The intergenerational ethics of climate change : the failure of cost-benefit analysis as a normative framework

Climate change generates a conflict between generations: while it is in the interest of the current generation to continue to exploit inexpensive carbon-based fuel to drive economic growth, it is in the interest of future generations that we reduce our carbon emissions by making these fuels more expensive. This raises the following question: what moral framework should we use to adjudicate between the interests of different generations? In this work, I argue that the commonly used framework of "cost-benefit analysis"-the analytic framework for public policy that developed out of the field of welfare economics-fails as a normative framework for intergenerational policy. For one, by aggregating costs and benefits across all generations, it ignores that what matters is each generation. For another, by reducing all value into a unitary objective function, it ignores important distinctions between different categories of moral claims. Third, by attempting to optimize a function across all time, it reflects a false sense of knowledge about the distant future. For all these reasons-and more-I conclude that this approach cannot offer a reasonable normative framework for intergenerational public policy. In its stead, I propose an "intergenerational threshold" principle which avoids aggregating generations together, gives space for different categories of value, and, I will argue, is more robust to the epistemic limitations of intergenerational policy analysis.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Engineering Systems Division.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2014

Author dc:creator

• Lee, Nathan R. (Nathan Ross)

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Lucas Stanczyk.

• Engineering Systems Division.
• Technology and Policy Program.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/95522

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/95522