The Path of Totality

August 22, 2017 by Jordan M. Kincaid

On August 21^st, 2017, I had the privilege of traveling with a band of cosmic pilgrims to the Path of Totality. What follows is my account of and reflections on the experience of the total solar eclipse.

As Totality neared, a pale grey-purple haze overtook the land and sky. Shadows became murky, yet emanated a deeper contrast, as if vibrating with detail. A cold wind blew, and then, in an instant, everything stopped; the air, the sounds of birds and bugs and rustling trees, the very pulse of the planet came to an eerie stillness. A dark wave crept over the ground from across the lake until it settled right above us; at the horizon it was like sunset, orange and red, with planets before unseen suddenly bright in the sky. And directly overhead a brilliant white ring with a center of the blackest black stared down at us, like a great empty eye, with its gaze reflecting both the infinite void of the endless universe and a radiant fullness of the unchangeable fact that all of existence is ultimately one inseparable being, timeless; beyond time itself. And as quickly as it came on, dawn broke for the second time in one day, as if to remind us that day and night are not truly two, but one, constantly flowing into one another; one becoming the other, over and over again, forever, in the eternal cosmic cycle of being and becoming—and that we, too, are one; that even when we are apart, we are a part of the same; that even when we are apart, we are always together.

Solar eclipse

Apollo. Ra. Amaterasu. Kinich. Utu. For millennia, human beings across civilizations have worshiped the Sun. The center of our solar system, the energetic source of life on Earth, bringer of day; every being on Earth, through all of history has had an existential relationship with the Sun. None would be if not for it. The Sun, unlike anything else, unifies the human experience; it shapes the very nature of our condition, embodies the passage of time, and moves the causality of life itself. The great cosmic dance of our planet, moon, and humble star radiates the magnificent contingency of our existence and inspires the most fundamental questions of consciousness: Why are we here? What reason explains our existence? What is our purpose?

Human beings are the only animals concerned with the notion of purpose. Its pursuit defines the nature of our consciousness. We do indeed seek explanation for our existence, on one hand, but even more so, we seek its justification. What is the point of our existence? What are we supposed to do? It is from this idea of purpose that we derive our senses of meaning in life – and perhaps, it is the most fundamental of truths that we all want to live meaningful lives.

Ultimately, however, it is unclear that any absolute answer to the question of purpose exists—that there is any certain point to being alive, or that there is any supposed to at all. Grappling with this uncertainty is the very core of ethics: Some suppose that we’re supposed to do our duty (but what is duty?); or that we’re supposed to do what’s good (but what is the good? And for who?); that we should do what’s right or just (right in what sense? And what is justice?); or what’s virtuous (but what is the nature of virtue?); or that all we’re really supposed to do is keep the promises we make to each other (But what are contracts, and what contracts us to them, really?).

Ethics and the question of purpose are a great wheel that will turn forever, as long as human being are the kinds of agential creatures that act and seek to justify our actions to ourselves and to each other – and it seems a fantasy to suppose that we will ever discover or articulate any ultimate or universal answer. Perhaps if we were perfect beings we would be capable of knowing in certainty, but we are inevitably fallible, and in that fallibility we must accept and embrace a certain agnosticism about the purpose of consciousness and the purpose of living. All we can do is suppose and engage in the process of consideration: to suppose and to consider—to think and to judge, and then to act. Indeed, it is the process that makes us ethical beings and gives our lives meaning – not necessarily the answer. The question, in a sense, is the answer:

What are we supposed to do? Never stop wrestling with that very question! The question of purpose makes us what we are. When you strip it all away, all we can say is that we are just the kinds of beings that wonder what we’re supposed to do, and maybe that’s all we’re supposed to be. Maybe that question is, at its core, what makes reflective consciousness what it is.

the thinker

But while the justificatory question of purpose may be unanswerable in finality, the question of explanation is tangible. We may never know for certain the purpose for why we are here, but we can indeed know the explanation—the reason—for our existence, and as human beings have intuited for tens of thousands of years, the Sun is just such an explanation; the Sun explains why we exist. Of course, even material explanation entails is own infinite regress. If the Sun explains why we exist, then it is natural to then ask why the Sun exists – and the material chain of causality can extend as far back as we are willing to ask. We can explain the creation of the solar system, the births and deaths of stars, the origins of galaxies, and, as distant as we have been able to discern, the birth of the universe at the Big Bang. But what explains the Big Bang? What sparked the great explosion of matter and energy from which all of the known universe was born? There are suppositions, of course—an eternal cycle of Big Bangs and “Big Crunches” wherein the universe is forever expanding and contracting on itself; the multi-verse or parallel realities; some see only God as the ultimate explanation of existence—the “Prime Mover” of all that exists and the great chain of causation – the Alpha and Omega.

I have even toyed with an ontological explanation for the existence of existence (though, admittedly, not to much satisfaction); something like: “Existence, by its very nature, must always and only exist because for existence to not exist would make existence non-existence, and for existence to be non-existence would be a fundamental contradiction. Therefore, what explains the existence of existence is the nature of existence itself.”

But none of these suppositions are immune to the prospective interrogation of infinite regress. No matter the origin, we can always proctor successive questions and inquire as to the origin of the origins. And at the end of the day, we may never know. Even in terms of the material explanation, we may have no choice but to accept and embrace, in our inherent fallibility, a fundamental agnosticism about the explanation of our existence. We may never know—and indeed may never be able to know—in any ultimate sense either the explanation or the purpose underlying our existence.

Nevertheless, we need not stare into the face of infinite regress as if it entails nihilistic futility. The privilege of being distinction-making beings is that we can choose the distinctions to which we ascribe meaning. We need not see meaninglessness in infinite regress; infinite regress is just infinite regress, and for no reason should we assume that infinite regress necessarily means meaninglessness about the distinctions we unveil along the way. We need not know in absolute certainty the explanation of the entire universe to understand the relationship between the Sun and Earth that explains the existence of life.

earth sun and moon

To be sure, life would not exist were it not for the harmonious relationship between the planet from which we sprang and star that emanates our essential energy. We owe our very lives to the alignment of the Sun and Earth; and in so knowing that celestial relationship we can derive the values of gratitude, appreciation, respect, awe, and love for the contingencies that explain life’s existence and ultimately unify us all.

Solar eclipses, unlike much else, are significant because they illustrate for us so explicitly, so obviously, the cosmic alignment at the heart of our existence. In the great dance of our solar system, every so often the Moon crosses directly between the Earth and Sun, and in those few, rare moments we feel, more powerfully than is usual, our oneness with the cosmos of which we are a part. We are never not one with the universe, but in the bustle and distractions of modern life, it can be easy to forget the bigger picture of our existence. Sometimes we need reminding of our unwavering universal unity.

The world often seems so estranged from itself and we from each other, so carved up by nations, interests, or politics, so wrapped in discord—and we, in turn, can lose ourselves to a sense of division and alienation. But the unchangeable truth is that, for all our dissensions, we are all here, together, and indivisible in the fact of our existence. And solar eclipses, in all their majesty, evoke in all who experience the Path of Totality a blissful comfort about our fundamental oneness and shared place in the universe.

Nothing can ultimately separate us, for even when we are apart, we are a part of the same, and thus, we are always together. And where we are together forever, we can be together, in love, for all eternity.

So honors the Sun Sage: To the Sun god, the Earth, and Moon—and the cosmic ecology to which we owe our existence.

“Re-coupling science and policy” — an elaboration

May 26, 2017 by Jordan M. Kincaid

Hello fellow humans! I hope you are well. My friend, colleague, and co-author Dr. Alexander Lee and I wrote a short opinion piece, “Re-coupling science and policy”, for the Daily Camera–a local Boulder newspaper–earlier this week.

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This short piece is concurrent with the argument in another of our recent articles, “Two problems of climate change: Can we lose the planet but save ourselves?” published in the journal Ethics, Policy, & Environment. There, we argue that the variety of values-based claims central to the climate ethics discussion, from concern with the burdens of harmful climate impacts to the priority of rectifying the wrongdoing of climate change, are given disproportionate emphasis; most emphasis–we think problematically–is put on the harms-dimension of the climate problem, while we believe the latter is closer to the true heart of the immorality and unethical nature of anthropogenic climate change.

In this new short opinion piece, Alex and I consider the recent turns of events concerning The March for Science, Scott Pruitt’s mass-firing of the EPA’s Board of Scientific Counselors, and the general trend of unreasonable decision-making, silencing of scientists, and dismantling of values-discourse altogether in the age of Trump.

Science, as it were, is being de-coupled from the policymaking process. Why the decoupling? Because science, and our reliance on science in making decisions of public import, ultimately reflects the progressive values central to the age of reason, i.e. the value we place on collaboration, fostering open discourse among even and especially those who disagree, the importance of evidence, the approach of objectivity, the testability of hypotheses and reproducibility of methods, and the centrality of cooperation to social, political, and ethical progress; values which, I think rather clearly, the Trump Administration does not share. And thus its leaders have taken significant steps to decouple science from the policymaking and public decision-making process. Yet another sign that the age of reason is dead.

Decoupling science from the policymaking process is yet another move in the Trump Administration’s course to remove representatives of reason from the public discourse; the scheme to silence reasonable public discourse outright. As Alex and I argue, “silencing scientists silences values” — and the open consideration of values is indispensable to the march of progress. As progress in ethics and social order is non-linear, and certainly not guaranteed or immune to regress, we must be tireless in its defense. And to be sure, where science and values discourse alike are squelched by the Trump Administration, it’s not just the age of reasons that’s under siege — it is the very possibility of progress in society.

Let’s get it together, humans.

Two Problems of Climate Ethics: Can we Lose the Planet but Save Ourselves?

June 27, 2016 by Jordan M. Kincaid

New publication by Alex Lee and myself in Ethics, Policy & Environment, titled above. Access the PDF online here.

Screen Shot 2016-06-27 at 9.06.28 AM Here’s the abstract for a preview:

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Climate change presents unprecedented challenges for the ethical community and society at large. The harms of climate change—real and projected—are well documented (Pachauri et. al, 2015). Rising sea levels, increased drought, warming temperatures and other impacts of climate change will devastate vulnerable communities, the global economy, and the natural world unless difficult choices, behavioral changes, and major policy shifts are made. But the problem we must address is not just the amalgam of climate harms. Climate change also presents a multifaceted problem of moral wrongdoing consisting of the actions that caused or coalesced to cause climate change. The ‘problem’ of climate change is both an issue of harmful impacts and a question of wrongdoing. While certain deleterious effects of climate change are unavoidable, philosophy offers solutions to moral problems that are not contingent on successful mitigation or adaptation. In light of this distinction, Thom Brooks’ criticism that philosophers have ‘misunderstood’ the climate change problem as a problem that is solvable (Brooks, 2016) arises from a conflation of the two climate change problems and not from a shortcoming of philosophy in the climate conversation. Climate harms may not be easily addressed, but righting wrongs is a separate matter.

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Let’s get it together humans

Fracking and environmental (in)justice in a Texas City

July 3, 2015 by Jordan M. Kincaid

It’s been a long time coming, but it’s finally here. After more than a year of peer-review, my co-authors, Matthew Fry and Adam Briggle at the University of North Texas, and I have gotten our economic and environmental justice study of shale gas development in Denton, Texas published in Ecological Economics.

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My infinite gratitude to Matt and Adam for their tireless effort on this project, and everyone who made it possible along the way. You can access the full text for free here until August 22nd. Please feel free to share far and wide. It’s important that we spread our findings with the greater civic body, especially in light of Denton’s strategic repeal of its fracking ban in the fight against HB40.

Justice is largely a matter of distributive equity and procedural fairness. It is also about recognizing the plurality of values and stakeholders that make up our civic world. When it comes to shale gas development, it’s all too often that the freedom of communities to self-determine is undermined by twisted and unjust procedures dictated by corporate and centralized political interests with financial stake in silencing those affected by anthropogenic hazards. The consequent social inequity and ecological decline, some of which we outline in our study here, is staggering. Information-sharing and civic awareness is central to the free and open discourse fundamental to moral public decision-making. It’s up to us to empower ourselves and our communities with knowledge, subject to the scrutiny of credible others (i.e. peer-review), to rectify injustice where it lurks.

Debunk the delusion, ecologize the economy! Let’s get it together humans.

Creatures of habit

September 14, 2014 by Jordan M. Kincaid

It’s been a while! Seven months. But spontaneous hiatus can be good. Gives time to explore the wilderness, refocus on what’s important. Here are some shots!

Monarch Mtn

Great Sand Dunes

GSD

GSD

Flatirons Vista

Huron Peak–14,009 ft.

Huron

Even though the blog and I were on a break, the sun god has been steadfast. The same sun, everyday, overhead everyone. Unifying us throughout history, across continents and species. But the reason we exist is not our reason for being. The sun does not unify us in meaning or purpose. Meaning and purpose are left for us to work out for ourselves. The world is not a mystic unity. Nor is “humanity.” We are an innumerable diversity; a spectacular tangle of world views and social orders that stretch back 7000 years to the origins of civilization in Sumerian Mesopotamia.

Human history is a cyclical narrative of social growth and decline, ecological feedback, and political upheaval. Modernity is hardly different from ancient Sumer or medieval Europe in that narrative—except in scale, intensity, and speed. We haven’t changed that much. Society has been ravaged with conflict, inequity and ecological degradation since Sumerians started farming around 5000 BC and population took off–eventually acquiescing Malthusian feedbacks.

Ancient Mesopotamia–courtesy of the Ancient History Encyclopedia

Even then socioecological and political stability was hard to come by in the fertile crescent. Sumerian societies were extremely hierarchical and resource wars between city-states were constant. Eventually the Sumerians fell to the Akkadian Empire, the Akkadians then to the Assyrians, and so began the cycle of regime and revolution. Same story through Bronze Age and Hellenistic Greece; the rise and fall of the Roman Empire; the European Dark Ages and rise of the Islam in the Arabian peninsula, North Africa, and South and Eastern Mediterranean; the Renaissance and Enlightenment; the Industrial Revolution; globalization, and now the centralized military-industrial complex of worldwide neoliberalism. Seven millennia later, civilization is still stuck in the same cycles of social turmoil and ecological feedback as Sumer. The cycle of regime and revolution rolls on like a pumpjack. Social inequity and ecological degradation abound.

Except now we do it global.

Income, gender and racial inequity; climate change; ocean acidification and warming; mass extinctions and biodiversity loss; slavery and human trafficking; agroindustrial monocropping & exploitation of developing countries; NPK fertilizer run-off, eutrophication, and the Dead Zone in the Gulf of Mexico; the privatization of water; unprecedented deforestation; sea level rise; the Great Pacific Garbage Patch; the ozone hole over the Southern Hemisphere; the systematic placement of dangerous manufacturing plants in the developing world; CAFO non-point source animal-waste pollution; extended extreme drought in the southwestern US; distributive and participatory environmental injustices related to energy development in the US, Ecuador, Papau New Guinea, China, and elsewhere; indigenous displacement and inequities; and international geopolitical military conflict in Ukraine and the Levant, now merging via Russia a la Syria.

Courtesy of: http://www.chevroninecuador.com/

Ecuadorian Amazon after ChevronTexaco development—courtesy of Chevron In Ecuador

Global capitalism and the centralization of power and wealth in international neoliberal regimes, large States, and multi-national corporations are truly remarkable. We enjoy technology and material resource wealth in industrialized countries unlike anything the world’s ever seen. But it comes at cost of exacerbating historic social inequities, military conflict, and ecological degradation the enormity of which can’t be overemphasized. This is the so-referred “socioecological crisis.”

Unsustainable and inequitable material resource consumption is central to the socioecological crisis.

Global material resource consumption has increased eight-fold in the past century, skyrocketing after World War II. We surpassed the Earth’s biocapacity (the amount of material resources we can sustainably consume) in the mid-70s, and now, consuming more than 60 billion tons/year, it would take more than 1.6 Earths to sustain our habit. It’s no surprise that large central powers clash over control of the world’s resources.

Material resource consumption exceeds world biocapacity around 1976–courtesy of The Footprint Network

But we are a great diversity. People aren’t uniformly responsible for unsustainable overconsumption. And really, while we are each responsible for what we consume, inequitable unsustainable overconsumption is a systemic problem–it’s the doing of large central States, multinational corporations, and international regimes all with neoliberal economic motivations. Global capitalism has created material resource inequity unlike any in history.

Consuming more than ever in advanced industrial societies, billions around the world in subsistence economies still struggle to meet their existential needs.

A great few consume too much. Or rather, too many consume too much while too many consume too little. The ecological crisis is fundamentally a social crisis—a crisis of consumption. Really, overconsumption. But not straightforwardly so. It’s an inequitable overconsumption. A stark minority of wealthy people consume far more than is reasonable—than is fair—while far too many are left in want. Most ecological problems are symptomatic of inequitable social organization, irresponsible central governments, multi-national corporate resource privatization, the systemic oppression of coerced overconsumption in advanced industrial societies, and the procedural disenfranchisement of the poorest in the world often most vulnerable to ecological decline—we must, in turn, equitize in order to ecologize society.

Modernization. Industrialization. Centralization. Globalization. Development. Consumption. This has been Western civilization’s mantra since the Enlightenment, our recipe for wellbeing, for the Good Life—the heralds of modernity: that we are destined to overcome the poverties of the human condition through cumulative advances in science, technology, and the liberalization of central government and the global market; that we will be more free and endlessly better off for our complicity in an socioeconomic model of limitless consumption. Through industrial development and the expansion of “free” trade (as governed by a handful of impenetrable central authorities), neoliberals promise the world a secular deliverance from scarcity and oppression. Free markets make for rich, free people. Or so the story goes.

Instead of spectacular emancipation, global capitalism has exacerbated historical oppressions. Race, gender, and income inequities persist worldwide and ecological degradation perennially associated with human habitation has rapidly intensified since the Industrial Revolution. Three centuries after the great social and political liberalization of the Enlightenment, international neoliberal elites have institutionalized a scaled-up version of medieval European feudalism. The Earth’s resources, the land, the Earth itself, have been parceled and purchased—now “owned”—by a handful of powerful States, international governing regimes, and multi-national corporations—exploitation and commoditization their agenda. For most of us—we serfs—we own little and decide even less. But still too many consume too much while too many consume too little.

Courtesy of UN MDG 2013 Report

Paradoxically, despite enabling unprecedented and unsustainable material resource consumption in advanced industrial societies, people of subsistence economies the world over still struggle to meet their non-contingent needs—all amidst accelerating ecological decline. And usually it’s women and the especially impoverished in subsistence economies who shoulder social inequities and ecological degradation.

But that’s not to say advanced industrial societies are internally equitable themselves. Racial, gender, and income inequities persist throughout “modern” countries as well. Too often women are disenfranchised by social and cultural norms laden with sexism. Too often the poor and racial minorities in the developed world bear the ecological risks and harms of industrial land-use without inclusion in the decision to industrialize, informed consent or fair compensation. Local decisions are made instead from far away by iron triangles of feudal lords: corporate executives, purchased career politicians, and a revolving door of pretentious technocrats in opaque bureaucracies—the inevitable dehumanizing machinations of hyper-centralized government and the privatization of the planet.

Perpetual growth, production, consumption, profit, and power are the agenda of the already powerful, not the vast majority of people. Most of us just want to live fulfilling, meaningful lives—to feel a sense of place, purpose, and existential validation—but have been deluded into mistaking material consumption for human wellbeing by those with an interest in selling it to us.

Consumption is not wellbeing. Existential consumption is obviously essential to basic wellbeing, but marginal returns on material consumption quickly diminish and eventually the consumptive cycle becomes futile and vicious. In many cases—especially in advanced industrial societies—we would live better for living with less. Or rather, we could consume less and still manage to be better off. Wellbeing is only a matter of consumption to a point. Once existential needs are met, living well really means resilient and enriching interpersonal and socioecological relationships: living in a community of social and ecological complementarity, free self-expression, fair distribution of resources and burdens, and equitable direct democratic involvement in political and economic decision-making.

But this diverges radically from everything we’ve been told by our neoclassical and neoliberal politico-economic overlords—they who would have we peasants remain complicit in an unsustainable global system of social organization that has left more than a billion people in destitution, disenfranchised all but the super-wealthy and well-positioned elite, and caused the worst ecological decline since the start of the Holocene.

It’s the same old story really. 7000 years after the birth of civilization we’re still spinning in the same circles as the Sumerians. Constant geopolitical conflict, cycles of regime instability, distributive and participatory social inequities, struggle with natural feedbacks to ecological exploitation—not much changes. Like Sisyphus we are bound to forever push our boulder up the mountain. We are creatures of habit.

But that’s not to say we should resign to nihilism. We must imagine Sisyphus happy and take responsibility for our boulder!

Predictable as the human cycle may be from 40,000 feet, we have local and interpersonal opportunities to find meaning and purpose in socioecological relationships on the ground—in connecting with the people and land around us. We might find that we live better and more sustainably for doing so.

And as long as we’re here, so too will be the sun. Ecosystems change, regimes rise and fall, but the sun is always overhead. Uniting us. Unifying us. Throughout history and across continents and species. We are a vast diversity of world views and societies, but the sun we have in common.

Sunset over the Continental Divide seen from Green Mtn

On identity, relativism, socio-legal equality, teleology, and religion in society: A critique of “In response to: On non-heterosexuality, religious absurdity, heteronormativity, human dignity, love, and freedom”

February 7, 2014 by Jordan M. Kincaid

A couple weeks ago, my fraternity brother and friend, Blake Rustmann authored a blog titled “On Marriage” articulating his disapproval of non-heterosexuality, dissatisfaction with the state of marriage today, and opposition to U.S. District Judge Terrence Kern’s recent decision to declare Oklahoma’s ban of non-heterosexual marriage—Oklahoma Question 711—unconstitutional. In response, I took it upon myself to counter his claims in support of non-heterosexuality and non-heterosexual equality with my own piece, “On non-heterosexuality, religious absurdity, heteronormativity, human dignity, love, and freedom.”

In good form, Rustmann then wrote a response to my response called, “In response to: On non-heterosexuality, religious absurdity, heteronormativity, human dignity, love, and freedom.”

Naturally, the dialectic must continue! Which brings me to my long overdue response to his response to my response.

On the outset I want to express my respect and appreciation for Blake’s conviction, eloquence, attention to detail, and interest in participating in this discussion. I am proud to call him my friend and fraternity brother. He is one of the kindest, most considerate people I know, and, insofar as who he is is the cumulative totality of his conscious actions, qualities, and states, he is among the best of people. He just happens to not be right about the metaphysical, ethical, and socio-legal-normative questions examined here.

To enumerate the contentions at hand and show where we’re going before we get started, our debate centers around at least five fundamental divergences: 1) the nature of the self, action, and responsibility; 2) moral relativism and the goodness of non-heterosexuality; 3) the importance of socio-legal and institutional non-heterosexual equality and equity; 4) the idea of teleology in natural phenomena; and 5) the proper role of religion and religious values in society.

Let’s take each in turn.

1) The nature of the self, action, and responsibility

In his original piece, Rustmann argues that it is coherent and reconciliatory to disapprove of non-heterosexual actions—i.e. non-heterosexuality—while not disapproving of members of the non-heterosexual community themselves. I responded that non-heterosexuality is essential to the identities of non-heterosexuals, and that there is no ethical or socio-legal distinction between the two, especially with regard to the regulatory goals of anti-queer rights advocates. Regulating non-heterosexuality amounts to regulating non-heterosexuals themselves because non-heterosexuality is part of who they are. You can’t ethically and socio-legally condemn non-heterosexuality without simultaneously condemning non-heterosexual people and their identities.

In his response to my response, Rustmann then argues that by eliminating the distinction between non-heterosexuality and non-heterosexual identity I am inappropriately exempting the non-heterosexual community “from a distinction that applies to the rest of us.” Quite the contrary. I propose no such exemption. The inseparability of action and the self is as much an ethical and socio-legal claim as it is a metaphysical one about the very nature of identity, which, as such, implies a universal account of what the self—the I, the ego, etc.—is.

What we do is an essential and inseparable part of who and what we are as conscious beings. I am something of a Sartrean about the self. The self, as it were, is a thing that we as conscious beings create. Identity is an invention—an object—of consciousness. At the bottom of every “thing” is consciousness—but consciousness is not itself a thing. It is no thing. Consciousness creates “things” out in the world by distinguishing them, including the ego. In other words, consciousness carves up the world with distinctions. Without conscious distinction, there is only nameless being. Consciousness is fundamental in that it experiences the world—consciousness experiences being—and constructs subjective reality by making distinctions in order to cope with existence. Without consciousness to create distinctions—to differentiate between experiences of being—there could be no distinct things. Consciousness must distinguish them. Consciousness, then, in experiencing and making distinctions about the world, distinguishes the self and in doing so constructs it—the I—out of conscious qualities, states, and actions through the process of reflection and synthesis.

The self is the synthetic transcendent unification of our experiences—the qualities, states, and actions of consciousness. It is an object of conscious awareness—a composition of reflective consciousness—an amalgamation of consciousness as being and as a being—and one from which who we are is inseparable. Most fundamentally we are conscious, but who we are—our essence—selfhood—comes after the fact. Action is indistinguishable from who we are because action does not exist in being—as does consciousness—but as one aspect of the conscious experience and of the self. Who we are is an ever accumulating and changing gestalt of what we do. The self is, in that way, transcendent. Not transcendental, but transcendent in the sense that it consists of an infinite number of accumulating aspects. Through the cumulative process of experiencing conscious action, qualities and states, conscious reflection upon them, and finally synthesis, we construct the self. Reflective consciousness ties our conscious actions, qualities, and states together to create the essence of who we are—our sense of “I.” The human creates its self. “Existence precedes essence.”

If we take Rustmann’s view of identity, who we are exists in a void with its essence predetermined and unchangeable by our actions, qualities, and states; for him, who we are is independent of what we do. Only by fundamentally separating the two can we condemn one without condemning the other. The unsavory moral consequence of this separation, however, is that it dismantles the means by which responsibility for action is attributable to the actor: “Condemn my action, not me. Who I am is not what I have done.”

But actions are not responsible for themselves, people are. The two are metaphysically and socio-legally indistinct.

To draw a fundamental distinction between action and actor amounts to little more than an impotent metaphysical trick to skirt accountability. People are held responsible for their actions because we are what we do. If I kill someone in cold blood, I am imprisoned for the act of murder and because I am responsible for killing. It has become part of who I am—ethically, socio-legally, and metaphysically. And insofar as we cannot change the past, our experiences—our conscious qualities, states, and actions—are, so long as consciousness persists, forever a part of who we are. We cannot escape responsibility for what we do.

Rustmann then raises an example and a question:

“For instance, my writings are an action. Jordan disapproves of the opinions that I wrote. Does that mean he disapproves of me as a person? I hope not.”

Here he wants to bolster the distinction between his writing and his identity by arguing that by my logic, if his writing is inseparable from his identity, and if I believe his writing or perspective is wrong or bad, then I must also think he is a bad person. I do not. I do think his written perspective on non-heterosexuality is wrong—or at least not right. I also think it is inseparable from his identity. But this is only one of an infinite number of aspects of his ever-accumulating identity, the cumulative gestalt of which is, I believe, overwhelmingly admirable and commendable. One bad branch does not mean the whole tree is bad—the bad branch just needs attention.

2) Moral relativism and the judgment of non-heterosexuality

Rustmann also argues that because I disparage moral absolutism, I “obviously” consider “any type of non-relativistic moral ideology as ‘oppressive, exclusionary, and discriminatory.’” Indeed, I do consider the ethical condemnation and socio-legal institutionalization of non-heterosexual inequality and inequity an oppressive, exclusionary, and discriminatory agenda. But I am not the strict moral relativist the author wants to paint.

Indeed, radical cultural relativism, if taken in principle to be absolute, yields another form of unacceptable universalism. The idea that, universally, no action can be judged or evaluated outside of the context of the actor’s culture is itself as dogmatic and absolutist as the position that all people should be held to any religious or secular universalistic moral system. Relativism if taken to its logical extent entails that relativists must be relativistic about even relativism as a universal ethical framework. Relativism contradicts itself in that way.

I, in contrast, contend that some actions are so offensive to moral sense and conscience that they cannot be tolerated—non-heterosexuality just isn’t one of them. Terrorism, holy wars, racism, genocide, female circumcision, slavery, sexism, torture, genderism, the rapacious destruction of the natural world, and institutionalized socio-legal inequality and disenfranchisement: these are among the set of intolerable ethical impermissibilities. A relativist could not make such a claim.

In large part, though not universally, I think J.S. Mills harm principle is a good guide for determining ethical and regulatory permissibility and tolerability. Actions that are wholly self-regarding—i.e. actions that pertain to and affect only the actor—are generally, if not always, permissible and should not be regulated, while actions that are other-regarding—i.e actions that pertain to or affect people other than the actor—should be regulated insofar as such actions compromise the liberty or right to freedom from harm of others. There is no strict relativism here. By rule of the Harm Principle, non-heterosexuality is self-regarding and therefore ethically permissible, and the freedom to socio-legally express non-heterosexuality should not be infringed.

3) The importance of socio-legal institutional equality and equity

The author then, contradicting himself again, argues that while he supports laws making non-heterosexuality illegal—e.g. the Oklahoma ban on same-sex marriage, and presumably the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) and California’s Proposition 8—he doesn’t “think the government should make laws criminalizing homosexual behavior, nor h[as] [he] ever proposed that.” In reality, however, to support Question 711 and similar laws that condemn and criminalize non-heterosexual marriage constitutes exactly such a proposition.

Perhaps the confusion stems from what follows. There are really two senses of condemnation at work here: ethical and legal. We must remember, what is ethical is not necessarily legal, what is legal is not necessarily ethical, what is unethical is not necessarily illegal, and what is illegal is not necessarily unethical. This is the intersection of the theoretical and the practical—the overlap of ethics and policy.

There are two dialectics of relevance here: 1) what is ethical and unethical (the ethical dialectic) and 2) what should be legal and illegal (the legal-normative dialectic).

Often the two are conflated and treated simultaneously, but it is important to clarify within which dialectic we are engaged and when because they are fundamentally separate and have radically different implications—and we ought to avoid making category mistakes. The ethical dialectic and any condemnation it might entail is theoretical condemnation and affects moral conscience, social perception, or perhaps the state of one’s soul, while the legal-normative dialectic and any condemnation it might entail is practical condemnation and affects literal social liberty and freedoms—i.e. imprisonment, monetary penalty, or socio-legal limits on self-determination.

The debate over non-heterosexual equality occupies the realm of the legal-normative dialectic, but often converges with the ethical. Still, it is two different things to argue, as Rustmann wants to do simultaneously, that 1) non-heterosexuality is unethical, and 2) non-heterosexuality should be illegal. To clarify, I contend that non-heterosexuality is neither unethical nor should it be illegal. Rustmann, however, in arguing that non-heterosexuality is both unethical and should be illegal, misses an important distinction. It is tolerable (though I think misguided) to believe non-heterosexuality is unethical. But being unethical (the ethical dialectic) doesn’t automatically entail that it should be illegal (the legal-normative dialectic). It is consistent and socially tolerable to hold that non-heterosexuality is unethical, but still believe that it should not be illegal. But Rustmann goes a step further. For him, not only is non-heterosexuality unethical, it should also be illegal. This, I believe, is inconsistent with the Harm Principle and ultimately explains his internal contradiction discussed before. Theoretical ethical condemnation of non-heterosexuality may be unenlightened, but by itself must be tolerated because theoretical condemnation does not necessarily entail socio-legal condemnation. But Rustmann and anti-queer advocates don’t stop at the theoretical. They push for socio-legal condemnation in the form of laws like Question 711, DOMA, and California’s Proposition 8. That is intolerable.

We cannot forget humanity’s multi-millennial legacy of socio-legally oppressing non-heterosexuals. Western religion has condemned non-heterosexuality almost unilaterally since the Old Testament. In 20^th century America, rulings like Bowers v. Hardwick judicially institutionalized the legality of imprisoning non-heterosexuals for expressing their love and having sex. It was not, and probably still is not, uncommon for non-heterosexuals to lose work or appointments just for being non-heterosexual. Just recently President Putin signed a law permitting the arrest of “gay propagandists” and threatened its enforcement on LGBT athletes of the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics. Not even a week ago India’s judiciary upheld a law criminalizing non-heterosexuality. And gay men are still put to death in the hyper-religious Middle East for no more than being gay. These are not theories. These are the disturbing realities.

4) Teleology disguised as science

In his response to my response, Rustmann also draws several repugnant comparisons between non-heterosexuality and a shocking list of degenerative diseases—in particular: alcoholism, bipolar disorder, and schizophrenia. Somehow, it seems to him that ethically and socio-legally condemning non-heterosexuality is equivalent to objecting to an alcoholic friend having another drink. This comparison is asinine.

Comparing non-heterosexuality to alcoholism, bipolar disorder, or schizophrenia warrants a dramatic face-palm. It is both an equivocation and a category mistake. Alcoholism, bipolar disorder, and schizophrenia are degenerative diseases that cause physiochemical and societal problems if allowed to persist unchecked. To compare them as if they’re equivalent is outrageous. Non-heterosexuality is not a disease, it is not a problem for non-heterosexual individuals, and it does not cause problems for society. Period. Nothing else ought need be said about this point to demonstrate its absurdity.

It is clear that Rustmann and I operate from different values systems. By his judgment, non-heterosexuality is bad, wrong, “disordered,” and contrary to human dignity. For reasons explained below, I obviously disagree.

My disagreement raises a fundamental question: From where does his judgment that non-heterosexuality is bad, wrong, disordered, and contrary to human dignity arise? The answer is two-fold: 1) Judeo-Christian values and ethics, and 2) the conflation of teleology and evolutionary function.

The author purports that his condemnation of non-heterosexuality is supported by the dictates of biology. But his reasoning relies upon a series of unsound scientific premises and an implicit assumption and furtive imposition of religious values. Let’s move through each one individually:

Premise 1: “Biology dictates that ‘natural’ sex occurs between a man and a woman.”

Counter-argument 1:Here he has reversed the logical relationship between “biology” and what is “natural.” Put correctly, everything within the purview of biology is natural, but not everything that is natural is within the purview of biology. In other words, to appeal to biology is to automatically admit and assume that the phenomenon in question—non-heterosexuality—is natural. If he wants to claim that non-heterosexuality is unnatural, he contradicts himself by appealing to biology. Biology does not distinguish between “natural” and “unnatural” sex—only kinds of sex, all of which is inherently “natural” by virtue of being within the realm of biological science.

Premise 2: Non-reproductive sex is “disordered.”

Counter-argument 2: Rustmann first defines “a disorder” as “when the purpose of [a] natural act is interrupted.” This definition is immediately problematic insofar as teleology—the idea of purpose—is inappropriate for discussing or explaining natural phenomena. But we’ll return to this point about teleology when I address Premise 3 below. More to the point: the claim that non-reproductive sex is “disordered” is an Augustinian distinction, not a biological one. Biology makes no such distinction. For biologists, non-reproductive sex is not “disordered.” Non-reproductive sex is just non-reproductive sex. Rustmann’s push to categorize non-reproductive as “disordered” vaults clear over Hume’s fact/value distinction without even realizing what it’s done. What of recreational or pleasure-oriented sex, or sex between the infertile or the elderly? Are these “disordered” as well? “Disordered” implies normative and teleological judgment that biologists, in aiming to remain objective, strictly avoid. In reality, the claim that non-reproductive sex is “disordered” is religious judgment, not biological.

It’s also worth noting that the author then makes another cringe-worthy comparison—this time comparing non-heterosexuality to incest and pedophilia. The very notion of such a comparison is just as inane as his prior juxtapositions to alcoholism, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, and reminisces of Rick Santorum’s appalling claim that homosexuality is akin to bestiality. Absolutely ludicrous. Let’s move on.

Premise 3: There is only one “purpose of sex” and the only purpose of sex is procreation.

Counter-argument 3: For Rustmann, sex is reserved exclusively for reproduction. Procreation is the only “biological purpose of sex.” First of all, it’s clear that here he has conflated the ideas of purpose and function. Evolutionary theory—to which he subsequently appeals—has fundamentally removed the scholastic basis for teleological speculation about natural phenomena. Natural phenomena—being—do not have natural “final causes” or purpose, but function. Purpose is our perception of function. The two shouldn’t be confused. Purpose doesn’t exist out in the world, only function does. Purpose is a human idea applied to natural phenomena.

So we should talk about the functions of sex, not its purpose—as if there could ever be only one. Sex has many functions–reproduction among them—which include the expression of love or lust; the intensification of emotional, physical and spiritual connection; art; pleasure; etc. Non-reproductive sex does not “side step the primary purpose of sex” because there is no purpose of sex, there is only function, and reproduction is only one function of sex.

Nevertheless, the author continues to argue that non-heterosexuality is contrary to evolutionary function and thus is “disordered.” This is an incorrect and narrow reading of evolutionary function. First of all, that non-heterosexual genotypes exist in perpetuity within in our species all but necessarily entails that non-heterosexuality has been naturally selected for. The germane question is not “What is the purpose of sexuality?” as Rustmann puts it, but “What is the function of non-heterosexuality?”

Non-heterosexuality may have several evolutionary functions. First, it seems relevant to reiterate a basic tenant of ecology—diversity improves resilience. In other words, diversity in sexuality may ultimately make humanity as a species more resilient. On one hand, non-heterosexuality stimulates non-heterosexual social bonds that strengthen communities. On the other hand, as Josh Barrow points out, non-heterosexuals may serve a kin-selection evolutionary function by helping to raise the offspring of other family members—making it more likely that other family members will have children and that more children will survive—or adopted children. Finally, non-heterosexuality may be a natural evolutionary response to human over-population—the ultimate driver of the modern ecological crisis—which constitutes an undeniable threat to the perpetuation and survival of our species.

If the author’s concern truly lies in the wellbeing of children, then his interests are actually in direct alignment with non-heterosexuality and the biological fitness improvements—e.g. contributions to child-rearing, population stabilization—they entail for individuals and our species. In other words, evolutionary theory supports exactly the opposite of the author’s interpretation.

We ought do away with the discriminatory idea of non-heterosexuality as biologically “disordered” altogether. If anything, non-heterosexuality is an astonishing and awe-striking example of nature’s profound capacity to re-order itself as is necessary to maintain stability and homeostasis within its biological systems when chronic perturbations (like human over-population and subsequent anthropogenic pressures on the Earth systems) occur. Heterosexuality and non-heterosexuality may actually be best understood as akin to the black and white daisies of James Lovelock’s Daisyworld, existing in an interdependent and reciprocating dynamic stability.

Rustmann claims that his belief that non-heterosexuality is “disordered” is rooted in science, not theology. But this is an attempt to disguise religious values as scientific. His reading of science is undergirded by blatantly religious values and teleological dogmatism contrary to Darwin’s evolution. In short, his interpretation of science is incorrect. Moreover, he altogether ignores the ought/is distinction, imports religious values onto flawed scientific reading, and conflates the ethical dialectic and the legal-normative dialectics insofar as he claims his objection is an ethical one but then argues that society ought to institutionalize anti-non-heterosexual religious values as law (OK Q711, DOMA, etc.).

5) Religion and religious values in society

Within society, recall, there are—among others—two distinct dialectics of relevance here: the ethical and the legal-normative. Religious values are usually permissible in the ethical dialectic—and moreover, I should be clear, I have no inherent objection to faith in religious mythology. Faith in religious mythology is, after all, an especially resilient vehicle for values and ethics that make life feel meaningful and worth living—perhaps even more so than faith in secular mythology.

But in the legal-normative dialectic of the United States—i.e. what should be legal or illegal in the US—we cannot simply ignore Constitutional Law and permit the entrance of religious value. By the First Amendment, it is unconstitutional to establish religious values as law. Freedom of religion does not mean the freedom to force your religion on others. Legislators “shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.” Banning same-sex marriage on the basis of religious values precisely constitutes an unconstitutional establishment of religion. If marriage is an exclusively Judeo-Christian heterosexual institution, then marriage should not be a legal institution, but a religious one, about which, again, the Constitution forbids the legislative establishment.

The author also says he would be fine with civil unions or something of the sort for non-heterosexual couples. But civil unions as a solution to the marriage discrimination problem don’t go far enough, and are, moreover, unconstitutional under the Equal Protection Clause. Ultimately, civil unions for non-heterosexuals are a mere façade of socio-legal equality. Civil unions to side-step the marriage discrimination problem is no better than a revitalization of Separate But Equal doctrine pertaining to non-heterosexuals. And just as Separate But Equal was wrong regarding race, so too is it wrong regarding sexuality and genderism. If Rustmann wants to reserve “marriage” for heterosexuals, then, legally, as far as the government is concerned, every marriage should be no more than civil union and should be equally available to all adult citizens of any gender or sexuality.

In yet another strange and furrowing turn of argument, the author also contends that non-heterosexuals already are socio-legally equal and that “the definition of marriage should not be changed […] to any other definition.”

“LGBT people do have socio-legal equality,” he argues. “They are perfectly welcome to marry just like any other adult person. However, marriage requires one man and one woman. If they don’t want to be joined with a person of the opposite gender, then they should not get married.”

This sort of exclusionary criterion for legal matrimony is obviously not equal. Marriage equality does not mean the freedom to join with a person of only the opposite gender. It means the freedom to join with a person of your choosing. Limiting that choice to a person of the opposite gender is a blatant, harsh, arbitrary, and capricious limitation of that freedom. Moreover, insofar as the author opposes changing the definition of marriage, laws like Oklahoma’s Question 711, DOMA, and California’s Proposition 8 do exactly that; they change the definition of marriage to explicitly exclude non-heterosexual couples. This is not freedom, and it is not equal.

Freedom is a fundamental value about which Rustmann and I likely both agree. In other words, freedom–the conservation of personal liberty, autonomy, and self-determination—is important. But for him, freedom comes with an asterisk. Freedom with regard to marriage is reserved for heterosexuals—even more so, fertile heterosexuals willing to “on-record declare that they are open to having children.” Excluding non-heterosexuals, the infertile, the elderly, or those uninterested in procreation from the freedom to marry who they love if they so choose is outright antithetical to freedom. It seems all but obvious that, for freedom’s sake, it is important that allies of the non-heterosexual community continue to contest pieces of legislation like Question 711 and those who support them.

Discourse as optimism

As enumerated toward the top, this debate centers on several fundamental divergences about perennial philosophical questions. By definition, perennial philosophical questions are irresolvable in an absolute sense. But discourse is itself reason to be optimistic. We ought regularly and openly subject our views to the scrutiny of others. Only when we can amiably, and with mutual respect, engage in the process of open public dialogue will we be able to ameliorate the tensions and problems of society. Indeed, this responsibility falls to all generations, but I am especially confident that the present rising generation—we Millennials who will soon ascend to seats of power in the world and control, to what extent we the can, the trajectory of humanity—will be able to make a difference. Of course the extent to which we can control the human condition is quite limited, but some social and political aspects of human life are within our purview. And I rest with a hopeful assurance that we as people, if ultimately unified by being human together, are open-minded, thoughtful, discursive, respectful, tolerant, and politically engaged enough to respect and preserve the socio-legal freedom and equality of all people—not despite, but for their differences.

On non-heterosexuality, religious absurdity, heteronormativity, human dignity, love, and freedom

January 17, 2014 by Jordan M. Kincaid

A friend of mine—in reaction to Oklahoma Federal Judge Kern’s overturning a ban on non-heterosexual marriage—recently authored a blog outlining his condemnation of homosexuality and disapproval of the current trajectory of Western marriage culture. Ordinarily I would just shake my head and move on, but this particular instantiation of dogmatic heteronormative religious anti-queer ideology is so utterly rife with contradictions, non-sequiturs, equivocations, conflations, hypocrisy, platitudes, and empty distinctions unconvincingly presented as redeeming or reconciliatory that I simply cannot stomach remaining silent.

His post begins with an especially empty and confused distinction: “We should not disapprove of people as a class. […] We must always make a distinction between the person and their actions. We disapprove of the actions, not the people.”

This distinction is nonsense. Of course there is an obvious difference between a person and her or his actions—the former is a performer and the latter is a performance—but with regard to the regulatory goals of anti-queer rights advocates, the actor and action are inseparable. Action does not exist in a void. Action presupposes an actor, so to condemn an action concurrently and necessarily condemns the actor. We do not oppress or socio-legally imprison actions, but the people who act. Actions do not have inherent rights to freedom and self-determination, people do. It is not the freedom of an action that anti-queer advocates aim to curtail, but the freedom and agency of, not just one class of people—the queer community is not monolithic—but numerous classes of people; all classes of people except heterosexuals, in fact. There is no practical difference between regulating the action and regulating the actor in this case. You cannot criminalize a person’s natural mode of being and expression of agency without criminalizing the person.

Also, as a writing teacher I feel compelled to point out the lack of grammatical agreement between the singular “the person” and the plural “their actions” in the aforementioned quotation.

The author goes on to say that his disapproval of homosexual actions actually comes from love, and that we “must always love and accept people [original emphasis]. In fact,” he continues, “in order to truly love someone, we have to disapprove of things that hurt them as people. Homosexual actions are contrary to the dignity of the human person and thus we must always disapprove of such actions.”

Contradictions and mistakes abound. Let’s deconstruct each of the three premises individually:

Premise 1: “We must always love and accept people [original emphasis].”

Counter-argument 1: If you “love and accept people,” then you must love and accept them for who they are, not who you want them to be. Otherwise you’re not accepting, but rejecting their identities. And non-heterosexual identity is precisely that: identity. Non-heterosexuality is fundamentally intertwined in the selfhood of non-heterosexuals. You cannot separate the two and purport to love and accept one but not the other. To think otherwise is an error.

Premise 2: “In order to truly love someone, we have to disapprove of things that hurt them as people.” (Note again the lack of grammatical agreement between the singular “someone” and the plural “them as people”).

Counter-argument 2: To begin, the notion of “truly lov[ing] someone” is a loaded and problematic one. By who’s truth should “true” love be judged? Who’s to determine whether one person’s love is more or less true than another’s? Is love even the kind of thing that can be “true” or “false”? False love—should such a thing exist—it seems to me, would not be love at all, but deception. The author suggests that “true love” is contingent upon disapproval of harmful things; in other words, disapproval of harm or hurt is the criterion he proposes for distinguishing “true love.” This is a specious, capricious, and arbitrary criterion. To what measure of hurt does he refer? In what sense is non-heterosexuality hurtful? In no way apparent to me does non-heterosexuality cause harm to individuals or society. If anything it’s the opposite. For non-heterosexuals, non-heterosexuality is not hurtful, but a means of flourishing. Non-heterosexuality and non-heterosexual love are equally natural, beautiful, admirable, defensible, and commendable expressions of the human condition as heterosexuality and heterosexual love. Only in context of intolerant dogmatic archaic religious ideology is this equality contestable. And only in said context is non-heterosexual socio-legal equity contested. The argument that “in order to truly love someone, we have to approve of things that enrich or fulfill them as people” is made just as easily—and I think more convincingly. If anything, the denial of such enrichment or fulfillment constitutes harm or hurt, in which case, by the author’s own logic and criterion, if we truly love all people, then we must disapprove of those who disapprove of non-heterosexuality.

Premise 3: “Homosexual actions are contrary to the dignity of the human person and thus we must always disapprove of such actions.”

Counter-argument 3: I agree that we ought disapprove of actions contrary to human dignity, but homosexuality (& other forms of non-heterosexuality) and homosexual (& non-heterosexual) actions are not contrary to human dignity. Non-heterosexuality may be contrary to fundamentalist Christian doctrine or other anachronistic universalist religious dogma, but it is not contrary to human dignity. In fact it’s exactly the opposite. Denying freedom, self-determination, and social equality to human beings because of antiquated mythological religious ideology is contrary to human dignity. Human dignity means being free to live and express one’s natural identity without oppression or discrimination insofar as said lifestyle and expression brings no harm or socio-legal imprisonment to others. The liberty and expression of non-heterosexuality has nothing to say about religion and does nothing to limit the freedom of religious zealots, but the socio-legal institutionalization of uncompromising anti-queer fanaticism moves precisely to limit the freedom of non-heterosexuals. By Mill’s Harm Principle, the former is obviously permissible, and the latter is both impermissible and ethically repugnant.

The author next attempts to hedge or mask his distasteful condemnation of non-heterosexuality by saying that “We need to always treat homosexuals, regardless of their life choices, with charity and love, WITHOUT [original caps] condescension, patronization, or moral arrogance.”

This rhetorical attempt to placate the queer-community and its allies is socially intolerant hypocrisy at its finest. There are several problematic components of the above claim. First, the author makes a category mistake in asserting that being homosexual (and presumable anything other than heterosexual) is the kind of thing about which one chooses. Non-heterosexuality is not a choice, but one of countless natural dimensions of the human condition. Non-heterosexuality is not a “life choice,” it is simply life. Furthermore, to treat non-heterosexuals as pariahs, reject their natural identities, and support the prevention, revocation, or demolition of non-heterosexual socio-legal equality is, in no way, to treat non-heterosexuals with charity or love. And what, on grounds of ancient religious dogma, is advocation for non-heterosexual socio-legal inequality if not moral arrogance? Is it not moral arrogance to arbitrarily claim that non-heterosexuality is contrary to human dignity? Is it not moral arrogance to inexplicably argue that non-heterosexual actions are hurtful or harmful and that, in effect, the religious community knows what’s best for all people—especially non-heterosexuals? Moreover, to reject non-heterosexuality, deny non-heterosexuals socio-legal equality, espouse oppressive, exclusionary, and discriminatory religious myth as if it were simple fact and then call it love is both offensive and antithetical to the very idea of love and smacks with precisely the condescension and patronization which the author argues the anti-queer cause should avoid.

The author then—referencing Judge Kern’s reasoning that the sanctity of marriage and the encouragement of procreation are not valid or logical reasons to ban same-sex marriage—in a profound non-sequitur moves to argue that the rejection of non-heterosexuality somehow entails a narrow teleological prescription about heterosexual marriage; namely, that the purpose of marriage is to have children and that he “would be in favor of limiting marriage to couples who have to say on record that they are at least open [original emphasis] to having children.” This is an absurd—remarkably inane—line of reasoning. What of love? What of commitment? What of legal rights of access and decision-making power that come with marriage? What of inheritance and the social securities that marriage entails? Are these not valid reasons to marry? What of the infertile or the elderly or those uninterested in having children of their own? What of couples who would prefer to raise adopted children while in wedlock? The author now not only wants to preclude the socio-legal equality of non-heterosexuals, but to limit the freedom of all people who do not share his precise ideology. “The stability of our society” depends on it, he argues.”Just a suggestion, America.” I can think of no more appropriate term for this than fascism; for as Sinclair Lewis so aptly stated, “When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross.”

Marriage is a human institution, not a Christian one. It is a social and civil right of all citizens of age and sound mind, not a privilege of heterosexuals, the devout, or those bent on reproduction. Marriage is a natural human freedom to take the long walk with someone for whom you care deeply and with whom you wish to build a life of mutual devising, together. Freedom is essential to American prosperity, not its curtailment or the institutionalization of discrimination, inequality, inequity, exclusion, and oppression on the basis of outrageous dogmatic ideology rooted in ancient religious mythology. Love, sex, commitment, shared experience, partnership, cooperation, and companionship—these are among the aspects of being human that make life worth living, and in no way are they—nor should they be—reserved for the close-minded, the bigoted, the hyper-religious, or the heteronormative. Life is an opportunity to live together with the people important to us, regardless of sexual orientation, gender, fertility, or religion. That is what’s worth protecting—worth fighting for—and that is what the stability of our society depends upon. Of this I have never been more sure.

Does distance matter?

December 8, 2013 by Jordan M. Kincaid

There is some contention in ethics over the moral relevance of distance—I touched on this to an extent in the ethics of rising sea level (II). In essence, the question “does distance matter?” amounts to asking whether we have greater responsibility to those who are nearer to us than to those who are far away—if we have any such responsibility to those far away at all. In context of catastrophic sea level rise, one might ask: am I obliged to my neighbor who will be affected by rising sea level more so than to someone living in, say, Bangladesh who will likewise be affected?

Some would say, yes—we have some such responsibility to help our neighbors deal with sea level rise, and no such responsibility to help someone in a similar predicament in Bangladesh. Others would contend that we have equal responsibility to both. A third option might be that we have responsibilities to both, but more to one than the other—i.e. we do indeed have responsibilities to sea level rise related climate refugees from Bangladesh, but we have more responsibility to our neighbors. Another might say we have responsibilities to neither, but should assist only if it serves our own interests. The list could go on, but that’s not the point here. The point is to show that it’s not necessarily clear how distance plays into responsibility. It’s not so clear if distance matters.

So let’s construct a thought experiment to clarify things.

Suppose you live in the US and you’re running late for some sort of important engagement—a dinner, perhaps—that requires you wear a shirt. But you had been at the beach (you had accidentally fallen asleep in the Sun) and are utterly shirtless. You have no option except to purchase a shirt, and fast—somewhere on your way to the important dinner you’re running late for. Along your way you come across exactly one place that sells shirts—the only shirt store, in fact. You enter the store and find, to your dismay, that your shirt options here are rather limited. There are exactly two options, no more no less, of exactly the same quality, kind, price, etc. But you notice a key difference, all other things being equal. One was made in an Indonesian sweatshop and the other in a Mexican maquiladora, both of the same deplorable conditions. Your moral sense starts to ache. Whichever you choose, you realize, is an implicit endorsement of the reprehensible labor practices that produced it. You don’t approve of or want to endorse either, but you seem to have no choice about it—suppose you must choose. So you wonder—does distance matter?

If distance matters, then as a person living in the US you have more responsibility to not endorse the closer repugnance. If distance matters, you should buy the Indonesian-made shirt, swallowing the sad endorsement of the unethical practice that’s farther away. But this seems wrong.

If distance doesn’t matter, on the other hand, then you have equal responsibility not to endorse either, and you have come to an impossible choice. The only ethical option, as you see it, is to purchase neither, remain shirtless, and forgo your engagement at whatever sacrifice that entails—because distance doesn’t matter. Neither is morally acceptable.

The thought experiment may seem odd—I’m open to other formulations or suggestions—but perhaps it helps clarify intuition. I think, at least in this case, intuition tells us that endorsing either disturbing labor practice is unethical—that distance doesn’t matter—and that we have equal responsibility to treat people on the other side of the Earth with the same moral considerability as we do those nearby. Of course, an obvious objection stems from the premise “ought implies can.” Distance doesn’t matter only if we are just as capable of treating those nearby and those far away as moral patients. If we literally can’t help those far away—e.g. a drowning person on the other side of the planet—then we aren’t morally responsible for doing so. Ought implies can. We can only be obliged to do that which is possible for us. But insofar as we can help distant people, we should.

The implications of this intuition for how we ought to address global problems like climate change, deforestation, biodiversity loss, sea level rise, world hunger and dehydration, sociopolitical oppression, ocean acidification, rampant poverty and disease, slavery and human trafficking, etc., are vast. If distance doesn’t matter then we all share a global responsibility to solve these problems, or, in cases that involve global commons, to engage and address them in and on equitable and proportional grounds of complicity and capacity.

Depending on the context of the moral question, distance may or may not matter, more or less. Regarding global climate change, perhaps distance doesn’t matter. But regarding exposure to the risks and harms of natural gas development, where proximity is an obvious important factor, perhaps distance does. To say that distance always does or always doesn’t matter is an over-simplification, so it’s important we rehash this question in various contexts. The more often we ask the question, the more often we may find it appropriate or obligatory to expand our spheres of moral consideration. And such expansion, it seems to me, is of supreme importance if we are to live well in our global community.

The ethics of rising sea level (II)

October 29, 2013 by Jordan M. Kincaid

Rising sea level: Future generations and distant populations

Despite the gravity of the catastrophic sea level rise scenario, we cannot treat it as if it’s here and now when deciding how to act today. In reality, sea level rise involves two kinds of murky ethical distance: temporal and spatial. Sea level rise scenarios pertain to future generations and future generations of distant populations. As if the moral standing of future generations weren’t contentious enough, the “future generations of distant populations” element of the sea level rise makes things even more complicated and difficult to reconcile with the intuition that someone should do something.

The United States with 60m of sea level rise–Map courtesy of geology.com

Let’s restrict what follows to considering two possible moral agents: on one hand, individual US citizens, and on the other, US civic bodies—-i.e. cities, states, and the nation itself.

What responsibilities, if any, do individual US citizens have with regard to sea level rise? Are individuals obliged to address sea level rise for future generations’ sake? It seems intuitive that we do indeed have certain individual responsibilities to posterity. The idea of acting in the interest of our children and grandchildren is commonplace. Even Locke seems to endorse the sustainable use of the environment for sake of others and future generations, providing that however we use the environment there should be “enough and as good left in common for others.”

On the other hand, our behavior tells a different story about how we regard the future. In economic terms, humans tend to discount the future—meaning we value the future less than we value the present. This is why we accept conditions like interest rates on loans or fail to adequately save for retirement. Given that we tend to discount even our own futures, the idea of individuals actively affording future generations a non-positive discount rate may verge on absurdity.

Nevertheless, just because we do discount the future doesn’t necessarily mean that we should. In fact, it may be the case that we should not discount the future because it leads to highly counterintuitive conclusions as some have argued. For instance, given a sufficient time differential, positive intergenerational discounting of any amount leads us to conclude that benefits to one life today are worth costs to millions of future lives. By intergenerational discounting logic, the benefit of joyriding your ’67 Corvette down Miami Beach today may be worth putting Miami underwater in the future. Such a counterintuitive conclusion seems clearly wrong and may indicate that the very notion of intergenerational discounting is repugnant to the intuitive responsibility to consider posterity when deciding how to act.

If, assuming individuals do indeed have certain duties to future generations, then do individual duties to future generations also extend to future generations of distant populations—e.g. future Bangladeshis—or stop at future Americans?

And what responsibilities, if any, do US civic bodies have to future American generations? Intuitively, again, US civic bodies seems to have certain responsibilities to do right by and protect the interests of their own future generations; an intuition codified at the national level by the 2005 amendment to the Coastal Zone Management Act, which recognizes the threat of and need to address rising sea level. After all, the very continued existence of US civic life depends upon a flourishing future population and resilient infrastructure. US civic bodies have, if nothing else, a rational interest in acting to hedge against sea level rise risks to their future generations. Assuming, then, that civic duties to future people exist, do they also extend to the future generations of distant people? Does America today have any responsibility to tomorrow’s Bangladesh? Does Texas? Or New York City?

Bangladesh with 60m of sea level rise–map courtesy of geology.com

These questions stir several competing moral intuitions. For example, we might intuit that future people have moral standing and should be taken into consideration when making decisions in the here and now. In turn, we might then be obliged to alter our individual or collective emissions behavior today in order to address climate change and slow rising seas tomorrow. On the other hand, future generations don’t yet exist, and so it may make little sense to afford them much significance in our decision-making or to attribute them certain preferences, if any, being that we have little way of telling what they might be.

And what role does distance play? We might have the intuition that distance matters for moral standing; we might suppose that our responsibilities to each other wane as distance between us increases. We may then only have responsibilities to people proximate to ourselves, or in the case of future generations, people who will be proximate to us. If distance does matter, then our individual and civic duty to address sea level rise may then just be for the sake of future Americans living in coastal areas.

If, alternatively, we have the moral intuition that distance doesn’t matter when establishing moral standing, then we would want to afford equal consideration to proximate future generations and distant future generations. If that’s the case, we should keep space in our moral calculus for future Americans as well as for future Bangladeshis.

But establishing individual duty toward future generations and distant populations is more difficult than intuition might let on. Individual duty to future individuals runs into issues with the non-identity problem, as well as causal (and perhaps rational) impotence objections. Individual duty to distant individuals is likewise vulnerable to causal impotence, as well as certain epistemic and pragmatic limitations.

Consequentialist challenges to individual duty

The non-identity problem

The non-identity problem refers to the extreme contingency of people. That is, depending on what we do in the here and now, the set of humans that exists in the future will be different. Contingent upon our choices today, the group of individuals living in the future will be one or another. Provided their existence is understood as a good, future generations affected by sea level rise can’t be said to be worse off than they otherwise would have been because if we had behaved differently, then an entirely different set of people would have been born; that is, they would never exist in the first place.

So, to that effect, suppose individuals decide to do nothing about sea level rise. Because of our actions today, sea level rises dramatically by the end of the century and populations all over the world are displaced. But at least they exist, says the non-identity problem. If we had chosen to behave differently and kept sea level rise more at bay, different individuals would have been born and the people in the catastrophic scenario would never exist to begin with—arguably the worst of bad consequences from their perspective. From the catastrophic-sea-level-rise-generation’s point of view, our non-action on climate change and sea level rise is actually in their best interest because that potential reality is the only one in which they exist. By this logic, individuals shouldn’t do anything about sea level rise for future generations’ sake because the existence of the people for whose sake we’d be acting depends precisely on our non-action today.

Causal and rational impotence

Moreover, individual duty to mitigate sea level rise runs into trouble with causal impotence, and perhaps rational impotence as well. The gist of causal impotence is this: even if you as an individual were to do everything in your power to reduce your contribution to sea level rise, your impact would be so small that, for practical reasons, it would have no recognizable effect. Changing one’s individual behavior may not be capable of causing any significant improvements in the situation—and we can only be held responsible for what can be done. If, as individuals, we can’t mitigate sea level rise, we aren’t morally obliged to do so.

What’s more, the cost of changing one’s behavior in the here and now may be so high that what little effect one could have simply isn’t worth pursuing. If costs to the individual for negligible future gains toward addressing sea level rise are exorbitant, the rational agent may then, justifiably, decide not to change her or his present behavior.

Individual duty to distant populations runs into similar problems with causal impotence. Essentially, we may be more able to affect people who are closer to us than those who are distant. Individually, we may be more capable of providing aid or respect to folks nearby than those on the other side of the Earth. Presuming we can cause noteworthy positive effects for distant people, however, an objector might still respond that we accrue greater benefits for proximate people than for those far away, given an equal amount of cost or effort. Considering nearby populations over and above distant ones may just be a matter of pragmatics or practical reason. To a related epistemic point, it’s also more difficult to know one’s impact on distant people than on proximate people. Unless we can know—i.e. observe or measure—the effects of our decisions on distant populations, it’s tough to say that such effects exist or matter.

As such, individuals may not be obliged to address the melting West Antarctic Ice Sheet or catastrophic sea level rise for the sake of future or distant people. We may have no duty to change our individual behavior with future or distant individuals in mind at all. But this conclusion conflicts with the intuition that we should do something about sea level rise.

In turn, civic duty may provide a way out.

A consequentialist case for civic duty to address sea level rise

Civic bodies such as cities, states, nations and institutions are more resilient to the non-identity problem, distance-related concerns, and to causal and rational impotence objections. The various US civic bodies may indeed have certain duties to future generations and distant populations that oblige us to address Antarctic melting and sea level rise. It seems a less controversial say that US civic bodies have certain duties to future Americans regarding inevitable rises in sea level and flooded cities. In as much as future Americans comprise the very civic bodies to which those obligations would hold, it follows that, even if only as a function of rational self-interest, US cities, states and the federal government should act to protect the integrity of population, infrastructure, and territory.

Future generations

With explicit regard to the non-identity problem, it may be true that there are no particular individuals to whom we are obliged because of the extreme contingency of people, but civic bodies are less contingent, if at all. That is, they’re more persistent and consistent. Barring social collapse, upheaval, or revolution, in coming centuries the United States will still be the United States and Bangladesh will still be Bangladesh. As civic bodies have certain responsibilities to one another as agents of the global community, even if only by convention, each is obliged, now and in the future alike, not to harm or be complicit in bringing harm to another. Presuming civic identity is uninterrupted, there is no non-identity problem for civic bodies.

Nor is causal impotence a problem for civic bodies with regard to future generations. Collective civil life is, in fact, the very mode of cooperation and coordination that transports us from being causally impotent to being causally significant. Changing civic behavior to address melting land ice and sea level rise may indeed put a dent in, or at least stall, looming catastrophe. There are, however, reasons to think that even civic agents may be unwilling or unable to regard future generations with a non-positive discount rate if the short-term benefits of defection are greater than the benefits of cooperation. Future-oriented public policy probably needs to be win-win if we aim to overcome natural human short-sightedness.

In addition, civic bodies may be more willing to assume lower or non-positive discount rates because, for contiguous civic agents, the question pertains to intragenerational discounting rather than intergenerational discounting. Unless the US civic life dissolves, US civic bodies are dealing with their own future in addressing sea level rise. There is good reason to doubt that civic bodies are more likely than individuals to assume lower discount rates or non-positive discounting even for their own futures (e.g. the US national debt & deficit, broke states, & bankrupt cities), but intragenerational discount rates are typically weaker than intergenerational discounting.

Cartoon by Elden Fletcher, owned by the University of Southern Mississippi

Moreover, some economic theorists argue that any amount of positive intergenerational discounting is unjustified in most policy cases. That is, public policy should value the future at least as much as the present. Others have argued that it is altogether “ethically indefensible” for governments to discount the future at all, or that society should at least discount the present and future equally. Taken together, there seems to be a strong case for civic duty with regard to future generations and addressing catastrophic sea level rise.

Distance matters less for civic bodies

The question of distance in establishing moral standing may be an altogether empty question for civic bodies, particularly the US state. The international community is, after all, so entangled, interconnected, and co-dependent that the idea of “distance” as an ethical limiting factor may be incoherent. Through the influence of global markets and international politics on domestic affairs, states are, to a certain degree, ubiquitously omnipresent within one another.

The US, in particular, has roots spread so far throughout the world that to argue that spatial distance abridges its moral duty makes little sense. The US dollar is the world’s reserve currency, the US has military bases in 63 countries and embassies all over the world, companies born in the US have gone on to become globally influential multinational corporations, and US contributions to climate change and the global ecological crisis—catastrophic sea level rise included—are undeniable. The US is everywhere, and thus, so too is the extent of its moral responsibility.

It stands to reason that while individuals may have difficulty establishing responsibilities toward distant and future individuals, there is a stronger case to be made for the duty of civic bodies to each other, now and with regard to the future. If any moral agent is responsible for dealing with catastrophic sea level rise, by consequentialist logic, it will be a matter of civic duty.

Assuming civic bodies take it upon themselves to address sea level rise (and that may be assuming too much) the question then is: mitigation or adaptation?

Mitigation or adaptation: an ethical contention

Interestingly enough, even if the US, for example, were to act to mitigate sea level rise only for its own sake, the benefits would be distributed globally in as much as sea level is a function of global systems. Bangladesh would still benefit from US mitigation even if the US acted with only its own interest in mind. There’s something to be said for acting for the right reasons, but in this case, motivation may be less of a priority if the result of mitigation is the same regardless of moral reasoning.

Moral reasoning is an issue, however, if the US’s reaction to sea level rise is adaptation rather than mitigation. If the US opts to adapt to rising sea level rather than attempt to mitigate it, then short of providing foreign aid or taking refugees, Bangladesh, its people, and their de facto host countries will shoulder the full burden of a problem they were not complicit in creating. This seems like a problem.

There is a key difference, ethically speaking, between adaptation and mitigation. Mitigation is forward-looking insofar as it aims to prevent or reduce the intensity of future undesirable conditions, whereas adaptation means dealing with present conditions. One cannot adapt, strictly speaking, to conditions that have not manifested yet. In other words, forward-looking adaptation may be more appropriately understood as mitigation. Moreover, while mitigation questions related to sea level rise pertain to future generations and distant populations, adaptation to sea level rise once the problem is upon us will only be a question of distant populations.

This distinction might help simplify the moral dilemma, or it might not. Once sea level rise is immediately at hand, individuals may not have the non-identity problem blocking an obligation to help distant populations adapt, but they must still answer to causal and rational impotence objections regarding distance. Civic bodies may be more likely candidates for said duty, but this presumes that either distance doesn’t matter, or, as I have argued above, that for civic bodies—the US in particular—distance is something of an empty question.

Go back to Part I

The ethics of rising sea level (I)

October 29, 2013 by Jordan M. Kincaid

Rising sea level: Inevitability and responsibility

The physics of climate change—the greenhouse effect—are well established. As the Sun blasts the Earth with energy, the Earth absorbs some of it and reflects the rest. Then, depending on surface conditions and the composition of the atmosphere, more or less of the reflected energy makes it back out to space. But if the atmosphere gets in that reflected energy’s way because it’s full of carbon, for example, it gets reflected again back down at the Earth. Since much of that energy is heat, global temperatures go up. Just like an enormous greenhouse. Meanwhile, the Sun is still blasting the Earth with energy and the process continues.

Photo courtesy of the Florida Sierra Club

The Earth functions much like an organism. Certain homeostatic processes are physiochemically determined. If the system overheats, symptoms start to develop as the system adjusts to stabilize itself. For humans, we might sweat, feel light-headed, lose consciousness, or worse. For the Earth, landscapes change, ecosystems adapt, weather gets more erratic and intense, land ice melts, the oceans expand, and, in turn, sea level rises.

Climate change and sea level rise

Climate change means many things—uncertainty among them—but the relationship between global temperature and sea level is straightforward. When the planet cools, sea level drops, and when it warms, sea level rises. This happens for two reasons: 1) the thermal expansion of water and 2) melting land ice.

The former means that as heat diffuses from the atmosphere into the ocean, the volume of the ocean—the literal space between the water molecules—increases. If that’s not intuitive, think of steam rising from boiling pot of water: if you add enough heat to water, the space between the molecules increases so much that they fly apart and into vapor form.

As for the latter, you can probably guess Antarctica’s role.

As Antarctic temperatures rise, the West Antarctic Ice Sheet will continue to melt, the amount of water in the ocean will increase, and sea level will rise. For obvious reasons, any amount of sea level rise poses problems for coastal communities everywhere.

Photo courtesy of WaterSISWEB

According to the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), we can generally predict 2.3 meters of sea level rise for every °C increase in average global temperatures over the next 2000 years, more than a third of which will be attributable to the melting West Antarctic Ice Sheet. By that math, even if the world manages to keep global warming within 2°C (which is doubtful), we can still expect sea levels to rise by nearly 15 feet.

You can click on the map below and zoom in to see for yourself what the world looks like with 15 feet of sea level rise.

Map courtesy of CReSIS

In North America, 15 feet of sea level rise would mean cities like New Orleans, Miami, New York, and Boston are flooded, as are sizeable portion of the Yucatan Peninsula and Alaskan coast. Around the world, Bangladesh and the Maldives, large parts of South East Asia, Northern Europe, much of the Amazon Delta, and the northern coast South America would be underwater.

Though I use hypothetical language, it is important to be clear that some degree of sea level rise is now inevitable. Given present atmospheric carbon dioxide levels, the relevant question is not if sea level will rise, but when, and by how much?

Expectations and inevitabilities

To put expectations in perspective, FEMA’s most recent assessment projects sea level rising by more than a meter by 2100. Miami, the Maldives, the southern tip of Vietnam, swaths of Indonesia, and the mouth of the Amazon Delta are flooded with just one meter of sea level rise.

Southeast Asia with 1m of sea level rise–Map courtesy of CreSIS

Here’s a world map of 1 meter of inundation for reference.

And it won’t stop then or there.

Atmospheric CO2 concentrations measured in April 2017 logged around 409ppm (updated May 2017). The last time there was this much carbon in the atmosphere was the Pliocene—3 million years ago. The Pliocene was significantly hotter and sea level was more than 20 meters above what it is today. Given the amount of carbon already in the atmosphere, in coming centuries as the Earth’s natural feedbacks to carbon forcing play out, we are likely justified in anticipating something like Pliocene-era sea levels.

With 20-25 meters of sea level rise, the map looks very different.

North America with 20m of sea level rise–Map courtesy of geology.com

Here’s an interactive map tool you can use to check out various amounts of sea level rise.

In the United States, 20 meters of sea level rise means the state of Delaware, California’s bay area all the way to Sacramento, the entire edge of the Gulf Coast (Houston’s port becomes the coast and much of Louisiana goes the way of Atlantis), and the bottom third of the Florida Peninsula are all underwater. Elsewhere in the world: Shanghai, Bangladesh and the Maldives are long since submerged.

Southeast Asia with 20m of sea level rise–Map courtesy of geology.com

But it could be much worse depending on how global climate policy evolves and how the West Antarctic Ice Sheet and other stocks of land ice respond to climate change.

Catastrophic sea level rise

For sake of thought experiment, let’s consider the catastrophic scenarios projected by the IPCC’s A2 and A1F1 emissions pathways, putting us somewhere between 800 and 1000ppm CO2 by 2100. These worst-case scenarios mean that eventually, as Earth systems respond over centuries to come, we reach Eocene conditions—a world entirely without ice. Without ice anywhere on Earth, sea level sat more than 100 meters higher than today. The map tool only displays up to 60 meters of sea level rise, but that should be motivating enough. Just consider it a conservative portrayal of Eocene-era sea levels. BuzzFeed also recently issued some interesting depictions of what the world looks like without ice.

North America with 60m of sea level rise–Map courtesy of geology.com

There are good reasons to think that this is bad, or at least undesirable, in and of itself. Maybe we want land ice to exist for its own sake. It might just make us feel better to know that glaciers are out there. Moreover, perhaps we have an obligation not to destroy the natural condition and function of the Antarctic ecosystem, even if not for the ecosystem’s sake but out of respect for Antarctica inhabitants’ right to habitat.

Relevant concerns, to be sure. But the human implications of catastrophic sea level rise are more than disturbing enough to warrant the catastrophic hypothetical. With Eocene era sea levels, cities flood the world over, many coastal countries are submerged entirely, and hundreds of millions of people lose their homes.

Asia with 6m of sea level rise–Map courtesy of geology.com

In the United States, the Gulf and Southeast Coasts are fundamentally reshaped. Florida is completely submerged, the Mississippi Delta consumes all of Louisiana and extends into northern Arkansas and Tennessee, and Georgia and South Carolina lose large stretches of eastern territory. Bangladesh and much of India, vast amounts of Northeastern China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam, the Philippines, all of Denmark and the Netherlands, as well as much of Northern Germany including Berlin are entirely flooded.

Europe with 60m of SLR

Some nations like the US and China have large amounts of inland territory into which their populations can move (albeit still at huge costs), but many do not. Many people, Bangladeshis for example, will lose their entire country in the catastrophic scenario. This raises several questions.

Bangladesh with 60m of sea level rise–Map courtesy of geology.com

Where should people of entirely submerged nations go? How should responsibility for adaptation assistance be divided? Should neighboring nations take on climate refugees simply because they’re closer, or should nations with greater contributions to climate change or greater ability to pay shoulder more of the responsibility?

The forced migration of countless individuals to new regions within and without their own nations—i.e. population displacement—is perhaps the most obvious ethical dilemma presented by the catastrophic scenario. Bangladesh is commonly considered with regard to the catastrophic sea level rise and population displacement because it is densely populated and especially vulnerable to rising sea level.

Moreover, Bangladesh’s cumulative and annual contributions to climate change inducing greenhouse gases are negligible. Compared to the United States, Europe, India, and China, Bangladesh is not, in large part, complicit in causing climate change, the melting of land ice, or the rise of sea level. That Bangladesh bears little responsibility for causing climate change and its impacts on sea level, yet shoulders the most extreme conceivable consequence is intuitively objectionable by most common conceptions of justice, wrongdoing, rights, and fairness. And if we were to weigh the marginal benefits of industrialization against the resulting change in climate and sea level rise, it would be a strange calculus indeed that rules the prerogative to continue burning fossil fuels over and above the global costs of lost coastal territory and massive population displacement.

Continue reading to Part II

tothesungod

philosophy blog

Category Archives: Ethics

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On non-heterosexuality, religious absurdity, heteronormativity, human dignity, love, and freedom

Does distance matter?

The ethics of rising sea level (II)

Rising sea level: Future generations and distant populations

Consequentialist challenges to individual duty

The non-identity problem

Causal and rational impotence

A consequentialist case for civic duty to address sea level rise

Future generations

Distance matters less for civic bodies

Mitigation or adaptation: an ethical contention

The ethics of rising sea level (I)

Rising sea level: Inevitability and responsibility

Climate change and sea level rise

Expectations and inevitabilities

Catastrophic sea level rise

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Rising sea level: Future generations and distant populations

Consequentialist challenges to individual duty

The non-identity problem

Causal and rational impotence

A consequentialist case for civic duty to address sea level rise

Future generations

Distance matters less for civic bodies

Mitigation or adaptation: an ethical contention

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Like this:

Rising sea level: Inevitability and responsibility

Climate change and sea level rise

Expectations and inevitabilities

Catastrophic sea level rise

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