The only ethical argument for positive δ? Partiality and pure time preference

Mogensen, Andreas L.

doi:10.1007/s11098-022-01792-8

Cited by 8 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 67 publications

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“…Parfit, however, ultimately rejects discounting for kinship. A recent paper by Mogensen (2022) responds to Parfit's objections and argues in favor of discounting for kinship. 18.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Social bias, not time bias

Greene

2023

Politics, Philosophy & Economics

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People seem to have pure time preferences about trade-offs concerning their own pleasures and pains, and such preferences contribute to estimates of people's individual time discount rate. Do pure time preferences also matter to interpersonal welfare trade-offs, including those concerning the welfare of future generations? Most importantly, should the intergenerational time discount rate include a pure time preference? Descriptivists claim that the intergenerational discount rate should reflect actual people's revealed preferences, and thus it should include a pure time preference. Prescriptivists claim that the intergenerational discount rate should be based on moral analysis, and thus they (often) claim that the rate of pure time preference should be zero. I argue that regardless of which view is correct, a focus on pure time preference is misplaced. First, the most plausible interpretation of descriptive preferences for intergenerational trade-offs is that people are socially biased and not time biased. Second, social bias is superior to time bias as a prescriptive reason to discount the welfare of future people. Third, recent advances in measuring social bias as a social discount rate make social bias a viable replacement for time bias in economic analyses of intergenerational welfare trade-offs.

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“…Parfit, however, ultimately rejects discounting for kinship. A recent paper by Mogensen (2022) responds to Parfit's objections and argues in favor of discounting for kinship. 18.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Reported rates of interpersonal discounting range wildly (again, as with intrapersonal time discounting, from negative rates to infinity). See Heinzerling, 1999 and McDonald et al, 2017. Thus, the conclusions we can draw from the empirical literature on interpersonal discounting are limited.…”

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confidence: 99%

Social bias, not time bias

Greene

2023

Politics, Philosophy & Economics

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“…For instance, a rate of 5% indicates that the costs and benefits of the first year are valued fully, the second year at 95%, the third year at 90.25%, and so forth. Using standard Ramsey (1928) discounting, social discount rates can be approximated by the sum of the pure rate of time preference, which has received the bulk of philosophical discussion (e.g., Arrow, 1999; Dasgupta, 2005; Davidson, 2015; Doeleman, 1980; Heath, 2017; Heilmann, 2017; Kelleher, 2017; Lowry & Peterson, 2011; Mogensen, 2022; Parfit, 1984; Purves, 2016; Rawls, 1972; Tarsney, 2017) and the product of the consumption growth rate and the elasticity of marginal utility of consumption, a measure of the curvature of the social welfare function. The basic idea is that, if consumption is growing, we should morally care less about increases in consumption (alternatively, that poorer current generations should be given more weight than richer future generations). The SCC is therefore sensitive to the elasticity of marginal utility of consumption.…”

Section: Moral Choices In Nonideal Carbon Tax Policymentioning

confidence: 99%

Carbon tax ethics

Mintz‐Woo

2023

WIREs Climate Change

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Ideal carbon tax policy is internationally coordinated, fully internalizes externalities, redistributes revenues to those harmed, and is politically acceptable, generating predictable market signals. Since nonideal circumstances rarely allow all these conditions to be met, moral issues arise. This paper surveys some of the work in moral philosophy responding to several of these issues. First, it discusses the moral drivers for estimates of the social cost of carbon. Second, it explains how national self‐interest can block climate action and suggests international policies—carbon border tax adjustments and carbon clubs—that can help address these concerns. Third, it introduces some of the social science literature about the political acceptability of carbon taxes before addressing a couple common public concerns about carbon taxes. Finally, it introduces four carbon revenue usage options, arguing that redistributive and climate compensation measures are most morally justified.This article is categorized under: Climate, Nature, and Ethics > Ethics and Climate Change Climate, Nature, and Ethics > Climate Change and Global Justice Climate and Development > Social Justice and the Politics of Development

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“…This has not gone unnoticed and recent advice aimed at the review of the SCC by the Biden Administration recommended to "seek broad input", including from philosophers [4, p549] who have specific expertise in complex ethical matters. While a number of philosophers have engaged with social discounting [e.g., [14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22], a systematic account of the views of these disciplinary experts has been missing.…”

Section: Mainmentioning

confidence: 99%

Philosophers reinforce economists' support for UN climate targets, but disagree on why

Nesje

Drupp

Freeman

et al. 2022

Preprint

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The estimated value to society from climate change mitigation is highly sensitive to the long-term social discount rate (SDR). While it is not clear that they possess any special expertise on the ethics of intergenerational welfare, governmental discounting guidance has almost exclusively been influenced by economists. Our study, by contrast, reports the views of a disciplinary group of experts who are most trained in ethical matters; philosophers. We show that, as a group, these experts offer strong support for a real SDR of 2%; a value that is also predominantly backed by economists. We find multidisciplinary support for climate policy paths in line with the UN climate targets when views on discounting determinants are applied within a recent update of the DICE Integrated Assessment Model. However, this apparent agreement hides important differences in views on how the ethics of intergenerational welfare can be better incorporated into climate policy evaluation.

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The only ethical argument for positive δ? Partiality and pure time preference

Cited by 8 publications

References 67 publications

Social bias, not time bias

Social bias, not time bias

Carbon tax ethics

Philosophers reinforce economists' support for UN climate targets, but disagree on why

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