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Climate Change and Complacency

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Michael D. Doan
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Abstract

In this paper I engage interdisciplinary conversation on inaction as the dominant response to climate change, and develop an analysis of the specific phenomenon of complacency through a critical‐feminist lens. I suggest that Chris Cuomo's discussion of the “insufficiency” problem and Susan Sherwin's call for a “public ethics” jointly point toward particularly promising harm‐reduction strategies. I draw upon and extend their work by arguing that extant philosophical accounts of complacency are inadequate to the task of sorting out what it means to be complacent on climate change. I offer a sketch for an alternative account, which I take to be a start in the direction of mapping out a diverse array of “motivational vices” that need to be named, grappled with, and (hopefully) remedied.

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Hypatia , Volume 29 , Issue 3: Special Issue: Climate Change , Summer 2014 , pp. 634 - 650
Copyright
Copyright © 2014 by Hypatia, Inc.

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Footnotes

My sincerest thanks to Susan Sherwin, Greg Scherkoske, Duncan MacIntosh, Chike Jeffers, Ami Harbin, and two anonymous Hypatia reviewers for their invaluable feedback on earlier drafts of this paper. I would also like to thank Chris Dixon, Adam Auch, Meredith Schwartz, Warren Heiti, Jan Sutherland, Victor Kumar, Samantha Copeland, Mark Navin, Kyle Johannsen, and the audiences at the 2013 Canadian Philosophical Association Congress and the 30th International Social Philosophy Conference for engaging me in helpful discussions on these topics. This project was made possible by the generous support of the Izaak Walton Killam Predoctoral Scholarship and the SSHRC Joseph‐Armand Bombardier Canadian Graduate Scholarship.

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