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PH338 Summative Essay:

How should states that are committed to preventing dangerous climate change
respond when other states fail to discharge their responsibilities to reduce
their emissions?

Preventing climate change is a demanding exercise, not least because of the difficulties that arise in
securing meaningful commitments on emissions cuts from the responsible agents – both private and
public. My essay examines the increasingly salient question in non-ideal justice theory of how states that
have made and stuck to such commitments are to respond to those who have reneged on theirs. In my
argument for a duty of justice to “take up the slack”, I endorse, and then employ, an approach which
weighs the contending values of upholding inter-state fairness, and preventing the serious harm caused by
climate change. I conclude that the latter deserves priority over the former. I then address David Miller’s
objection that slack-taking involves infantilising the reneging agents. Though I reject his conclusion, I
compromise on the premise by suggesting that some form of public condemnation of the non-compliant
states is nevertheless in order.

To narrow the scope of discussion for proper consideration of the central issues, I make a series of
starting assumptions. First, I assume a set of circumstances whereby the “international community” of
nation states has committed to collectively cutting total emissions by the amount necessary for mitigation
of climate change, in recognition of a shared duty of justice towards those whose basic liberties and
livelihoods are threatened by the likely effects. Within this community, a “fair” distribution of these
emissions reductions has been established and ratified (the actual principles of justice which informed this
distribution are not important to the purpose of this essay). Second, I assume that the unfulfilled
emissions cuts generated by one or several shirkers is not so great as to constitute an intolerable additional
burden on the sub-group of compliers. This stylisation restricts the grounds on which a complier can
refuse to pick up the slack: he might cite intra-group fairness and relative means, but not absolute means
or “over-demandingness” (Murphy, 2003). Third, I impose the condition that only the total amount of
emissions cuts originally agreed will suffice to mitigate climate change; any lower level will not be
adequate to prevent grievous harm befalling those whose purpose it was to “save” in the first place.
Finally, I assume that there is zero probability of the slack-generators’ non-compliance being overturned
– their act of injustice is irreversible.

By not proceeding with their fair share of emissions cuts, the non-compliers have acted unjustly, both
towards the claimers of the original collective duty (that is, the group deemed at serious risk of the impact
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of unmitigated climate change) and towards those fellow duty-bearers in the international community
compliant with their fair share of emissions cuts. They have been unjust to the duty-claimer by
perpetuating the circumstances which the emissions agreement was on course to remedy: the sum total of
duty-holders’ emissions cuts has been rendered insufficient to mitigate climate change, and thus to
prevent harm befalling the duty-claimer. Meanwhile, they have acted unfairly towards fellow duty-bearers
by gaining a relative competitive advantage. The lifting of emissions limits could lead to better economic
outcomes for the defaulting nations, when compared to compliant nations which sacrifice some growth
potential so as to meet their duty. They have also put compliers in the difficult position of deciding
whether to take up the slack, when doing so would compound the relative competitiveness disparity.

Much of the disagreement in the literature as to whether compliant nations have a duty of justice to take
up the slack hinges on differing perceptions about how the above injustices relate to each other. Karnein
(2014) is prominent among those who see the issue of intra-duty bearer fairness as having no bearing on
the collective duty towards the third party at risk from climate change. She rejects any suggestion that
compliers find themselves in a conflictual situation of being responsible for upholding both intra-group
fairness and the duty to the third party. Her argument holds that compliers and non-compliers alike have a
responsibility, derivative from the duty of the collective of which they are part, for upholding their duty
towards the third party. But the unfairness generated between compliers and non-compliers is the sole
responsibility of the latter. With the matter of redressing unfairness supposedly out of the compliers
hands, there appears to be no barrier, beyond material ability, to the compliers taking up a greater-than-
fair share of the collective duty, to ensure its effective execution.

Karnein’s assumption that non-compliers are uniquely placed to redress the intra-group unfairness
generated by their actions appears unfounded – as too does her dismissal, on that basis, of any conflict on
the compliers’ part between upholding intra-group fairness and discharging the collective duty. Compliers
could in fact take matters into their own hands, correcting the unfairness by themselves reneging on their
fair share of emissions cuts. As cynical as such action might seem, it would clearly involve settling intra-
group fairness to the detriment of the duty towards the third party.

But asserting the existence of a conflict need not lead to the conclusion that there is no duty to take up the
slack. It merely entails that determining the just course of action must involve assessing the competing
merits of the two values in opposition. Stemplowska offers useful guidance in this endeavour, employing
what Karnein terms a “weighing” approach in her defence of the duty to take up the slack. She first claims
that there is no obvious reason to consider the maximisation of intra-group fairness among duty-holders
as lexically prior to the elimination of the “dire need” of the duty-claimers. She goes on to rule that the
reverse is in fact the case: “if someone’s need is great enough to trigger an enforceable duty to aid, then
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accepting that the duty can be shaken off, even though the cost of bearing it remains reasonable, appears
not to take seriously the gravity of the need faced by the victims” (Stemplowska, 2016, p. 599). This
seems a reasonable claim. The “dire need” of those at severe risk from climate change is what motivates a
duty to remedy it under conditions of full compliance. Under partial compliance, the threat they face is
undiminished, and would seem serious enough to render the duty to remedy their situation impervious to
concerns for intra-group fairness. I therefore endorse the ‘Climate Priority Argument’, as coined by
Caney (2016, pp. 27-28)

One might object to a duty to pick up the slack by citing implications for the duty-bearing collective that
are not directly related to unfairness. David Miller raises one such concern in support of his argument for
an (at most) unenforceable humanitarian duty to take up the slack rather than an enforceable duty of
justice. In his view, to retrospectively take up the slack, or to assert one’s duty to do so in advance, would
see the slack-takers fail to treat the shirkers as “responsible moral agents” (Miller, 2013, p. 221). Even if
one grants this assertion without qualification, it is doubtful whether it constitutes any more powerful a
reason to override the original duty of justice to remedy the dire need than does upholding intra-group
fairness. But the claim itself is problematic. Miller does not expound his point, other than to suggest that
the slack-takers are infantilising the non-compliers, by acting in much the same way as a mother who
wouldn’t hold her young children responsible for not cleaning the dishes, and her having to do so instead.
There is no danger, I contend, of the shirkers being treated like children. The consequences of their unjust
non-compliance – as would unfold without slack-taking – do not need to be realised in order for the
immorality of their act to be laid bare. The compliers can quite plausibly step in to ensure that the
emissions cuts target is met and yet, as David Owen puts it, “have a justified complaint against those who
are allowed to do less” (Owen, 2016, p. 154). For the avoidance of any ambiguity, it seems fair that such
a complaint should be given formal expression. I therefore propose that in addition to having a duty to
take up the slack, the compliers should also issue a joint public denunciation of the actions of the non-
compliers. The exact nature of the condemnation is beyond the scope of this essay. However, its purpose
should not be compensatory or remedial, as this would effectively violate my assumption that the act of
non-compliance is irreversible. The symbolism alone is enough to ensure their treatment as morally
responsible agents.

I have argued in this essay that although upholding intra-group fairness and ensuring that the original duty
towards those at threat from climate change are two values at odds, the dire need of those at risk is such
that that compliers do have a duty of justice to pick up the slack in emissions cuts. Picking up the slack
addresses the priority issue, but does not preclude the lesser matter of holding those responsible for
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generating the slack to account. My proposal for a joint statement of condemnation of the non-compliers
to is intended to address that concern.

Bibliography
Caney, S., 2016. Climate Change and Non-Ideal Theory: Six Ways of Responding to Non-Compliance.
In: C. Heyward & D. Roser, eds. Climate Justice in a Non-Ideal World. Oxford: Oxford University Press,
pp. 22-42.
Karnein, A., 2014. Putting Fairness in Its Place: Why There Is a Duty to Take Up the Slack. Journal of
Philosophy, 111(111), pp. 593-607.
Miller, D., 2013. Taking up the slack? Responsibility and justice in situations of partial compliance. In:
D. Miller, ed. Justice for Earthlings: Essays in Political Philosophy. London: Cambridge University
Press, pp. 206-227.
Murphy, L., 2003. Moral Demands in Nonideal Theory. 1st ed. New York City: Oxford University Press.
Owen, D., 2016. Refugees, Fairness and Taking up the Slack: On Justice and the International Refugee
Regime. Moral Philosophy and Politics, 2(3), pp. 141-164.
Stemplowska, Z., 2016. Doing more than one’s fair share. Critical Review of International Social and
Political Philosophy, 19(5), pp. 591-608.