The article “It’s Not My Fault: Global Warming and Individual Moral Obligations” by Walter Sinnott-Armstrong is an ethical monologue that evaluates the personal necessity to contribute to the prevention of global warming. In general, the author bases his argument on eight assumptions to prove a point that common responsibility should not be paralleled with individual responsibility. Although global warming is confirmed and its rates will increase in the following century, and long-term adverse effects will impact everybody, it is hard to say that each individual should take responsibility for taking all the necessary action to slow down global warming,
The author provides several reasons for that by giving illustrative examples of cases where a person cannot fight global warming. Fossil fuel emissions mainly drive the issue of climate change, and there is no way personal contribution would outweigh the contribution of the government and international organizations that would develop alternative sources of energy, limit fossil fuel reliance, stop deforestation and launch reforestation programs. The analogy for that is the broken bridge, which can be fixed only by the governmental effort and even if each individual filled up one of the cracks, it would not fix the problem; hence, it is not an individual problem.
However, the individual moral obligation can be imposed in cases where behavior that damages the environment is done for pleasure or without any particular need. For example, driving a “gas-guzzler” on Sunday afternoons just to feel the speed and power and enjoy the ride without destination would be considered unethical as it contributes to global warming (Sinnott-Armstrong, 2005). Hence, the article shows that individual moral obligations to fighting global warming are not universal, as each type of behavior has a different scale of impact on the environment.
Reference
Sinnott-Armstrong, W. (2005). It’s Not My Fault: Global Warming and Individual Moral Obligations. In Walter Sinnott-Armstrong & Richard Howarth (eds.), Perspectives on Climate Change. Elsevier. pp. 221–253.