PHIL 51—Scientific Reasoning
Week 8
Cost-benefit analysis, again. Some of the assumptions behind the method, what distinguishes it from simply making a pro and con list
Social discounting.
What it is
Why it’s important in climate economics
Why isn’t not the same as adjusting for inflation
Be able to explain each of the following justifications for social discounting, as well as some concerns about or objections to each one:
Pure time preference.
Probabilistic discounting.
Argument from opportunity cost.
Swamping out.
Extinction risk.
The non-identity problem.
Be able to explain what it is
Be able to explain the following responses to it:
Accepting that we don’t harm future people
Working with a different conception of harm
Focusing on harm to people alive now
Whether our concept of moral responsibility needs revising
Be able to explain what a paradigmatic moral wrong is (what conditions make us see an action as paradigmatically wrong)
Be able to explain the difference between the paradigmatic case and climate change, and be able to discuss why some people think this means our concept of moral responsibility needs revising
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