CrossRef

Weymark J (2016) Social welfare functions. In: Adler MD, Fleurbaey M (eds) The Oxford handbook of well-being and public policy. Oxford University Press, New York, pp 126–159

Williams A (2012) The priority view bites the dust? Utilitas 24:315–331CrossRef

Titel: Utilitarianism, Prioritarianism, and Climate Change: A Brief Introduction
verfasst von: Matthew D. Adler
Verlag: Springer International Publishing
Buch: Climate Change and Its Impacts
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-77543-2

Electronic ISBN: 978-3-319-77544-9

Copyright-Jahr: 2018
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-77544-9_5

Springer Professional

Abstract

Bitte loggen Sie sich ein, um Zugang zu Ihrer Lizenz zu erhalten.

Sie haben noch keine Lizenz? Dann Informieren Sie sich jetzt über unsere Produkte:

Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik"

Springer Professional "Technik"

Springer Professional "Wirtschaft"