MODULE 5: Personal Choices (2)

 AGENDA

1. Puzzles of personal responsibility
2. Solutions

---

Which green behaviors generate these two puzzles of individual responsibility?  

•  The action has to have all three features--minimal impact, personal cost, collective benefit
•  Then we can consider what stage we're at.

1. Using alternative lightbulbs--all 3 features?
• 1995--rare to use alternative lightbulbs (compact fluorescent, LED)
• 2020--collective--most people using
• 2023--required--incandescent bulbs banned in August 2023
2. Driving a hybrid/electric car--all 3 features?
• are we at the rare or collective stage?
3. Riding a bike to SMU instead of driving--all 3 features?
• are we at the rare or collective stage?
4. Recycling
• 3 features? (maybe not)

• minimal impact (may successful recycle item)
• personal cost (minimal)
• collective benefit (yes

• are we now at the rare or collective stage?  (recycling at SMU)

---

The two puzzles--

1. First puzzle--hardly anyone is doing it, why should I?
2. Second puzzle--lots of people are doing it, why should I?

A non-solution

1. Garrett Hardin--individuals will not make green choices without coercion--must go directly to the required stage

Three solutions

1. Baylor Johnson (discussed by both Jamieson and Hourdequin)
2. Marion Hourdequin
3. Dale Jamieson (last time)

---

Baylor Johnson, "Ethical Obligations in a Tragedy of the Commons"

Puzzle 1--about the rare stage

1. At the rare stage, there's no obligation change behavior--not rational to make an effort with negligible impact but high personal cost
2. At the rare stage, there IS an obligation to try to bring about the collective stage

Puzzle 2--about the collective stage

1. At the collective stage you should change your behavior--otherwise you'd be a "free rider"--you'd be taking advantage of other people

---

Marion Hourdequin--philosopher specializing in both environmental ethics and classical Chinese philosophy

• Confucius -- 551-479 BC (before Socrates-Plato-Aristotle)
• the relational self--not I, but we--family, community, country, world

Hourdequin p. 454

     

• moral models

Hourdequin p. 454

• how do these ideas help with the two puzzles?

• At the rare stage--become a moral model, look to moral models
• car-buyers highly influenced by such factors, not just "cost-benefit analysis"

• At the collective stage--don't think of yourself as an individual, but as a component of a "we"

---

Hourdequin vs. Jamieson--how are they different?