“We live in a world in which everyone wants solutions. But we can't find solutions if we don't understand the problems, and we can't understand the problems without knowing how we got here.” IfsWorldWantProblemKnowingSolutions Author:Dale Jamieson
“Even those who specialize in the history of philosophy often ignore the political and cultural context, and the natural world in which their philosophers were philosophizing. This has consequences both trivial and important. If you systematically read the last fifty years of the major journals in our discipline you would be amazed at the amount of redundancy. Most of this is unacknowledged because most of us know so little about the history of our discipline and even the subfields in which we work.” IfsKnowsWorldYearsLittlesImportantPhilosophyWould BeLastsPoliticalNaturalAmountDisciplineMajorsConsequencePhilosopherFiftyAmazedJournalNatural WorldRedundancy Author:Dale Jamieson
“Our traditional systems of decision-making are just not up to preventing changes in fundamental earth systems that are driven by a constant barrage of individually negligible emissions of an invisible, odorless gas, by billions of people all over the world.” PeopleWorldEarthDecisionFundamentalsConstantDrivenBillionsInvisibleTraditionalGasDecision MakingEmissionsPreventing Author:Dale Jamieson
“We need to use economic instruments such as carbon taxes, cap and trade, tax and dividend and whatever else to help incentivize behavior that will move us to a post-carbon, post-animal agriculture world, and make our societies more resilient to the shocks that are already baked into the system. But that doesn't make climate change an "economic issue."” WorldNeedsHelpingUseMovingAnimalIssuesEconomicTaxesBehaviorInstrumentsTradeClimateClimate ChangePostsShockOur SocietyAgricultureCarbonCapsResilientDividendsEconomic IssuesAnimal AgricultureCarbon Tax Author:Dale Jamieson
“Climate change involves fundamental choices about how we want to live and what kind of world we want.” WorldWantKindChoicesFundamentalsClimateClimate Change Author:Dale Jamieson
“People who go around saying that it is wrong to fly and to eat meat are not so much making appeals to us from within our shared morality, but engaging in something more like "persuasive definition." They want us to look at the world and ourselves in a different way. Someday these prohibitions against flying and eating meat may be written into our moral psychology, but it will only be after there are viable, widely shared alternatives that are beginning to be widely adopted.” PeopleWorldWayWantLooksMayDifferentMoralPsychologyWrittenMoralityEatingDefinitionsFlyingAlternativesAppealsMeatDifferent WaysSomedayEngagingAdoptedWant UProhibitionPersuasiveEating Meat Author:Dale Jamieson
“'The anthropocene' refers to the way we live now, in a highly globalized world, characterized by a large human population and powerful technologies that allow for "action at a distance" that aggregate apparently negligible acts into powerful forces that are transforming fundamental planetary systems. In this sense 'the anthropocene' refers to a period in which nature as an independent autonomous domain comes to an end or is under serious threat.” WorldWayHumansEndsActionForcePowerfulTechnologySeriousPeriodsIndependentFundamentalsDistanceThreatPopulationDomainTransformingAutonomousHuman Population Author:Dale Jamieson
“Climate scientists think of nothing but climate and then express their concerns in terms of constructs such as global mean surface temperature. But we live in a world in which all sorts of change is happening all the time, and the only way to understand what climate change will bring is to tell stories about how it manifests in people's lives.” PeopleThinkingWorldWayMeanStoriesTermHappeningsConcernScientistClimateClimate ChangeSurfaceConstructsTemperature Author:Dale Jamieson
“Environmental problems provoke challenges about what kind of world we want, how important we think it is if something is brought about by human action or by brute nature, what we think of the value of human life compared to that of other living things.” IfsThinkingWorldWantHumansKindImportantProblemActionValuesChallengesEnvironmentalHuman LifeProvokingLiving ThingsBrutesHuman ActionsEnvironmental ProblemsValue Of Human Life Author:Dale Jamieson
“Progressive Consequentialsm requires us to make the world better but we are under no obligation to bring about the best possible world.” WorldObligationProgressive Author:Dale Jamieson
“In the face of the collective action problems that are at the heart of the environmental crisis, consequentialists should seek to inculcate the "green virtues" which includes the virtue of cooperativeness. This would not bring about the best possible world but it would set us on the path of making it better.” WorldShouldHeartProblemActionFacesVirtuePathCrisisGreenEnvironmentalCollectivesCollective ActionEnvironmental Crisis Author:Dale Jamieson
“Some philosophers think that the idea of a consequentialist virtue theory is strange, but the real strength of consequentialism is that it can emulate the requirements of other moral theories when it is the case that acting on those theories would improve the world.” ThinkingWorldIdeasRealActingMoralCasesVirtueStrangeTheoryPhilosopherRequirementsEmulateReal StrengthConsequentialism Author:Dale Jamieson
“What most forms of Consequentialism cannot do is require us to act in such a way as to make the world worse, yet many of the objections to Consequentialism purport to show that Consequentialism requires us to make the world a stinking, bloody mess. The ubiquity of these kinds of arguments shows you just how unseriously many of the critics take Consequentialism.” WorldWayKindShowsFormArgumentCriticsMessBloodyObjectionsUbiquityConsequentialism Author:Dale Jamieson
“People and countries have done an enormous amount of damage in their attempts to bring about the best possible world. Communism is an obvious example. But so is British imperialism, which was not grubby self-interest all the way down, but at least in part a sincere attempt on the part of people who felt they were superior to other people to magnanimously improve the lot of their inferiors.” PeopleWorldWaySelfCountryDoneFeltInterestExampleAmountObviousBritishEnormousSuperiorsCommunismDamageSincereInferiorsImperialismSelf Interest Author:Dale Jamieson
“In much of the world today there are no more chilling words than "I'm from the United States and I'm here to help you."” WorldStatesHelpingTodayUnitedUnited StatesChillWorld Today Author:Dale Jamieson
“I think, questions about what it means to respect nature become very important because just as in human society, for example, part of what it is for me to live a good life as a human being in a human society is to have respect for others around me. Now, that respect, to some extent, can be thought of as being grounded in the rights and interest of others but it also has to do with the stance that I take in the world and what it is that provides meaning and significance in my own life and I think there are similar ideas of respect for nature that apply as well.” ThinkingWorldMeanImportantInterestSignificanceGood LifeRespecting Others Author:Dale Jamieson
“If you're interested in doing something about climate change as we all should be, all of us who care about future people and creatures that will inhabit this world. Then buying a Prius is a good thing but an even better thing would be to be on the streets demanding urgent action from the United States' Congress.” PeopleWorldCareActionGood ThingsClimate Change Author:Dale Jamieson
“I think when it comes to climate change, the single most important thing in the world is for the United States' Congress to pass an effective bill that will put a price in carbon because if it starts costing something to emit carbon, this will provide an incentive, people do act on the basis to some extent of economic incentives to emit fewer greenhouse gases.” PeopleThinkingWorldImportantEconomicClimate Change Author:Dale Jamieson
“I think the challenge of climate change in particular is the challenge for us to create and produce new norms for a new kind of world. And that's why I think as important as the issue of climate change is, it's even more important than it seems because if we can't evolve very quickly, new norms to deal with issues like climate change, we're not going to be able to survive in the kind of world we've created. So I think, really, the whole nature of democracy, of governance, of global community and of solving the kinds of problems of the 21st Century are really at stake.” ThinkingWorldKindImportantProblemCommunityChallengesDemocracyClimate ChangeEvolve21st CenturyNorm Author:Dale Jamieson
