Global climate justice: the case of climate migrants
- Authors: Van Heerden, Samantha Jane Ashburner
- Date: 2022-10-14
- Subjects: Climate justice , Environmental refugees , Climatic changes Social aspects , Applied ethics , Political science Philosophy , Refugees , Global justice , Relocation (Housing) Environmental aspects
- Language: English
- Type: Academic theses , Master's theses , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/406749 , vital:70304
- Description: Climate change is predicted to displace thousands of people across the globe. Due to their geographical location and limited resources available for adaptation, this will particularly impact those in developing states, who might have to flee from the growing frequency and severity of rising sea levels, drought and desertification, and acute natural disasters such as floods, wildfires, and hurricanes. This is likely to have pervasive effects on the moral interests of those affected, threatening loss of life, the deterioration of livelihoods, and for small island states even complete or substantial loss of state territory. In this thesis I will argue that we should conceive of this situation as a problem of global justice. Though some argue that questions of justice only arise within the state, I will argue that global economic and political institutions have contributed to the plight of climate migrants, and that following from Darrel Moellendorf’s theory of associational justice, this enduring impact results in an association and duties of justice that transcend state borders. To respect the dignity of climate migrants, such an unjust association needs to be rectified by establishing ethical principles that could be reasonably endorsed by everyone affected. Drawing from Gillian Brock, I will argue that the best way to rectify the situation is through establishing a principle of distributive justice which focuses on ‘agency needs’: needs whose fulfilment is necessary for human agency. Using this framework, I then provide some recommendations of what is owed to climate migrants to achieve justice for them. I also consider how these duties of justice should be distributed, first critiquing a dominant approach that attributes duties primarily to polluters. In the end, I recommend that duties should be dispersed between all those who support the global institutions responsible, those who have been high polluters since 1990, and the most affluent in the world. As the effects of climate change become increasingly pronounced within the next fifty years, establishing what is owed to those displaced is of utmost importance, and I hope this thesis shows how normative philosophy can help us think through these urgent questions. , Thesis (MA) -- Faculty of Humanities, Philosophy, 2022
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- Date Issued: 2022-10-14
The fiction of scarcity: conceptualising scarcity in terms of global justice
- Authors: Brotherton, Michelle
- Date: 2022-04-07
- Subjects: Scarcity Philosophy , Distributive justice , Political science Philosophy , Philosophy , Justification (Ethics) , Fallacies (Logic)
- Language: English
- Type: Academic theses , Doctoral theses , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/294526 , vital:57229 , DOI https://dx.doi.org/10.21504/10962/294526
- Description: This thesis intends to contribute to the discourse on global justice as it pertains to resources, the distribution of resources, and the allocation of resources. The focus is on the concept of scarcity. I examine scarcity for how it is understood, interpreted, and applied in the literature on global justice. This thesis argues that scarcity lacks conceptual clarity in the discourse on global justice and argues that if scarcity is misconstrued, the consequences can be severe. Conceptual clarity is thus necessary to ensure that scarcity is properly referred to in the discourse on global justice so that scarcity is not erroneously used when justifications are sought for material deprivation and consequent human suffering. In the process, I will also examine how scarcity is used as a justification in instances of material deprivation and why this is problematic. Given the lack of conceptual clarity regarding scarcity, I argue that reliance on scarcity as justification may be erroneous. The conflation of absolute scarcity and relative scarcity may amount to a category mistake. This thesis purports to clarify scarcity conceptually in the context of global justice. In doing so, I recommend that a resource-centric approach to resource scarcity is adopted to accurately account for the scarcity status of resources. A resource-centric approach to resource scarcity based on a more nuanced understanding of scarcity avoids the potential category mistake. Such an approach ensures that material deprivation and consequent human suffering are not wrongfully attributed to scarcity. , Thesis (PhD) -- Faculty of Humanities, Philosophy, 2022
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- Date Issued: 2022-04-07