Should We Frame Climate as a Moral Issue?
If so, does that make us all monsters?
Today, you helped make a species extinct. You shortened the lives of people all over the planet, and placed an untenable financial burden on people much poorer than you. You contributed to political instability all over the world, put people in greater danger of dying from natural disasters, and forced others from their homes as refugees.
You’re a moral monster. Me, too. We all are — for reading this article, driving to work, buying groceries, or flipping the light switch in the morning. Or are we?
Philosopher Peter Singer asks his readers to imagine that they are walking past a pond, where they see a child suddenly begin to drown. He continues:
“If you don’t wade in and pull him out, he seems likely to drown. Wading in is easy and safe, but you will ruin the new shoes you bought only a few days ago, and get your suit wet and muddy. By the time you hand the child over to someone responsible for him, and change your clothes, you’ll be late for work. What should you do?”
Of course, each of us would like to believe that we would jump in the pond and save a life, shoes be damned. But then Singer asks a devastating question: is it any different when the child is thousands of miles away? He argues that if we fail…
