Overview

""Open this book and James Garvey is right there making real sense to you... in a necessary conversation, capturing you to the very end.""-Ted Honderich, Grote Professor Emeritus of The Philosophy of Mind & Logic, University College London, UK. James Garvey argues that the ultimate rationale for action on climate change cannot be simply economic, political, scientific or social, though our decisions should be informed by such things. Instead, climate change is largely a moral problem. What we should do about it depends on what matters to us and what we think is right. This book is an introduction to the ethics of climate change. It considers a little climate science and a lot of moral philosophy, ultimately finding a way into the many possible positions associated with climate change. It is also a call for action, for doing something about the moral demands placed on both governments and individuals by the fact of climate change. This is a book about choices, responsibility, and where the moral weight falls on our warming world.

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9780826497383

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Reviews

[With this book] you don't get the feeling of being hectored by a preachy green, but rather of being addressed like the intelligent adult that you are...Witty without being frivolous, explanatory but never condescending, engaging and challenging in equal measure, this book should become a campus classic. - Jonathan Webber, The Philosophers' Magazine

In this outstanding book, Garvey (Royal Institute of Philosophy, UK) takes a position on global warming that is fair-minded and supported by compelling reasons. In the first chapter he argues that global warming is occurring, that human activities have contributed significantly to this process, that it will have detrimental effects on people, and that the evidence for all this is largely beyond question within the scientific community. The remainder of the book makes a case for the claim that both individuals and nations, particularly economically privileged ones, have a moral obligation to ameliorate this situation. Garvey offers an excellent discussion of general moral issues such as responsibility, justice, and choice and their relation to global warming. He also presents a forceful rebuttal of the views that ethics is irrelevant and merely subjective. The concluding chapters propose concrete practices and policies that are morally required in response to global warming. Garvey's arguments are clear and unencumbered with jargon...this book will be extremely helpful to anyone who wants a lively introduction to this topic. Summing Up: Highly Recommended. Lower-level undergraduates through faculty/researchers; general readers. -M.A. Michael, CHOICE, November 2008

It's an excellent book to think with: Garvey has a delicious style, often very funny, and a trick of ushering the reader right inside his thought experiments. - Stephen Poole, The Guardian

Author Information

James Garvey is Secretary of the Royal Institute of Philosophy, UK. He is the author of The Twenty Greatest Philosophy Books and The Ethics of Climate Change, also published by Continuum.

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