Moral Responsibility for Environmental Problems--Individual or Institutional?

• Published in: Journal of agricultural & environmental ethics Vol. 22; no. 2; pp. 109 - 124
• Main Author: Fahlquist, Jessica Nihlén
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Dordrecht Dordrecht : Springer Netherlands 01.04.2009; Springer Netherlands; Springer; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Agricultural Economics; Biological and medical sciences; Carbon footprint; citizen participation; Climate change; Consumers; consumers' responsibilities; Education; environmental degradation; environmental education; Environmental impact; environmental policy; Environmental problems; Ethical consumers; Ethics; Etik; Evolutionary Biology; Filosofi; Filosofiämnen; Forward-looking responsibility; Historisk-filosofiska ämnen; History and philosophy subjects; HUMANIORA och RELIGIONSVETENSKAP; HUMANITIES and RELIGION; Individual responsibility; Institutional responsibility; man's influence on the environment; Medical sciences; Philosophy; Philosophy subjects; Plant Sciences; public opinion; Social responsibility; Studies; Theory of Medicine/Bioethics; Forward-looking responsibility; Individual responsibility; Ethical consumers; Environmental problems; Institutional responsibility; Ethics; Consumer; Environment; Responsibility; Institutional analysis
• ISSN: 1187-7863; 1573-322X; 1573-322X
• DOI: 10.1007/s10806-008-9134-5

The actions performed by individuals, as consumers and citizens, have aggregate negative consequences for the environment. The question asked in this paper is to what extent it is reasonable to hold individuals and institutions responsible for environmental problems. A distinction is made between backward-looking and forward-looking responsibility. Previously, individuals were not seen as being responsible for environmental problems, but an idea that is now sometimes implicitly or explicitly embraced in the public debate on environmental problems is that individuals are appropriate targets for blame when they perform actions that are harmful to the environment. This idea is criticized in this paper. It is argued that instead of blaming individuals for performing actions that are not environmentally friendly we should ascribe forward-looking responsibility to individuals, a notion that focuses more on capacity and resources than causation and blameworthiness. Furthermore, it is important to emphasize that a great share of forward-looking responsibility should also be ascribed to institutional agents, primarily governments and corporations. The urge to ascribe forward-looking responsibility to institutional agents is motivated by the efficiency aim of responsibility distributions. Simply put, if responsibility is ascribed to governments and corporations there is a better chance of creating a society in which the opportunities to act in an environmentally friendly way increase.