With the release of Al Gore's movie, global warming awareness has gone mainstream and the consensus among environmentalists is that now is the time for drastic action to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions. On Gristmill, we are witnessing calls to turn combating global warming into a "moral crusade" in order to enlist religious-minded folks and to elevate the issue to a debate about right and wrong conduct. Unfortunately, I think many environmentalists are repeating the mistakes of past environmental campaigns.
Here's how I see it:
- The environmental movement has been characterized by "doom and gloom" campaigns ever since its inception. In fact, the one constant within the environmental movement is that stoking fear (whether warranted or not) has been one of the most effective drivers of environmental policy and membership. (During the 1990s, when the economy was booming, donations to environmental organizations actually decreased, because Bill Clinton, a Democrat supposedly friendly to the environmental movement, was in the White House; as soon as Bush got in office, donations increased due to the fear of Bush's rule.) Unfortunately, this strategy (again, whether truthful or not) can only go on for so long. The public will only respond to the "sky is falling" so many times before it becomes desensitized to this rhetoric; I am afraid that time has come and we need an entirely new strategy.
- The fact is that most people think global warming sounds like a good thing on some conscious or unconscious level. (Who in San Francisco wouldn't like the average temperature to increase a few extra degrees?) Calls for biodiversity preservation are unlikely to provoke large numbers of people because it is too abstract. Unfortunately, probably the thing people will respond to the most is the increased threats of hurricanes, droughts, and other natural disasters, which brings us back to the problem laid out in point #1.
- Now to the even more controversial points. With a very high degree of certainty, we have evidence that the planet is warming and that human activity plays a part. But, we are still very uncertain as to how much the planet is going to warm and how much changing our activities will decrease the prospects of global warming. This is what makes policy prescriptions much more difficult and ambiguous than many environmentalists care to admit; there are a range of answers and scenarios with vastly different costs and benefits. This brings me to the most contentious point of all: it is not 100% clear that doing what we need to do to reduce global warming makes sense. People who make absolute moral claims that global warming is "bad" and "must be stopped" are missing some fundamental truths. For example, what if it turns out that global warming was going to cause the displacement of 50 million people and the loss of 3% of the world's biodiversity, but cost $10 trillion to avoid, would it be wrong not to act? I'm not so sure. In fact, it might cost a lot less than $10 trillion to relocate those people to safer places and preserve the equivalent amount of biodiversity. The point is that global warming, like all environmental problems, should (at some level) be subjected to a cost-benefit analysis. Of course, there are many equity and distributional issues that also need to be addressed, but the point is that declaring global warming a "wrong" doesn't make any more sense than saying that air pollution is "wrong"; some amount of it be may warranted in exchange for other goods (few people I know of argue for 0% air pollution).
- This brings me to the issue of appropriate strategies. I think we are focusing too much on prevention strategies relative to mitigation strategies. Some amount of global warming is already happening and will continue to happen (perhaps a lot). While the myriad efforts at new fuel technologies, carbon sequestration, and efficiency are worthwhile and should have increased government support, we should invest much more in relocation strategies for those in low-lying areas, including engineering technologies to make communities safer from floods and storms, large biodiversity corridors so that animals and plants can migrate as the climate changes, and better strategies to promote economic development (see here). The fact is that rich countries have the wealth already to mitigate most of the adverse effects of global warming, while poor countries do not; helping them get richer will improve their chances of dealing with all sorts of environmental challenges, not just climate change.
I think it is imperative that members of the environmental movement think very carefully about how to plot the strategy forward for climate change policy; that is, if they really believe the stakes are so high.
Comments
View as Flat
kmp Posted 7:18 am
27 Jul 2006
You said:
This brings me to the most contentious point of all: it is not 100% clear that doing what we need to do to reduce global warming makes sense. People who make absolute moral claims that global warming is "bad" and "must be stopped" are missing some fundamental truths. For example, what if it turns out that global warming was going to cause the displacement of 50 million people and the loss of 3% of the world's biodiversity, but cost $10 trillion to avoid, would it be wrong not to act? I'm not so sure.
You seem to assume that global warming is a fixed phenomenon; either the Earth will warm 3.5 degrees, or it won't, and if it does, it will warm 3.5 degrees and then stop. Clearly if increases in CO2 are causing increases in global temperature, and we do nothing to stop increasing amounts of CO2 from being pumped into the atmosphere, warming will continue (and continue, and continue).
So the 50 million displaced and 3% diversity loss becomes 100 million and 6%, and 200 million and 12% and so on and so on.
I think what I have come to learn here on Gristmill is that it doesn't matter if it costs $100 trillion or more... our way of life is simply unsustainable and must change. We hold the future existence of the planet and all it's biodiversity, human and otherwise, in our hands. I don't believe you can put a price on that.
Kaela
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Jason D Scorse Posted 7:29 am
27 Jul 2006
I think what I have come to learn here on Gristmill is that it doesn't matter if it costs $100 trillion or more... our way of life is simply unsustainable and must change.
gets at exactly what I am trying to illustrate- you claim that NO MATTER what the costs- even $100 trillion- which by the way is more than the entire world economy- that we are living unsustainably and must change.
I challenge all of those points:
No, we are not living unsustainably- in fact, I don't even know what sustainable means- I'm not being facetious, but would you like to say what you mean by sustainable?
We must change is about as vague as we can get- like I said I think we need to think this through much more precisely than what I have seen on the environmental left to this point
The science on the levels of and effects of global warming is HIGHLY uncertain- let me repeat- highly uncertain- the range of scenarios is enormous- so making absolute claims about what we must and must not do doesn't make sense to me in light of this- I think my point #4 is the better approach
Thanks again for your comments and please respond if you feel inclined
J.S.
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chermak Posted 7:51 am
27 Jul 2006
Most will agree that burning babies is wrong. This is a clear-cut issue where direct harm is inflicted upon a sentient being. But global warming is not so clear-cut. It is difficult to say that driving an SUV is wrong in the same way that buring babies is.
However, we know that global warming is happening and we know that it will likely have disastrous consequences for humanity (not to mention other species!). It is clearly a moral issue that must be addressesd.
But given the scope of the problem, I don't think it helps to classify individual actions as right or wrong. But it does make sense to say that policies which reward companies for drilling are wrong. Refusing to take part in Kyoto is wrong. These political issues must be framed as moral issues and are more important, I submit, than consumer choices. While consumer choices could have big effect if everyone started biking, a bigger effect could be had by people demanding government action.
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Bart Anderson Posted 7:53 am
27 Jul 2006
His climate-warming proposals would have winners and losers.
Short-term winners: Industries based on fossil fuels: coal, oil, heavy manufacturing.Economies based on profligate energy use. The affluent fraction of the world's population who are now alive
Losers: The poor in sensitive regions, such as Africa and low-lying coastal areas. The rest of us, as the effects of global warming kick in. Our descendants
Jason's "reasonable" solution is - "Let us winners keep on winning. It's true that we're probably destroying climate - but we will make it up to the losers. Of course, we will. Don't you trust us?"
Listen to the beautiful promises: ...relocation strategies for those in low-lying areas, including engineering technologies to make communities safer from floods and storms, large biodiversity corridors so that animals and plants can migrate as the climate changes, and better strategies to promote economic development.... A rosy view of the generosity of rich countries... which is not substantiated by history.
It's the traditional theme: privatize the profits, externalize the costs, and promise them anything.
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chermak Posted 7:56 am
27 Jul 2006
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chermak Posted 7:59 am
27 Jul 2006
Even though the outcomes are uncertain, it is reasonable to believe that future generations will be negatively affected. As long as we believe this and we value future generations, then it is clear that policies which facilitate global warming are wrong.
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Jason D Scorse Posted 8:09 am
27 Jul 2006
For my money- I would much rather see money go into developing vaccines for the worst diseases that afflict the poor- or mediation efforts in the Middle East- or women's empowerment- or human rigths promotion- than on poorly thought out carbon taxes that might severely hurt the world economy and our ability to do the above
J.S.
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JMG Posted 8:10 am
27 Jul 2006
Gosh, what I think is unfortunate is not that environmentalists won't learn, it's that people from the "enviro-economics" movement (aka, the war-for-peace and sex-for-virginity crowd) keep trying to sell that same old free market religion that's done so much for us so far.
http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2005/11/7/92651/9597
http://www.env-econ.net/2005/11/why_environment.html
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Bart Anderson Posted 8:10 am
27 Jul 2006
Slaveholders quoted the Bible and developed sophisticated economic and scientific arguments.
Jason's free-market ancestors pointed out the absurdity of making moral judgments about child labor and the conditions of working people.
An early 18th century proposal showed how to eliminate poverty and over-population, if only we could overcome our ridiculous moral scruples.
How wonderfully the human intellect rationalizes behavior it knows to be wrong.
Chermak points out that we are struggling with understanding global warming as a moral issue. But that's always the case as humanity advances in understanding.
Religious thinkers, both liberal and conservative, seem to be ahead of the secular environmentalists on this. Take the tongue-in-cheek, but deeply serious column from the Times (UK):
We're all heading for the fiery furnace if we go on taking these cheap flights JET TRAVEL is a sin, says the Bishop of London, and of course he is right. How can it not be a mortal sin to contribute actively to the end of the world?
When one 747 from London to New York spews out more CO2 emissions than a motorist does in the course of an entire year, when the 16,000 flights taking off each year generate 600 million tonnes of greenhouse gases, destroying the planet's upper atmosphere, when global warming is melting the ice-cap and threatening the poorest nations of the world with starvation or drowning, when mankind, in the memorable words of the climate guru James Lovelock, is " perceptibly disabling the planet like a disease", does this not add up to a most grievous offence against nature, to say nothing of God? Is the Bishop wrong, then, to suggest we should all take personal responsibility?
I note that he fell short of a thundering pulpit denunciation by conceding that a cheap flight to Benidorm, or the use of a gas-guzzling Chelsea tractor on the school run might only be a "symptom of sin" rather than the actual burn-in-hell thing itself.
But at least his words were stronger than the milk-and-water follow-up from the Church of Scotland, which bleated that "our souls are not in any imminent danger from large cars or flying". Why ever not? I should have thought that if God did indeed create the heavens, the earth and all that is therein, he would be mightily displeased to see us collectively disabling it. The Kirk seems to have forgotten its own Westminster Confession of 1646, which teaches that "every sin, both original and actual, being a transgression of the law of God and contrary thereunto, doth, in its own nature, bring guilt upon the sinner, whereby he is bound over to the wrath of God and curse of the law, and so made subject to death, with all miseries, spiritual, temporal and eternal".
That's more like it. Along with the thundering language, it introduces that powerful motivator, guilt. And though the modern world may find it a struggle to define the concept of sin -- or even to admit that it exists at all -- it knows perfectly well what guilt is. Guilt drives us back on to the straight and narrow, however far we have strayed from it;
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disdaniel Posted 8:12 am
27 Jul 2006
{Note: I'm too optimistic by nature to be a doom and gloomer, but hey to each his own.}
Point 2) People just might respond to doom and gloom.
Point 3) Cost-Benefit analysis...very good. How do you measure costs? [Hint: the current system is not working.] How do you calculate benefits? What happens when one person pays the cost and a million people benefit (or vice versa)?
What about things we could do today that create net gains (better fuel/energy efficiency & life cycle engineering) by lowering costs and raising benefits? Is it ok to say that people who are unnecesarily wasteful are bad (or dumb?)? or is that too close to a moral judgement for you?
Point 4) You don't sound too confident that we (as a planet) can walk and chew gum at the same time. We are sure as heck gonna have to do both prevention and mitigation at the same time. Especially if we continue to put off the day we start to consider doing either.
It seems to me that almost everybody (religious minded folk included) has a stake in maintaining a fully functioning planet going forward. There is a small potent group with a vested interest in continuing with BAU. I'd guess that about $250 million in campaign contributions (in the right races) would be plenty to bring 2/3 of congress on board to a carbon emissions trading system that could provide the proper market incentives.
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Jason D Scorse Posted 8:25 am
27 Jul 2006
It's just like reading the Bible and realizing that Jesus never said all those things they say he did and that actually the god of the Bible doesn't sound like someone you would want to revere. Source material first is my motto!!
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Bart Anderson Posted 9:08 am
27 Jul 2006
Economists span the spectrum from shameless opportunists to courageous geniuses. Politically they are all over the place.
My favorites: Classical economists - Smith, Ricardo, Malthus, Marx. Moderns: Keynes, Jevons, Pareto, Schumpeter, Galbraith, some of the independent Marxists.Practitioners: Great investors like Soros, Buffet, Graham.Good economic thinking is really an intellectual adventure.
The free market was an exciting concept when Adam Smith proposed it and the classical economists elaborated on it. Free maket economics seems to have gone downhill since then. It now serves as a sort of state religion, justifying the ways of The Market to Man.
OTOH, and perhaps this is where we agree -- empirical studies of markets and economic behavior are fascinating. The Libertarian love of markets yielded some fruitful proposals.
You may find this hard to believe, but I don't dismiss your specific economic proposals. It's those sweeping generalizations and uncritical assumptions that are out of place.
Economists as demi-gods of human freedom? No, they're human just like the rest of us, prone to error and illusion.
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Jason D Scorse Posted 9:32 am
27 Jul 2006
An example, while we continue to prosecute millions of people for victimless drug use and let them rot in our jails with murders and rapists (often with longer senteces)- an example of absurd injustice perpetrated by both the left and the right- guess who's consistently been at the forefront of ending this madness? Milton Friedman.
J.S.
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John Fish Kurmann Posted 1:05 pm
27 Jul 2006
Rather than trying to persuade people that our actions causing climate disruption are "wrong," I'm interested in showing people the present and projected consequences of global warming and having a conversation based on the question "Do we want to be responsible for this?"
You also wrote:
"No, we are not living unsustainably- in fact, I don't even know what sustainable means- I'm not being facetious, but would you like to say what you mean by sustainable?"
While I cannot predict and articulate what we must specifically do in order to be sustainable, I'm flabbergasted by your assertion that "we are not living unsustainably." Wherever did you get that idea? We have an economy that requires perpetual growth, yet perpetual growth on a finite planet is by definition, impossible. It's also the creed of the cancer cell, as a few folks have pointed out, most famously Edward Abbey. And our growth has real and devastating consequences: Biologists who study biodiversity loss say we are in the early stages of the 7th mass extinction in the history of the world, and that we are now on a course to wipe out half of all the existing species within the next 100 years. Surely you wouldn't claim that's sustainable, would you?
I could go on, but if that doesn't convince you our way of life is unsustainable, I can't imagine what would.
BTW, the capsule definition of sustainable is meeting the needs of the present generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. As far as I'm concerned, that needs to be our goal. Unfortunately, it seems to be a lot easier to say what's not sustainable than what is.
The world is sacred and I am sacred as part of it.
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Laurence Aurbach Posted 11:24 pm
27 Jul 2006
Yes, it is not 100% clear that doing what we need to do to reduce global warming makes sense. Here's a news flash: it is never going to be 100% clear. We're talking about forecasting the world's climate, economy and geopolitical systems 50 or 100 years from now and beyond. Of course the predictions are fuzzy.
But the uncertainty is less than you imply, and many scientists believe we now have enough information to act. Many businesses are already acting, especially those in the field of long range forecasting: the insurance sector. We see that Florida and Louisiana are becoming uninsurable. One thing the insurance industry learned from Hurricane Katrina was that their existing models were woefully inadequate for predicting both the nature and magnitude of losses from large storms. It's no accident insurers like Swiss Re are some of the biggest advocates of greenhouse gas control.
As the the Pew Center on Global Climate Change says, "the longer we wait, the more expensive it will be."
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ac5p Posted 1:00 am
28 Jul 2006
A well thought out post. I think an injection of reality into group of passionate and likeminded thinkers is always a good thing.
To respond to your list:
Gloom and Doom - this is just silliness. The amount of pain and suffering that humanity will have to endure if no measures are taken to curb the greenhouse effect are mind-staggering. Trying to be cheery about it is a little disingenuous. Besides: Fear is a strong motivator and people should be afraid. Fearmongering is irresponsible but if you are telling someone to be afraid of something that will likely happen it really the best thing to do.
People want to be warmer - No they don't. Not like this. If you are tired of New England winters, move to LA, don't turn the Rainforests to deserts. Global warming as Al Gore said is a bad name - Climate Crisis is much better. Start calling it that and get people the right information and they wont be smiling about leaving that sweater off.
Economics - This is an important place for enviros to focus because prices and incentives drive our priorities. A good solution to the climate crisis will involve good economics. Examining the tradeoffs is a good idea, but I would not overestimate the costs to make important changes to our energy and transportation industries. Oftentimes the staggering numbers they quote for change are designed to allow them go about business as usual which is in their best interest financially.
Mitigation vs. Prevention - You are right here, some mitigation will need to happen, but we need to be forward thinking. The tough sell for enviros is to get people to be forward thinking - in some estimates 100 years forward thinking. But some people have a tough time caring about what happens well beyond their life spans. But they need to, and I think this is where the moral stuff comes in.
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L Mo Posted 1:11 am
28 Jul 2006
"I'm interested in showing people the present and projected consequences of global warming and having a conversation based on the question 'Do we want to be responsible for this?'"
With all due respect, this question is not at all interesting unless the responsibility at issue is moral responsibility, by which I mean in this contect an outcome for which we can be praised or blamed. I cause things to happen in the world every moment. Asking this question only makes sense when applied to a very small subset of these events, namely the events that have some good or bad effect. Once we start talking about good and bad effects, were talking about morality, about right and wrong. Why should we care if we are "responsible" for something, unless we think that we OUGHT or OUGHT NOT do the thing in question.
The consequences of my stepping in a puddle after a storm is that it will cause ripple in the surface. I would be responsible for that ripple. Is that something I want to be responsible for? I'm not interest in the answer. The example is absurd and perhaps unfair, but it is designed to make the point that talk of "responsibility for consequences" only makes sense on the assumption that some consequences are good and some are bad and some are neither. So, why the objection to talking about morality?
L Mo
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atreyger Posted 2:23 am
28 Jul 2006
To keep in existence; maintain.
To supply with necessities or nourishment; provide for.
To support from below; keep from falling or sinking; prop.
To support the spirits, vitality, or resolution of; encourage.
To bear up under; withstand: can't sustain the blistering heat.
To experience or suffer: sustained a fatal injury.
To affirm the validity of: The judge has sustained the prosecutor's objection.
To prove or corroborate; confirm.
To keep up (a joke or assumed role, for example) competently.
1 and 2 are the definitions closest to the definition of sustainability that everyone uses. Specifically, 'maintain' is the keyword in the definition. Currently, we are struggling to maintain our ever-increasing lifestyle. Therefore, our lifestyle is 'unsustainable'.
The reason we struggle to maintain it should be clear to most people that are affected by the climate crisis (people in areas with increased hurricanes, people in areas undergoing desertification, fishermen with declining yields, etc.), as well as to the rest of us relying on fossil fuels: see 'oil running out', not quite a headline, but it probably should be. It becomes clearer every day at the pump.
Furthermore, since current economics are based on the principle of ever-growing economy, in a finite resource world, particularly with non-renewables, the economy of the world then becomes inherently 'unsustainable', since it cannot be maintained. Substitutable resources are scant if they exist, and hence the underlying assumption of waiting for a solution from the 'engineers' may be one of the major downfalls for the current economic model.
Further, climate crisis caused by humans is clearly 'unsustainable' since we fail to maintain the biogeochemistry that we have experienced for the majority of our civilization and evolution periods.
'Sustainability' then is merely an indicator for a moral discussion. If one wants to begin that conversation, the question of whether maintaining our 'environment' is a good or a bad thing should be dealt with first. How much can we tolerate a change in our 'environment', lifestyles, etc. until it becomes unbearable for the global population?
I would like to argue that we are currently approaching, if not passed that point: our global supply line is stretched too thin for maintaining both our 'environment' and our lifestyles as a global population, something that economists should be concerned with, since they usually push for 'globalization'.
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John Fish Kurmann Posted 11:57 am
28 Jul 2006
I discarded morality because asserting that something is objectively "right" or "wrong," "good" or "bad," is the opening salvo in an unresolvable argument I am not interested in wasting any time on. What matters to me in answering my question ("Do we want to be responsible for this?") is: Are the consequences of these actions desirable or undesirable?
Until some authority appears that all will accept as the final word on matters of morality--which seems to me to be unlikely to ever happen given human history--claims of "right" and "wrong" are just opinions to be argued over. They also tend to provoke a high level of defensiveness among the people accused of "wrong" behavior, which is never conducive to understanding and dialogue.
The world is sacred and I am sacred as part of it.
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David Roberts Posted 1:14 pm
28 Jul 2006
I share those values, and I enjoy your eloquent expression of them. What I don't understand is why you have this somewhat caricatured view of morality, such that you think you need to avoid it.
Sure, there's no big authority in the sky that will vouchsafe your vision of a rich human life as "objectively right." But that doesn't mean you don't have reasons for thinking what you think, reasons that can be communicated to other people and advocated for in the public square.
The pinched, narrow moralism so common on the right now is a perversion of morality. We shouldn't surrender moral discourse to them. We need to take it back.
www.grist.org
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John Fish Kurmann Posted 2:06 am
30 Jul 2006
Just as you're stumped by my rejection of moral statements--of "right" and "wrong"--David, I'm perplexed by your strong desire to hang onto that approach. In my view, pursuing change from a moral stance has produced far more harm than good. People who are certain they know what's "right" are damn dangerous.
It's absolutely true that my statements on this site are "infused with value judgments," but value judgments are very different than moral judgments. Value judgments are explicitly matters of personal opinion, of what an individual or group places value on. They do not claim to be objective, unarguable, and universal, and they also shift from circumstance to circumstance. They are relative, and this is all to the good because life is relative. Talking about one's values is also an opening to dialogue, whereas making statements about what is "right" and what is "wrong" usually starts an debate at the least, if not an argument, shouting match, or fistfight.
Will you explain the benefits you see in using the language of morality?
The world is sacred and I am sacred as part of it.
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David Roberts Posted 3:21 am
30 Jul 2006
Nowhere is it written that morality intrinsically involves concepts of "proof" or "objectivity" or "universality." Certainly those concepts have played a big role in the history of moral philosophy, but they are not part of the definition. It is not the case that one can only make moral statements if one purports to be laying down fundamental, eternal, universal truths. In fact those kinds of claims are much more common in religion than moral philosophy.
Your distinction between moral statements and value judgments is ... idiosyncratic. Nobody else that I'm aware of defines the terms that way. You are in fact espousing a view known as moral relativism. Your statements, even if you really believe they only apply to your "personal opinions" and have no broader application, are still moral. To express value judgments about human affairs just is to make moral claims, even if they are only intended to apply to people like you, in the place you are, at this one moment in history.
You cannot really believe that your opinions about how people ought to act and how people ought to arrange communities are purely personal -- like your taste in ice cream or your preference for jazz over pop music. Even if you just believe that no one should impose their moral judgments on others, look, there you've made a moral judgment that is intended to apply to everyone. Pure moral relativism is just as absurd and impracticable as the authoritarian moralism you fear. There's a fuzzy middle between universality and pure idiosyncrasy, and that's where pragmatic morality lives.
Politically, progressivism has abandoned moral discourse, partly for the same reasons you have -- fear of authoritarianism -- and partly because of a technocratic view of human perfectibility. The political right, however, has aggressively embraced moral language, dominated and monopolized it, to the point where they've practically made the word moral synonymous with religious concerns about homosexuality and other personal affairs. Despite the fact that Americans largely agree with the policy positions of progressives, they still vote for conservatives. Why? Because conservatives speak to their moral concerns, which are universally important to human beings (even those who deny it ;). Your benign relativism is simply out of step with the way the vast majority of Americans view these matters. They believe there's right and wrong, and that our society has run off the moral rails. Progressives do nothing to address these concerns, and so "values voters" go elsewhere. It's time for progressives to reclaim the discourse and remind people that morality addresses public concerns -- poverty, inequality, and yes, environmental health -- as well as private ones.
www.grist.org
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Bart Anderson Posted 4:12 am
30 Jul 2006
Plus:
We should be aware that only a small fraction of the world is secular. Most of the US and the world is guided by religion or belief systems similar to religion (e.g., Confucianism). I think only Western Europe is not dominated by religion.
We environmentalists in Western countries tend to think that global warming and environmental problems should be addressed in terms familiar to us. We imagine we have control over the discourse, preferring it to be reasonable and rational.
I suspect that as the impact of global warming hits, the religions will address the environment in their own ways. We can make suggestions, but the final decisions are out of our hands.
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L Mo Posted 5:54 am
31 Jul 2006
Others have already suggested to you that your view is full of value judgments. I agree with them. I think I have an argument to show that your language of consequences and desirability is value-laden in a much stronger way then you seem willing to admit. Furthermore, I suggest ethical and moral language is unavoidable. I also suggest that your insistence on "objectivity" is misplaced. Finally, tolerance is itself a moral value that need not, indeed cannot be justified on the basis of moral relativism. I apologize for the technical and perhaps pedantic nature of what follows.
'Desirable' is a word of ambiguous meaning when used in normal English discourse. 'Desirable' might be used to describe an object of desire, as in "Oh, Baby, you're so desirable." Or it might be used to describe the fact that some object is in fact desired, as in "SUVs are highly desirable in America." However, despite to colloquial usage, the logic of both these kinds of expressions suggests that "is desired" would convey the more literal meaning. When I tell to my wife that she is desirable, I'm telling her that she is in fact desired by me. When someone says that SUVs are desirable in America, they are stating a fact about what is in fact desired by Americans.
The most precise meaning of 'desirable' is `worthy of desire', `worth desiring', or `ought to be desired.'
Now, consider you're question: Are the consequences desirable? This question could be interpreted in any of the three ways I've suggested. But I seriously doubt that what you mean when you ask the question is: "What do you in fact desire?", or "What do you think other people in general desire?"
Instead, you're asking: "What ought to be desired? What is worth desiring? What is worth seeking? What is worth our effort to bring about?" I'm of course assuming that you think that there are better and worse answers to these questions. If this assumption is correct, that some consequences are in fact better than others, then only the latter interpretation of your question could be the correct one. The other interpretations cannot be correct because they are asking people what they desire, and people just desire what they desire and unless they are lying when they answer the question, they cannot (generally) be mistaken about what they desire. Hence, their answers are true, no matter what they say. But surely you think that some answers are better than others, or, as I wrote in a prior posting, you wouldn't be asking the question in the first place.
That was my first point. My second is that moral language is unavoidable. Even the economists (are you reading, Professor Scorse?) cannot avoid moral language. In a different thread, Professor Scorse argued that economists have been at the vanguard of a cultural movement to expand personal liberty. Almost without exception these economists are utilitarians of one sort or another. Their view is that liberty is a means to a more efficient market. So, it can appear as if they are not talking about morality; they're only talking about efficiency and consequences. But a brief review of the history of utilitarianism quickly reveal that this view of liberty and the market is seeped in a robust moral theory that claims that an action X is right if and only if from among the available options {X, Y,...Z}, X maximizes expected utility. This sounds like it has avoided talk of morality; but it hasn't. The strong moral claim rests in the term `utility.' What does `utility' mean? Well, it depends on who you ask, but any answer is going to make a substantive claim about what is and what is not of value - objective value. Indeed, the utilitarians, and thus modern economist, are perhaps more objectivist concerning morality than anyone. When an economist says that a consequence is desirable because that consequence will maximize the satisfaction of individual preferences, they are making a substantive moral claim. Of course, showing that one attempt to eliminate morality fails does not show that they all do. But, I think I have given at least a prima facie case that talk of efficiency and talk of desirability both fail to eliminate morality.
My next point has to do with the idea of objectivity, a view that is highly overrated. The idea that a claim must be proven to be objectively true in order for it to be accepted makes it impossible to accept almost anything. The philosophy of science is full of discussions of the problem of objectivity, about how preconceived ideas shape experiences, determine how instruments are built, etc., all of which influence the outcome and interpretation of observed data. Despite this fact, science marches on. Why? Because scientists themselves do not insist that something be proven objectively in order for it to be accepted. Instead, they accept those claims that are supported by the best argument, and what counts as the best argument is determined by the practitioners of science.
So too with morality. There are better and worse answers to certain kinds of moral questions. We may not know the "truth" about morality, but we certainly know that some things are wrong (e.g., just as we know that the world is not flat, we know that torturing babies just for the fun of it is wrong). We are the practitioners of morality. We decide which arguments are the better arguments according to the rules of logic and in accord with our common experience. Of course there are crazy people out there, like the people that deny evolution. The fact that there exist irrational people does not mean that science is an illusion or that science is useless or that science cannot make progress or that science is dangerous. People hold crazy moral beliefs. If they react violently to their views being challenged, then perhaps one ought to just walk away. My experience has been that on the vast majority of moral issues (except perhaps abortion) people are willing to discuss their moral views without getting violent or defensive. People are even willing to change their views on important moral issues when they are presented with the best arguments on both sides. The problem today is that many people believe that morality is exhausted by abortion, the death penalty and gay marriage and then take the discourse surrounding these issues to be indicative of all moral discourse. But such a conclusion is unwarranted.
One last point. Many people feel compelled to endorse a form of moral relativism in order to provide a foundation for toleration. Toleration and relativism are two distinct moral issues. I could be highly tolerant of other people's moral views and yet still have a very robust moral view concerning all sorts of things. What ultimately distinguishes the tolerant person from the intolerant person is what they regard as intolerable. The so-called tolerant person has a very small set of intolerable actions, such as, (ironically) intolerance, genocide, murder and rape. The so-called intolerant person has a huge set of intolerable actions usually populated by many actions that have no effect on people other than the person performing it and other consenting adults. There is a logical puzzle associated with relativism and tolerance. If relativism is true, what justification is there for tolerance?
L Mo
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