Foundations covers well-trodden ground in debates about Foundations covers familiar ground in debates about environmental economics, environmental ethics and climate justice. Its main value is in providing a stark, but sophisticated defense of a particular worldview, albeit with a specific twist and a few unorthodox suggestions of its own. While Heath’s position is controversial—even extreme—in various ways, sharing the journey with him is a useful, informative, and engaging experience.Heath argues for a position he labels “economism”: “The basic conceptual apparatus and normative approach being used by climate economists, such as William Nordhaus and Nicholas Stern, is correct.” In terms of substantive climate policy, he endorses conventional, market-based cost-benefit analysis (MCBA), a positive social discount rate (2–3 percent), and pronounced optimism about rapid economic growth even as climate change accelerates. In the realm of theory, he maintains that the climate problem should be understood through the concepts of the prisoner’s dilemma, Coasian bargaining, and Pareto-optimality. Since Heath embraces the standard analytical framing in economics and international relations, he acknowledges that the main purpose of Foundations is not to advance a new position. Instead, his stated aim is to promote “greater dialogue” about the philosophical grounding of climate policy and so rehabilitate economism. One strategy is to argue vigorously against mainstream theorists of climate justice and environmental ethics. Another is to reject the view that economism is underwritten by utilitarianism. Instead, Heath endorses a less common but still familiar alternative: that “economism” should be rooted in mutual advantage contractarianism—roughly, the view that morality and other social rules are grounded in the best strategies for individuals to promote their own self-interest.In approaching the book, a few cautions are in order. First, Foundations is highly abstract and far removed from the details of actual climate policy. So, despite the book’s title, if that is your interest, look elsewhere.Second, Foundations is best approached holistically, rather than by sampling chapters or subsections. One reason is that Heath uses key terms such as “collective action problem,” “contractualism,” and “cost-benefit analysis” in ways that may not be intuitive and so risk becoming misleading when taken out of context. For example, “cost-benefit analysis” is a treacherous term for philosophers interested in public policy. While sometimes it is taken to mean nothing more than “pros and cons” analysis (PCA), and occasionally the more robust “net benefit analysis” (NBA), mostly it is tied to the highly specific techniques of conventional market-based economics (market-CBA or MCBA), which include marginal cost pricing, discounting the future, shadow-pricing, contingent valuation, and so on (Importantly, few object to PCA, yet NBA is mildly controversial and MCBA highly contentious, including among philosophical utilitarians and contractualists. Thus, it is vital not to confuse the techniques of contemporary climate economics (rooted in market-CBA) with mere pros-and-cons analysis.Third, the book’s announced aim of “promoting greater dialogue” is probably best understood as a euphemism. Heath’s central purpose is to repudiate mainstream work in climate justice and environmental ethics and reassert the dominance of “economism.” Moreover, Foundations is polemical in tone, divides the main protagonists into competing camps from the outset, and is generally dismissive of its opponents and their core concerns. For instance, economists, we are told, understand (the alleged) key issues, such as the importance of economic growth, the primacy of efficiency over justice, the need to take tradeoffs seriously, and the necessity for a method that operates firmly within current institutional constraints. By contrast, philosophers are said to hold positions that are unfit for policy debate and can often be rebuffed with “obvious” and “commonsense” objections. Sadly, the divisive rhetoric risks becoming a barrier (rather than an aid) to greater mutual understanding. Notably, it obscures important facts such that neither economists nor philosophers are united on the core issues, and many have engaged in cross-disciplinary conversations. Moreover, Heath’s pronounced partisanship sometimes seeps into how he characterizes his rivals, and so makes the book an unreliable guide to the wider literature (e.g., I am cited as the exemplar of “hypertrophied aversion to economism,” which is a strange reading of both my work and the wider literature).In this review, let me offer two main reservations about Heath’s own position. The first concerns complacency about climate impacts. Heath professes pronounced optimism about “the extraordinary power of economic growth to improve human welfare” even through a climate crisis. Moreover, he believes that the importance of growth is “often enough to completely eclipse” that of justice and asserts that “the potential for improving the lives of poor people by finding different ways of distributing current production is nothing compared to the apparently limitless potential of increasing production” (67–68). Notably, while this kind of “swamping thesis” is promoted by some economists, it remains highly controversial. For one thing, it relies on bold assumptions about sustainability, substitutability, and resilience across economic and ecological systems. For another, it can seem woefully insensitive to real harms and injustices on the ground.Foundations invokes swamping to sweep aside much contemporary work in climate justice. For example, I have criticized the prisoner’s dilemma analysis (which Heath endorses) for ignoring morally salient dimensions of the climate problem, such as skewed vulnerabilities, background injustices, and the twin threats of a tyranny of the contemporary and a tyranny of humanity (Gardiner 2011, 2016). Concerns about skewed vulnerabilities and background injustices currently dominate public debates about climate justice. Since the late 1980s, many have been concerned with poverty, inequality, human rights violations, the history of colonialism, global capitalism, and so on. More recently, specific emphases on race, gender, class, and Indigeneity have come to the fore. Strikingly, Heath is quick to dismiss the entire literature. For instance, legacies of injustice are given short shrift, while concerns about capitalism are set aside in a sentence (2), and damages to nonhuman nature rendered peripheral in a short paragraph (98).Heath’s rationale is that, so long as climate change proceeds in a linear way (as he insists should be our expectation), climate change will cause only what he provocatively calls “pedestrian damages.” One central claim is that even though expected losses are “in the range of 10–20% of future GDP by the end of century” (105), the impacts on human well-being will be much less important than the huge gains from growth over the same period. Heath asserts that philosophers have failed to appreciate this, but economists do, and have the appropriate policy response. Put crudely, Heath understands the economists’ position as follows. On the one hand, the essential climate question is how much to trade-off the value of preventing future damages relative to promoting future growth; and the main problem is that the market currently encourages overconsumption of fossil fuels by failing to put an adequate price on climate damages. On the other hand, the answers are: in principle, this is a matter for Coasian bargaining; in practice, a carbon tax should be implemented that reflects the results of that bargaining. In the background, Heath’s overarching assumption appears to be that a global economy that is growing extremely quickly can in principle benefit everyone and on a massive scale. Therefore, the key issues for climate policy should be efficiency and enabling Pareto optimal outcomes.Foundations acknowledges a risk of catastrophic outcomes. Nevertheless, Heath insists the probability is low (a “black swan”) and claims this makes catastrophe a side issue. Indeed, one place where Heath departs from orthodoxy among economists is in arguing that risks of catastrophe should not even be represented within standard MCBA and the associated carbon tax. Instead, it should be dealt with separately, through investing in solar geoengineering research. Notably, Heath makes no reference to the serious controversies surrounding solar geoengineering, nor the substantial literature on geoengineering ethics, much of which is skeptical.Ultimately, Foundations confidently affirms: “Climate change is not likely to produce an absolute reduction in living standards, and is almost certain not to within the next century” (82), invoking an alleged “consensus” among economists. I am not convinced this consensus holds. Even if it did, it remains unclear why Heath thinks economists have the relevant expertise. Climate science projects a rise in average global temperature of 2.1–3.5°C for 2100 and 2.3–4.6°C for 2300 for intermediate emissions scenarios, and 3.3–5.7°C by 2100 and 6.6–14.1°C by 2300 for a very high emission scenario (IPCC 2021, 14 and 43). Put in perspective, 4–5°C is comparable to an ice age shift, but happening over a few decades. Moreover, among scientists “there is a widespread view that a 4°C future is incompatible with any reasonable characterisation of an organised, equitable and civilised global community” (Anderson 2012, 29). One reason is the threat to fundamentals such as global agriculture.Heath’s rationale for rejecting the widespread view among scientists appears to rest on profound faith in markets and technological innovation to both handle and swamp whatever climate change throws at humanity. It is possible that he is right, especially if we have a very tolerant view of the possible; however, whether it is likely is another matter. Arguably, a more central question is whether we (the current generation, and especially the more affluent) are entitled to take such risks with the future. These questions are central to existing debates, such as those around precaution. Heath mentions these debates in passing, but does not engage. It is a missed opportunity.My second reservation concerns the author’s proposal about intergenerational cooperation. The standard view is that cooperation is problematic in the intergenerational context because those not yet born (or now very young) cannot engage in genuinely reciprocal exchange or bargaining with current generations that hold the reins of power. Heath concedes that this is true of direct cooperation, but argues for the possibility of a much weaker form of “indirect cooperation.” His leading example is a traditional pension scheme, where younger generations effectively support the retired generation through their own financial contributions to the scheme, in the expectation that when they come to retire future younger workers will do the same for them. Foundations argues that such “indirect reciprocity” is central to current societies and should underwrite our understanding of the climate problem. Two core claims are: (first) this forward-looking indirect reciprocity is a stable scheme of intergenerational cooperation so long as the scheme is ongoing, in the sense of being indefinitely extended into the future; and (second) the scheme is motivated solely by self-interest, benefits all participants, and so sits nicely within mutual advantage contractarianism.One elephant in the room is the word indefinitely. Many concerned about climate change see the current global system as roughly akin to a Ponzi scheme, where short-term economic benefits (to some) arise partly through imposing longer-term environmental costs (on others) in a way that is unsustainable and will ultimately result in a collapse. Predicting exactly when the Ponzi scheme might unravel is difficult and depends both on one’s view of the science and of the expectations of others. As emphasized above, Heath is profoundly confident that overall economic growth will be highly resilient to climate change even at 4°C or more; implicitly, he must also be very confident that the young will continue to share that view and so be motivated to play their part in upholding the system. Yet both assumptions seem unduly complacent. For instance, hearing the pessimism of scientists may well cause younger generations to withdraw their participation and condemn “indefinite indirect cooperation” as a morally corrupt fiction. Indeed, this may be their best strategy for self-protection, and so the unintended lesson of the book’s main argument.A second elephant in the room concerns the character of intergenerational cooperation under the indirect rationale. One salient issue is the threat of intergenerational time bombs: roughly, activities performed by members of one generation that benefit themselves but have severe costs for some later generation. Strikingly, Heath acknowledges the worry but calls it “not a bug, but a feature” of his view. Presumably, he means that time bombs are inevitably permitted by mutual advantage contractarianism, since it is essential to his view that actors will seek to maximize their gains. Still, in accepting intergenerational time bombs, Heath is acknowledging that older generations may accept only limited forms of “cooperation,” and ones that violate many basic intuitions about fairness. This is a familiar worry about mutual advantage contractarianism in other settings. To my mind, it puts my tyranny of the contemporary and concerns of justice (as well as other normative considerations more generally), back to where they should be, right at the center of conversations about intergenerational ethics. For instance, I suspect that if some form of “indefinite indirect cooperation” is to succeed, it cannot be sustained solely by narrow self-interest, but must call on more ethically loaded motivations, such as trust, respect for fairness, and faith in a wider social compact that transcends mutual advantage contractarianism.

中文翻译：

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气候变化政策的哲学基础


基金会涵盖了关于环境经济学、环境伦理学和气候正义的辩论中常见的话题。它的主要价值在于为特定的世界观提供了一种鲜明而复杂的辩护，尽管有其自身的特定转折和一些非正统的建议。虽然希思的立场在各个方面都存在争议，甚至是极端的，但与他分享这段旅程是一次有用的、信息丰富的、引人入胜的经历。希思主张他称之为“经济主义”的立场：“经济主义所使用的基本概念工具和规范方法威廉·诺德豪斯和尼古拉斯·斯特恩等气候经济学家的观点是正确的。”在实质性气候政策方面，他支持传统的、基于市场的成本效益分析（MCBA）、积极的社会贴现率（2-3%），并对即使气候变化加速也能快速经济增长表示乐观。在理论领域，他认为气候问题应该通过囚徒困境、科斯讨价还价和帕累托最优的概念来理解。由于希思接受经济学和国际关系中的标准分析框架，他承认基金会的主要目的不是提出新立场。相反，他声称的目标是促进有关气候政策哲学基础的“更大对话”，从而恢复经济主义。一种策略是大力反对气候正义和环境伦理的主流理论家。另一个是拒绝认为经济主义是由功利主义支撑的观点。 相反，希斯赞同一种不太常见但仍然熟悉的替代方案：“经济主义”应该植根于互惠互利的契约主义——粗略地说，这种观点认为道德和其他社会规则植根于个人促进自身利益的最佳策略。在阅读这本书时，需要注意一些事项。首先，基金会高度抽象，与实际气候政策的细节相去甚远。因此，不管这本书的标题如何，如果您对此感兴趣，请看看其他地方。其次，最好从整体上了解基础知识，而不是通过抽样章节或小节来了解。原因之一是希思以可能不直观的方式使用“集体行动问题”、“契约主义”和“成本效益分析”等关键术语，因此断章取义时可能会产生误导。例如，对于对公共政策感兴趣的哲学家来说，“成本效益分析”是一个危险的术语。虽然有时它仅仅意味着“利弊”分析（PCA），有时也意味着更强大的“净效益分析”（NBA），但大多数情况下它与传统的基于市场的经济学的高度具体的技术联系在一起（市场-CBA 或 MCBA），其中包括边际成本定价、贴现未来、影子定价、或有估值等（重要的是，很少有人反对 PCA，但 NBA 的争议不大，而 MCBA 争议很大，包括哲学功利主义者和因此，重要的是不要将当代气候经济学的技术（植根于市场 CBA）与单纯的利弊分析相混淆。第三，本书所宣布的“促进更多对话”的目标可能最好被理解为委婉说法。 希思的中心目的是否定气候正义和环境伦理方面的主流工作，并重申“经济主义”的主导地位。此外，《基金会》的语气充满争议性，从一开始就将主角划分为相互竞争的阵营，并且通常对其对手及其核心关注点不屑一顾。例如，我们被告知，经济学家理解（所谓的）关键问题，例如经济增长的重要性、效率高于正义、认真权衡的必要性以及在当前经济范围内坚定运作的方法的必要性。体制限制。相比之下，据说哲学家持有的立场不适合政策辩论，并且常常会被“明显”和“常识”的反对意见所拒绝。可悲的是，分裂言论有可能成为增进相互理解的障碍（而不是帮助）。值得注意的是，它掩盖了重要的事实，使得经济学家和哲学家在核心问题上都没有达成一致，并且许多人进行了跨学科对话。此外，希思明显的党派之争有时会渗透到他对竞争对手的描述中，因此使得这本书成为更广泛文学的不可靠指南（例如，我被引用为“过度厌恶经济主义”的典范，这是对两者的奇怪解读）我的工作和更广泛的文献）。在这篇评论中，让我对希思自己的立场提出两个主要保留意见。首先是对气候影响的自满情绪。即使在气候危机期间，希思仍对“经济增长改善人类福祉的非凡力量”表示乐观。 此外，他认为增长的重要性“常常足以完全掩盖”正义的重要性，并断言“通过寻找不同的方式分配当前的生产来改善穷人的生活的潜力与显而易见的无限潜力相比微不足道。增加产量”（67-68）。值得注意的是，虽然这种“淹没论”得到了一些经济学家的提倡，但它仍然存在很大争议。一方面，它依赖于对经济和生态系统的可持续性、可替代性和复原力的大胆假设。另一方面，可悲的是，它似乎对实地的实际伤害和不公正现象不敏感。基金会援引沼泽来扫除当代气候正义方面的许多工作。例如，我批评囚徒困境分析（希思赞同）忽视了气候问题的道德显着维度，例如扭曲的脆弱性、背景不公正以及当代暴政和人类暴政的双重威胁（加德纳2011 年、2016 年）。目前，对扭曲脆弱性和背景不公正的担忧主导了有关气候正义的公共辩论。自 20 世纪 80 年代末以来，许多人一直关注贫困、不平等、侵犯人权、殖民主义历史、全球资本主义等问题。最近，对种族、性别、阶级和原住民的具体强调逐渐凸显。令人惊讶的是，希思很快就驳回了所有文献。例如，不公正的遗产被忽视，而对资本主义的担忧在句子（2）中被搁置，对非人性的损害在短短的段落（98）中被置于次要地位。希思的理由是，只要气候变化以线性方式进行（正如他坚持认为应该是我们的预期），气候变化就只会造成他挑衅性的所谓“行人损害”。一个核心主张是，尽管预期损失“到本世纪末将占未来 GDP 的 10-20%”（105），但对人类福祉的影响远不如增长带来的巨大收益重要。同一时期。希思断言，哲学家没有意识到这一点，但经济学家却意识到了这一点，并且提出了适当的政策回应。粗略地说，希思对经济学家的立场的理解如下。一方面，基本的气候问题是在多大程度上权衡预防未来损害的价值与促进未来增长的价值；主要问题是，市场目前未能为气候损害定价，从而鼓励过度消费化石燃料。另一方面，答案是：原则上，这是科斯讨价还价的问题；在实践中，碳税的实施应反映谈判的结果。在此背景下，希思的首要假设似乎是，极速增长的全球经济原则上可以使所有人大规模受益。因此，气候政策的关键问题应该是效率和实现帕累托最优结果。基金会承认存在灾难性结果的风险。尽管如此，希思坚持认为这种可能性很低（“黑天鹅”），并声称这使得灾难成为一个次要问题。事实上，希思与经济学家的正统观念背道而驰的一个地方是，他认为灾难风险甚至不应该在标准 MCBA 和相关碳税中体现出来。 相反，应该通过投资太阳能地球工程研究来单独处理。值得注意的是，希思没有提及围绕太阳能地球工程的严重争议，也没有提及有关地球工程伦理的大量文献，其中大部分都是持怀疑态度的。最终，基金会自信地肯定：“气候变化不太可能导致生活水平的绝对下降，并且几乎可以肯定不会在下个世纪内发生”（82），这援引了经济学家之间所谓的“共识”。我不相信这种共识成立。即使确实如此，仍不清楚为什么希思认为经济学家拥有相关专业知识。气候科学预测，在中等排放情景下，全球平均气温将在 2100 年上升 2.1–3.5°C，到 2300 年上升 2.3–4.6°C；在极高排放情景下，到 2100 年全球平均气温将上升 3.3–5.7°C，到 2300 年上升 6.6–14.1°C。排放情景（IPCC 2021、14 和 43）。从长远来看，4°C 至 5°C 相当于冰河时代的转变，但发生时间长达几十年。此外，科学家们“普遍认为，4°C 的未来与任何有组织、公平和文明的全球社会的合理描述都不相容”（Anderson 2012，29）。原因之一是对全球农业等基本面的威胁。希斯拒绝科学家普遍观点的理由似乎是基于对市场和技术创新的坚定信念，这些创新能够应对和消除气候变化给人类带来的任何影响。他有可能是对的，特别是如果我们对可能性抱有非常宽容的看法的话；然而，是否有可能是另一回事。可以说，一个更核心的问题是我们（当代人，尤其是较富裕的一代）是否有权在未来承担这样的风险。 这些问题是现有辩论的核心，例如围绕预防措施的辩论。希思顺便提到了这些辩论，但没有参与其中。这是一个错失的机会。我的第二个保留意见是关于作者关于代际合作的建议。标准观点认为，代际背景下的合作是有问题的，因为那些尚未出生（或现在非常年轻）的人无法与掌握权力的当代人进行真正的互惠交换或讨价还价。希思承认直接合作确实如此，但他也认为存在一种较弱形式的“间接合作”的可能性。他的主要例子是传统的养老金计划，年轻一代通过自己对该计划的财务贡献来有效地支持退休一代，并期望当他们退休时，未来的年轻工人也会为他们做同样的事情。基金会认为，这种“间接互惠”是当前社会的核心，应该支撑我们对气候问题的理解。两个核心主张是：（第一）这种前瞻性的间接互惠是一种稳定的代际合作方案，只要该方案正在进行，即可以无限期地延伸到未来； （第二）该计划完全是出于自身利益的动机，使所有参与者受益，因此非常符合互惠互利的契约论。房间里的一头大象就是无限期这个词。许多关注气候变化的人认为，当前的全球体系大致类似于庞氏骗局，（对某些人来说）短期经济利益部分是通过（对另一些人来说）强加长期环境成本而产生的，这种方式是不可持续的，最终将导致崩溃。 准确预测庞氏骗局何时会瓦解是很困难的，并且取决于一个人对科学的看法和他人的期望。正如上面所强调的，希思坚信，即使气温升高 4°C 或更高，整体经济增长也将具有很强的抵御气候变化的能力；隐含地，他还必须非常有信心，年轻人将继续认同这一观点，从而有动力在维护这一制度方面发挥自己的作用。然而，这两种假设似乎都过于自满。例如，听到科学家的悲观情绪很可能会导致年轻一代退出参与，并将“无限期的间接合作”谴责为道德败坏的虚构。事实上，这可能是他们自我保护的最佳策略，因此这本书的主要论点无意中得到了教训。房间里的第二头大象涉及间接理由下代际合作的特征。一个突出的问题是代际定时炸弹的威胁：粗略地说，一代人所进行的活动使自己受益，但给后代带来了沉重的代价。引人注目的是，希思承认了这种担忧，但称这“不是错误，而是他观点的一个特点”。据推测，他的意思是，互利契约主义不可避免地允许定时炸弹，因为对他的观点来说，行为者将寻求最大化他们的收益是至关重要的。尽管如此，在接受代际定时炸弹时，希斯承认老一辈人可能只接受有限形式的“合作”，而且这些合作违反了许多关于公平的基本直觉。这是其他环境下对互利契约主义的常见担忧。 在我看来，它让我对当代的暴政和对正义的关注（以及更普遍的其他规范性考虑）回到了它们应该在的地方，成为关于代际伦理的对话的中心。例如，我怀疑，如果某种形式的“无限期间接合作”要成功，它不能仅仅靠狭隘的自身利益来维持，而必须呼吁更多道德上的动机，例如信任、尊重公平和对公平的信念。超越互惠契约主义的更广泛的社会契约。