A ClimAte of inACtion Limitations of a Relational Understanding of Morality

climate change. in spite of this knowledge, cuRing the woRld’s addiction to fossil fuels has pRoven to be a heRculean task. inteRnational agReements aRe limited in scope, and national goveRnments have failed to enact laws that would sufficiently Reduce domestic emissions. in addition, most individuals aRe hesitant to make the necessaRy sacRifices that would Reduce peRsonal emissions. while political, economic, and technological factoRs aRe the most appaRent baRRieRs to RefoRm, climate change can also be undeRstood as a moRal failuRe. fRom a psychological standpoint, moRality is an emotional belief that stems fRom inteRpeRsonal Relationships. the unpRecedented scope of climate change has exposed the limits of the Relational undeRstanding of moRality. we have been unable to fRame ouR Relationship with the biospheRe in a manneR that elicits a stRong enough moRal Response to lead to decisive action. this papeR does not attempt to offeR a solution, but hopes instead to Reveal the moRal implications of climate inaction. A ClimAte of inACtion Limitations of a Relational Understanding of Morality

In December 2015, the United Nations Climate Change Conference was hosted in Paris.Delegates from 195 countries reached an agreement that would commit most of the world's nations to reducing greenhouse gas emissions.Regarding the deal, President Barack Obama said, "We've shown that the world has both the will and the ability to take on this challenge."The participation of nearly 200 countries in the Paris Agreement shows that the global community certainly has the "will" to combat climate change, but whether it has the "ability" to do so remains to be seen.Even though the Paris agreement is a step in the right direction, climate scientists acknowledge that it will not limit global greenhouse gas emissions sufficiently to be able to prevent the most disastrous consequences of climate change.However, even this admittedly limited agreement can be considered a diplomatic miracle, since similar talks in Copenhagen in 2009 ended in failure. 1 The rise of the environmental movement has motivated individuals and policy actors, both national and international, to seek solutions to environmental problems.The modern environmental movement came about in the 1960's.Consequently, today's adults are more likely to be aware of the environmental impact of their choices than their parents or grandparents.In the 1970s, the United States Congress responded to these growing concerns by chartering a sprawling regulatory apparatus: the Environmental Protection Agency, or EPA.In the 1980s, the United Nations responded to the issue of ozone depletion by chartering the Montreal Protocol.The countries of the United Nations, plus Vatican City, have all ratified the treaty, which entails limiting the production and emission chemicals that are harmful to the ozone layer. 2 While the Montreal Protocol shows global environmental cooperation is certainly possible, crafting an effective response to climate change has been extremely difficult.When placed in the context of the catastrophic effects of climate change, even the much-lauded Paris Agreement proves inexcusably inadequate.International and domestic efforts to reduce carbon emissions lack impact.This governmental failure should come as no surprise.Government actors are hardly keen on spending their political capital on policy that would demand immediate costs and delayed benefits.
That being said, the blame does not fall on politicians alone.Individuals have failed to make the necessary sacrifices that would reduce personal emissions.It is no secret that human behaviors have caused irreparable damage to the biosphere, yet persistent inaction betrays an atmosphere of feigned ignorance.On the surface, the response-or lack thereof-to climate change reflects either an inherent deficiency in the moral sense, or some widespread moral decline.Morality plays a major role in the way we understand climate change, but environmental apathy is not borne from immorality.In order to properly understand the issue, it is essential to unwrap the role of the moral sense in the decision-making process.In doing so, it becomes evident that it is not a lack of morality that has caused our failure to implement comprehensive global climate change reform.Rather, humanity's inability to reconcile its relational sense of morality with the unprecedented scale of climate change bears the blame.
The philosophical and theological notion of morality is couched in an abstract notion of divine perfection.Consequently, immorality can be understood as deviation from divine perfection.In contrast, anthropologist Alan Fiske explores morality by studying relationships.Fiske found that moral beliefs across cultures could be categorized into four relational models. 3The relational models classify the myriad of social interactions that elicit moral sentiment, and they unpack the evolutionary basis of moral norms.The first model, communal sharing, reflects the open exchange of resources within a group.The second model, authority-ranking, encourages morality through linear hierarchies. 4The third model, equality-matching, views morality in reciprocal terms, and the final model, market-pricing, defines morality through legal systems and economic valuation. 5While the global climate crisis has been thoroughly investigated through scientific and economic framework, this paper will attempt to unwrap the issue using Fiske's relational models.This paper's understanding of Fiske's work is based on cognitive scientist Steven Pinker's understanding of the relational models as described in his book The Better Angels of Our Nature.The models explain certain behaviors which influence decision making, while also revealing certain biases which hinder

"[I]t is humanity's inability to reconcile its relational sense of morality with the unprecedented scale of climate change."
Man Hugging Redwood tRee in national PaRk (Courtesy of wikimedia Commons) the decision-making process.By exploring these associated behaviors and biases, it becomes apparent that morality has the potential to both encourage and encumber effective action in the global climate crisis.
To begin with, communal sharing encourages the free sharing of resources within a given group.The group is seen as eternal; thus, no record is kept of how resources are exchanged, nor are resources given with the expectation of anything in return.The group is seen as pure, and anything that threatens the group is perceived as contaminating its sanctity.In certain communities, this sense of morality is rationalized through creation myths that sanctify land, kin relationships, and spiritual beliefs. 6Relationships based on communal sharing tend to prompt feelings of comfort, unity, and love.Arguments in favor of conservation find their moral bedrock in the communal understanding of morality.In the United States, the act of Congress that created the first federally managed public park provides no justifications for the land's conservation.Instead, it reads that land, which would eventually become Yellowstone National Park, must be "dedicated and set apart" for exclusively "the benefit and enjoyment of the people." 7The National Parks system is based on the idea that certain untouched terrains are part of the nation's patrimony.The right of the American people to enjoy these spaces exceeds any profits from the terrain's hypothetical use and development.Their existence is not contingent upon any extraneous factors because they are understood as common heirlooms.As symbols of a shared national heritage, they are imbued with emotion.The idea of stuffing the Grand Canyon with nuclear waste, hacking California's redwoods for timber, or covering Yosemite Valley in cul-de-sacs feels repulsively immoral.Irresponsible waste management, logging, and urban development ceaselessly besmirch pristine wilderness the world over.Thus, it would be inherently immoral to threaten their purity according to the communal sharing model.
Altruism may have evolved as a result of shared interests.Humans were more likely to survive in groups; therefore it is in an individual's best interest to support the individual members of said group.When feelings of sympathy, empathy, and guilt are especially strong, individuals are motivated to alleviate this suffering.Doctrines of human rights stem from the theoretical expansion of a "circle of empathy" to the entire global community.The communal sharing model can be applied to climate change if we view it through the lens of human rights.Each member of our global community, present and future, is entitled to a certain environmental standard of living.As global citizens we have the ability to empathize with our fellow humans by virtue of our shared humanity.The problem with altruism lies in its limited scope.Our circles of empathy are strongest within prescribed circles of familiarity. 8rein lies the dark side of communal sharing.The same feelings and behaviors that strengthen community bonds also serve to minimize the needs of individuals outside of the community.Patriotism is the result of geopolitical "The crucial caveat of communal sharing is that resources can only be freely shared when the community does not feel threatened." knowledge filtered through feelings of national unity.However, while it encourages a communal sense of responsibility for the entire nation, patriotism could easily devolve into xenophobic jingoism.If we understand the nation as a communal group, anyone outside of the prescribed community is labeled an outsider.The crucial caveat of communal sharing is that resources can only be freely shared when the community does not feel threatened.When resources are abundant, the network can share resources without fear and even expand its circle of care to include outsiders.When resources are threatened, the needs of the community are paramount to the needs of outsiders, which may also explain why norms tend to be more rigid in times of crisis and relaxed in times of stability.If resources are especially scarce, former insiders might find themselves on the margins, or worse, excluded altogether.Before the advent of agriculture, cycles of abundance and scarcity were nearly impossible to predict.Communities with the ability to exclude ensured their members' survival, thus passing this trait on to subsequent generations.In the past, exclusion ensured a community's survival.Today, elements of kin protection create biases that limit cooperation.
If resources are understood as scarce, one group's survival is contingent upon the failure of another.The "mythical fixed-pie" is the result of this understanding of scarcity.If two groups understand that resources are limited, they each view their situation as a zero-sum game.Any benefit for the other group is perceived as an inherent losshence the "fixed pie" metaphor.This negates the existence of mutually beneficial tradeoffs. 9The "fixed-pie" fallacy is especially cumbersome in environmental conflict resolution, because every hypothetical solution involves some sort of a mutually beneficial tradeoff.International climate change negotiations are a minefield of mythical fixed-pies.
No nation would eagerly decrease its standard of living in order to increase the standard of another.This understanding fails to grasp the global scope of the issue.Our community-based thinking limits our ability to grasp the full implications of the universal problem.The potential harm of continued inaction is far worse than any sacrifice.
It is beyond any scientific doubt that greenhouse gas emissions cause global warming, yet neither international institutions nor national governing bodies have created policy that sufficiently cuts emissions.Any responses, on an individual level, have been far too limited to constitute a trend towards reduction.There are many reasons for an individual or governing body to oppose emission reduction, but the communal sharing model of morality helps explain why those who theoretically support emissions reductions are hesitant when it comes to action.The issue with climate change is that the scale is so large that it is easy to view those who will suffer as "other."For the vast majority of the world's emitters, the impact of climate change is either geographically or temporally distant.It is difficult for people to sacrifice the immediate needs of the group for the needs of outsiders because those needs are perceived as less important that the needs of the immediate community.
Empathy, sympathy, guilt, and trust are the emotional pillars of communal sharing relationships.The communal sharing model helps explain the moral dimensions of the emotions associated with intimacy; therefore, this model's scope is largely limited to individuals and their immediate communities.The communal sharing understanding of morality is often the first to emerge in a given society.Once a community exceeds the boundaries governable by communal sharing, the authority-ranking model of morality emerges to govern our relationships with individuals outside of our circle of empathy.The second of Fiske's models, authority-ranking, is less intimate in its scope.Relationships based on authority-ranking understand morality as respect for a linear hierarchy.It is considered immoral to violate authority paradigms, whether they are based on age, gender, physical appearance, wealth or any other signifier of importance. 10The moral weight of hierarchy might stem from a primordial need for protection.Group dynamics played a fundamental role in human evolution.As previously mentioned, the survival of the individual is contingent upon the survival of the group.

global action day in coPenHagen (Courtesy of wikimedia Commons)
It may have been in an individual's best interest to respect a hierarchy of physical dominance to ensure the group's survival, and as such the survival of the individual.An unwise challenge to the hierarchy could mean expulsion.Authority-ranking became especially important, as societies grew to a scale no longer governable by communal sharing.Monarchies, theocracies, and dictatorships maintained political control through a hierarchical understanding of morality-it is immoral for an individual to question one's superiors.Though the importance of authority-ranking has waned, these relationships emerge in the feeling of respect.An individual may know that theft is wrong, but when the victim is elderly, the crime feels especially heinous.We are taught to respect the elderly, and any violation of that respect feels inherently immoral.
Aspects of climate change inaction find their roots in similar behavioral fossils.While corporate and political interests are massive hurdles, respect for the authority of these forces is not the cause of inaction.The scale and scope of the climate crisis is such that it requires political action.It is impossible for individuals, families, and communities to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions without the government playing a role.Individuals will only use public transportation if there is a practical and efficient option in their area, and even then, it is still the government's responsibility to regulate the fleet's emissions.It would be naive to think that businesses small and large would risk their economic viability to reduce their emissions unprompted.The government has an essential role to play; yet, for the most part, it has been absent.Some politicians and government officials explicitly deny the overwhelming evidence linking it to man-made greenhouse gas emissions.Others believe the science, but continue to give other issues precedence.According to philosopher Hans Jonas, the government cannot meet the needs of this "new imperative" because the scope of politics is limited to the present. 11In contrast, the scientific community understands the urgency of this issue and vehemently encourages reform, but finds itself powerless without the support of the government.Understanding and discovery are the primary objectives of scientific research; it is not the place of scientists to make their findings palatable to the general public.Scientific findings must be mediated through social disciplines in order to fully understand their implications for society at large.Scientific concepts are difficult for the general public to understand, meaning that it is also difficult to glean emotion from data sets. 12The issue is a lack of authority, and a failure on the part of interested parties-namely, scientists-to fill the gap.This authority vacuum may be the result of a vestigial sense of respect for political authority.Politicians have the power to act; therefore, it is their responsibility to do so.Because politicians are the authority regarding law and social cohesion, they yield greater social authority; consequently, their apparent inaction on climate change reverberates across society.
The third of Fiske's models, equality-matching, is based primarily on the rationalization of feelings associated with fairness.Equality-matching relationships express morality through reciprocity.It may have evolved as a form of strengthening group commitment through reciprocity.The Code of Hamurabi-one of the earliest documented codes of law-was based entirely on a reciprocal understanding of moral behavior.In our own interpersonal relationships, equality-matching is often expressed through language of fairness: the fairest way to decide between two individuals is to flip a coin, or allow everyone to take turn, but it is unfair, and thus immoral, to allow all but one person to take a turn.Equality-matching also establishes the core of various religious moral dogmas in the form of "the golden rule"; one should treat others as one would like to be treated. 13While communal sharing helps explain empathy within prescribed groups, equality-matching helps explain why people feel empathy or sympathy towards others outside of their immediate communities.
Questions of resource management and environmental justice are primarily framed through the reciprocal understanding of morality.It is perceived as unfair for the cost of a product to exclude its environmental impact.Equalitymatching in environmentalism is especially apparent in the realm of sustainability.It is unfair, thus immoral, to sacrifice the environmental stability of the future for the comfort of the present.Conservatives, while not necessarily against sustainability, tend to oppose regulation.Political psychologists propose that conservatives might register environmental degradation as inherently unfair to future generations, but place equal importance upon moral beliefs such as sanctity and respect for authority. 14Conservatives might perceive regulation as a threat to the freedoms espoused by traditional liberalism, the purity of which is more important than protecting the environment from harm.Increased regulation might also prevent the nation from achieving its full economic potential, which would reduce the nation's wealth, and potentially threaten American exceptionalism.In an op-ed in The New York Times, Professor Robb Willer proposes that conservatives could be persuaded to prioritize environmental issues if the issues were framed in terms of communal sharing or au-thority-ranking. 15While this rhetorical reframing could add legions of environmentalists, as previously shown, communal sharing and authority-ranking are also rife with biases that limit reform.
Equality-matching demonstrates the manner in which suspicions of unfair behavior may hinder cooperation between potential allies.A study of fairness in capuchin monkeys reveals the extent to which perceptions of unfairness could sabotage negotiations.In the experiment, two groups of monkeys were given tokens to purchase food.Some monkeys would insert a token and receive sweet and delicious grapes, while others would receive presumably less desirable cucumbers.Once the 'cucumber' group became aware that they were getting a worse deal than the 'grape' group, the monkeys refused to cash their tokens and flung them at the researchers out of spite. 16The rational choice would have been to begrudgingly enjoy the cucumbers, because being fed beats hunger.Instead, the monkeys chose to go hungry, rather than acquiesce to this unfair deal.Sometimes it feels better to suffer than to endure the indignity of injustice.The capuchin experiment serves as a microcosm for some of the conflicts that plague earth systems governance.Global cooperation is a Herculean task because nations are paralyzed by the fear of agreeing to an unfair deal.Any sort of climate change reform involves sacrifice, but no one nation wants to feel that it is sacrificing more than another.Like the capuchins, a state would rather sabotage negotiations by refusing to cooperate than agree to an unfair deal.The baggage of colonialism reflects the difficulty of earth systems governance.The former imperial nations have greatly benefited from the development spurred by environmentally inefficient industrialization.If emission regulations were applied uniformly, the former colonial nations would bear an unjust burden.Regulations would mean that the less "developed" nations of "the global South" would have to sacrifice their own development to cover the environmental costs of the "global North's" rapacious development.Any sort of deal would need to take this climate of economic inequality into consideration. 17Earth systems governance cannot be perceived as a new form of Imperialism.The challenge lies in crafting regulations that suit each nation's particular need and stage of economic development.Even so, this would not solve the problem for fairness because the appropriation of resources is rife with distributional conflicts.No one wants to receive the short end of the stick in an unfair deal.
The final model of morality responds to these discrepancies in valuation.Fiske's fourth model of morality, marketpricing, is contingent upon civil society.This model depends on applied knowledge of literacy and numeracy. 18arket-pricing involves the uniform application of values.This is most apparent in the development of systems of currency.Both a ten-dollar bill and hundred-dollar bill cost the same amount of money to produce, but the hundreddollar is imbued with greater value by the US Treasury.It would be immoral, and extremely confusing, for someone to adjust the value of a certain bill based on circumstances.Cognitive scientist Steven Pinker believes that marketpricing is tied to German sociologist Max Weber's rationallegal mode of social legitimation, which describes a system of norms based on reason and implemented by laws.Like Fiske's market-pricing, Weber's rational-legal mode places value upon social interactions.Both market-pricing and rational-legal refer to the same type of morality, because they both use reason to designate value.These models are especially pertinent in the rule of law.Communal sharing relationships are not concerned with law, because resources are freely shared without the expectation of anything in return.Law dictated by authority-ranking would designate an illegal act as one that subverts the hierarchy.Codes of law based on equality-matching would define justice as "an eye for an eye."Rational-legal systems place values upon certain behaviors, and execute justice accordingly.Punishment based on equality-matching would parallel the crime, while punishment based on market-pricing is based on the legal system's valuation of the crime.
The basis for the market-pricing understanding of morality manifests itself in the rational organization of civil society; market-pricing is morality couched in reason.Laws and obligations characterize the market-pricing model.Such values are socially constructed; they must be learned and taught.Market-pricing provides the basis for any rational organization, corporation, or system of law.Population "Global cooperation is a Herculean task because nations are paralyzed by the fear of agreeing to an unfair deal."control would also fall into this category, because it involves the valuation of individual lives in relation to the earth's ability to sustain those lives.Furthermore, the mere concept of earth systems governance is contingent upon this understanding or morality.Rational proposals for emission regulation, whether cap-and-trade, taxation, carbon offset or pricing reform, involve some sort of valuation-or revaluation-of carbon emissions.The philosophical underpinnings of earth systems governance are based on utilitarian morality.Utilitarian morality falls under the framework of market-pricing because the value of morality is determined by the ability to do the greatest good for the greatest number. 19Successful earth systems governance is measured through this utilitarian metric.The problem becomes defining "the good" and determining the particular definition of "the most good."The participation of 195 countries in the Paris agreement reflects the consensus that reducing greenhouse gas emissions would do the most good for the most people-present and future.It is no longer a question of whether governments, institutions, and individuals should respond to the global climate crisis, but a question of how these players will respond.The definition of a "good" response would require rational analysis, but even the most diligent of analysts are not immune to bias.
The trolley dilemma shows how certain evolutionary predispositions impact the application of utilitarian morality. 20A runaway trolley, full of passengers, can only be stopped by pulling a lever.This lever would activate another trolley on a perpendicular track, halting the first trolley.A single passenger sits in the second trolley.By pulling the lever, the passenger in the second would die upon impact; consequently, the group of passengers on the first trolley would survive.Most people involved in the scenario would survive, ensuring the greatest good for the greatest number.When faced with this dilemma, most people would choose to pull the lever-making the rational choice.In the second part of the dilemma, there is no longer a lever or a second trolley.Instead, there is an especially large person standing next to the track.Pushing this person into the tracks would stop the packed runaway trolley-making it the rational choice.Yet most participants faced with second scenario would be unable to make this choice.Cognitively, participants knew that the best outcome would stem from pushing the large person in front of the trolley, but they could not bring themselves to hypothetically kill an innocent person.The thought of hypothetically pushing someone in front of a trolley is felt with far greater emotional immediacy than merely pulling a lever. 21Pulling the lever feels like the more rational choice, but pushing someone into a trolley's path feels like an immoral choice.
The trolley dilemma shows that while the theoretical idea of utilitarian morality is based on reason, the particulars of implementation are complicated by unavoidable emotion.The same applies to rational solutions for the global climate crisis.Rational solutions work well in the abstract, but the implementation of rational solutions requires individual choices.The trolley dilemma shows that individuals are more likely to understand morality in terms of their personal choices, as opposed to the net outcomes of those choices.While conventional wisdom argues that emotional decision-making is inherently irrational, rational choices are inextricably linked to emotion. 22Probabilistic considerations are filtered through the mind, which charges raw external information with emotional meaning.Processes that appear rational and calculated are actually based upon unsettlingly unquantifiable factors.Marketpriced systems of valuation only "make sense" because our emotions define them as such.Perhaps market-pricing is not necessarily more rational, but merely rationalized in a more sophisticated way.
Fiske's frameworks constitute environmentalism's moral bedrock, but they do so without the emotional immediacy of interpersonal relationships.Communal sharing explains our love of natural spaces, but it is hard to imagine anyone dying for a national park.Authority-ranking might geRMan coMic dePicting a Politician denying cliaMte caHnge, saying, "cliMate cHange? it doesn't exist" (Courtesy of wikimedia Commons) spur some to take responsibility for the environment, but preexisting hierarchies dissuade many more from taking action.Equality-matching explains doctrines of environmental justice, but individuals are unlikely to be motivated unless they are personally victimized by said injustice.Doctrines of environmental regulation are contingent upon market-pricing, but they fail to address the emotional complexities that define rational choices.The relational models evolved over time to allow for the creation of moral relationships outside of an individual's immediate circle; yet, the trolley dilemma shows that the emotionally immediate trumps the abstract.Decisions are contingent upon emotion, and that which is immediately present dictates an individual's emotional purview.
The failure to limit climate change elucidates the limitations of a relational understanding of morality.While its impact will be felt across the political, economic, and social landscapes, climate change is also a moral issue.Fiske's models shows that morality is determined through emotions elicited by interpersonal relationships, and the intensity of our moral feelings are determined by the immediacy of the relationship.Climate change is an issue that violates a relational understanding of morality.Our limited moral scope has not caught up to the reach of our actions. 23n the past, judgment was a matter of immediate causality.It is difficult to judge the behaviors associated with climate change as immoral because the impact of our actions are not felt with the same emotional immediacy as the relationships outlined in Fiske's models.The issue is that these models depict moral norms; environmentally detrimental behaviors do not necessarily violate moral norms.There is no perception of immorality.
The solution to climate inaction rests in overcoming the relational understanding of morality that characterizes human relationships.Relational morality no longer applies to the new anthropocentric paradigm.Without a broader understanding of morality on the part of the individual, attempts at reform at the institutional level are doomed to fail.Rethinking morality is a herculean task, but not entirely unprecedented.Every successive relational model arose as a matter of need.Communal sharing is a product of humanity's inherent sociability, while subsequent models are the product of its adaptability.Authority-ranking and equality-matching emerged in response to the growing needs of developing societies.In Europe, market-pricing began its current dominance during the age of reason.When societies enter periods of relative stability and survival is all but assured, definitions of "the good life" be-come more complicated.Human definitions of morality, or valuation of one relational model over the other, are constantly in flux.Morality can be adapted and adopted to ones given circumstance, and thankfully, humans can be quite adaptable.