Consequentialist climate ethics

The article argues that the moral foundation of climate change relates to avoiding and preventing harm and that this harm originates from impersonal moral violations. Moral cognitive neuroscience indicates that consequentialism better approximates the moral processes and judgments that humans naturally utilise when faced with issues such as climate change that involve impersonal notions of harm. Therefore, a consequentialist approach to climate ethics ultimately proves more morally acceptable and politically feasible than current deontological constructs. In light of this evidence, the article delineates and specifies the fundamental traits of a consequentialist proposal for tackling climate change, both at the individual and collective levels. The collective-level framework, based on the distribution of a carbon budget, is explored in depth, with a view to its theoretical traits and empirical features. Finally, the article defends the consequentialist proposal against the difficulties raised by its divergence from common moral intuitions.