2.1. The vulnerable pay principle

Interestingly, the Chicago lawyers do not spell out the implications of rejecting justice in any detail. Nevertheless, occasionally there are suggestive passages:

These passages suggest a striking proposal. To achieve an appropriate climate treaty, the very poor and low-emitting nations (e.g. Bangladesh, Ethiopia, and Haiti), should “compensate” the richer, high-emitting countries (e.g. the US and China) with “side-payments.” In other words, the extremely vulnerable should ‘pay off’ the big emitters in order to induce them to restrain their emissions.

It is not clear how personally committed the Chicago lawyers are to such proposals. Still, these passages should not be dismissed as merely unfortunate asides. Instead, the vulnerability of the very poor plays a key role in the background reasoning of views of this kind. Consider the following reconstruction:

Nationally Adequate Protection Argument (NAP) Footnote ⁸

1. (1) Each country will support robust climate action (e.g. especially major emissions reductions) if and only if, and to the extent that, it benefits that country.Footnote ⁹

2. (2) Some countries benefit more from robust climate action than others.

3. (3) Those that benefit most are typically the very poor and low-emitting nations (e.g. Haiti, Bangladesh).

4. (4) Those that benefit least are the richer, high-emitting countries (e.g. the US, China).

5. (5) Those who benefit most from climate action do so largely because they are much more vulnerable to negative climate impacts.

6. (6) If the richer, higher emitting countries engage in robust climate action only to the extent that it benefits them, they will not do enough to protect the most vulnerable countries.

7. (7) Therefore, to get adequate climate action to protect the most vulnerable countries, those countries (e.g. Haiti) must compensate the richer, higher emitting countries (e.g. the US and China).

2.2. Presumptive objections

The basic proposal and the reconstructed argument initially strike people as morally shocking, and for good reason.

First, the basic proposal appears seriously morally wrong, not least because it is profoundly unjust. Indeed, it seems exactly backwards. For one thing, instead of the more familiar ‘polluter pays’ principle, the Chicago lawyers appear to propose a polluted pay (and polluters get paid) approach. For another, the natural presumption is not just that polluters should pay, but also that they have background responsibilities both not to expose the polluted to such threats, and to protect them if they should arise. In addition, since the specific threat of anthropogenic climate change is imposed on the vulnerable largely by the high emitters, those who must be paid off have created the demand. Rather than ‘compensation,’ this looks more like ‘money for menaces.’

Second, the underlying rationale for compensation is morally even worse. The polluted pay approach is actually driven by a vulnerable pay principle (VPP). Countries like Haiti must ‘compensate’ high emitters because they are extremely susceptible to climate threats and the high emitters are not. Being vulnerable is not an incidental fact about them; on the contrary, it explains the basic proposal. It is because they are so vulnerable that countries like Haiti, Ethiopia, and Bangladesh should pay.

Third, in context, the ‘vulnerable pay’ approach seems doubly shocking. The extreme susceptibility of countries like Haiti is driven largely by the fact that they are very poor. Specifically, their poverty plays a central role in explaining their other key vulnerabilities, such as food insecurity and lack of access to quality health care.Footnote ¹⁰ Consequently, to a major extent, the driving force behind the reconstructed argument is the idea that the vulnerable should pay because they are poor, institutionally weak, and otherwise ill-equipped to cope with the consequences of severe climate change. By contrast, what grounds the big emitters demand for compensation is the claim that they have less to lose because they are richer and so better positioned to cope. Again, morally speaking, this seems to get things backwards (e.g. it violates normal, capacity-based principles).

In summary, there are strong ethical presumptions against the whole polluted pay approach. Most notably, the reconstructed argument encourages a situation where the richer countries ruthlessly take advantage of the situation of the world’s most at-risk populations.

2.3. Specific challenges

There are a number of more specific kinds of reason to resist the reconstructed argument. Let me briefly mention two before moving on to the reason that I want to concentrate on here, which is that the argument risks endorsing extortion.

The first kind of reason involves the argument’s empirical presuppositions, and in particular the claim that the richer, high emitters have much less to lose than poorer nations. This can be contested on numerous grounds. First, the claim turns on a brand of economic and technological optimism. The main reason that the richer nations are thought to be better placed is that they are richer and have larger economies. However, it is far from clear how robust this assumption is, especially in the face of escalating climate damages and the pressure they may place on existing socioeconomic systems (e.g. one cautionary tale is the recent history of migration in Europe). Second, the claim appears to underestimate the extent to which we now live in a globally interconnected world, where societies and their economies are tightly interlinked (e.g. ‘when China sneezes, the world gets a cold’). Third, even more importantly, the idea that richer countries will be able to cope at all with climate change at the mid- to high-end of current projections just because they are (currently) richer seems unduly complacent (e.g. 5 C is equivalent in magnitude to an Ice Age shift). Fourth, the claim that richer countries will do better than the poorer obscures the important fact that many of the bad effects of climate change are likely to fall disproportionately on the poor wherever they live, including in richer countries (e.g. Hurricane Katrina). More generally, the background attempt to carve the world into two classes (the rich, high-emitting nations who are less vulnerable and the poor, low-emitting nations who are more so) is itself dubious.

The second kind of reason concerns feasibility. As we have seen, the most vulnerable nations are very poor (almost by definition). They are also relatively weak geopolitically and militarily. Consequently, it is far from clear that they have anything to offer that would be sufficient to induce the least vulnerable to take additional climate action.Footnote ¹¹ Consider for instance that in 2013 the entire GDP of Haiti was around 8.5 billion dollars; by contrast, the US consumed just over 7 billion barrels of oil in 2015, which at $50 per barrel is already 35 billion dollars. More generally, US GDP was around 17 trillion dollars ($17,000 billion), and China’s $9.2 trillion ($9200 billion).

Given this mismatch, Haiti’s bargaining power appears very limited. For one thing, it is unclear that the US or China would value even a large chunk of the Haitian economy, or more generally the economies of very poor nations as such, more than continuing their emissions. Perhaps even a ‘large chunk’ would just be too small to be tempting, or perhaps high-emitting countries simply strongly prefer their current ways of life. Moreover, even if Haiti and similar countries could come up with something that the big emitters really wanted, it is not clear that this would be sufficient inducement. For example, suppose that Haiti were to discover large diamond reserves within its borders. The richer, more powerful nations might still secure those resources through other means, economic or military. If this is cheaper than giving up fossil fuels, they would have no reason to exchange emissions for diamonds. (We return to this issue later.)

The third set of reasons to resist the reconstructed (NAP) argument is ethical. One familiar reason is that it conflicts with a consensus view in climate ethics, based on a variety of overlapping moral values, according to which the developed countries should take more of the burdens of climate action than the less developed countries, at least in the short to medium term.Footnote ¹² Another familiar (and related) reason is that the proposal endorses compound injustices. For one thing, vulnerable countries suffer the threat of climate change and then have to pay to fix it. For another, this occurs against a background of wider global injustice against vulnerable nations, which constitutes a significant part of the explanation of their ongoing vulnerability (e.g. the legacy of colonialism).

Still, the ethical reason I want to focus on is much less familiar. The principle that the vulnerable should pay because they are vulnerable appears to endorse extortion. In my view, this worry is the ‘elephant in the room’ when it comes to understanding the ethics of climate change, and intergenerational ethics more generally. Consequently, it is worth emphasizing and exploring.Footnote ¹³

Extortion is commonly defined as the ‘attempt to obtain money or other valuables by means of a threat’ or more generally ‘through the inducement of a wrongful use of force, intimidation or the undue or illegal exercise of power.’Footnote ¹⁴ In his classic work, James Lindgren identifies two kinds of extortion in the Anglo-American tradition: ‘extortion by threats or fear’ (‘coercive extortion’) and ‘extortion under color of office’ (sometimes called ‘official extortion’). Coercive extortion involves unethical uses ‘of a threat or fear to obtain property or advantage from another, short of violence that would be robbery’; official extortion involves ‘the use of official authority as a pretext or cover for the commission of some corrupt or vicious act’ (Lindgren Reference Lindgren1993, 1695).Footnote ¹⁵ Both are relevant to intergenerational ethics.

As Tony Soprano suggests, a paradigm case of coercive extortion is the protection racket. Mafia organizations demand protection money in exchange for “ensuring the basic security of their victims” by not violently attacking them. This protection money becomes ‘compensation’ for not exercising that threat.

Obviously, in context, the word ‘compensation’ is an (ugly) euphemism. When extortionists hold back from violence, there is no “loss” that ought to be made up, so the demand for compensation is morally ungrounded.Footnote ¹⁶ Thus, Mafia organizations demand ‘compensation’ against an illegitimate baseline.Footnote ¹⁷ The most familiar cases are those where the threat violates independent ethical constraints, such as constraints against illegitimate threats of physical violence. However, as we shall see, there are others.

Extortion is something we normally condemn, on a variety of grounds. These include, first, that it is disrespectful. Most obviously, extortionists show a lack of respect for their victims. Less obviously, if they accede, victims are coerced into subservient behavior that threatens their self-respect.Footnote ¹⁸ Second, extortion has wider social costs. For one thing, it is often thought that to accede leaves the victim open to further, and more severe threats, prompting a downward spiral of accumulating costs (e.g. Tony’s ‘I know how extortion works’). For another, when widely practiced, extortion usually negatively impacts broader social institutions (e.g. by undermining practices on which collective endeavors depend, such as trust). Third, extortion is a threat to how we see ourselves, morally speaking. Although practicing extortion has its benefits, those benefits come at the personal cost of becoming an extortionist. This is a price that many people are reluctant to pay. Extortion may bring extra resources, but such riches are tainted. They amount to ‘blood money’ that, other things being equal, many would prefer to live without.

Of course, none of this implies that people never have reason to engage in, or succumb to, extortion. Extortion sometimes delivers results. For the extortionist, it is often brings wealth and power. For its victims, acceding to extortion sometimes achieves something valuable (e.g. ransoms are costly, but maybe you get your daughter back). These are the points that the Chicago lawyers will emphasize. Nevertheless, even here the ethical issues reemerge.

First, ethical arguments are needed to make proposals like the Chicago lawyers at all attractive. In particular, though it may be possible to justify passing some climate burdens to the vulnerable, as it stands the NAP is radically unbounded, so we must specify the ethical criteria that ‘making the vulnerable pay’ must satisfy in order to count as at all reasonable. Such criteria may invoke a variety of ethical standards, such as the broadly acceptable, the minimally decent, or perhaps the tolerably indecent (Gardiner Reference Gardinerforthcoming). However, some justification in these terms is essential. One reason is that, as we shall see in looking at the intergenerational case, without such requirements, proposals such as ‘polluted pay’ are compatible not just with extortion but with such extreme forms of extortion that cooperation becomes morally horrifying, and ultimately unlikely. Indeed, such proposals may even facilitate making the situation of the vulnerable much worse than under severe climate change since they may serve as cover for providing the rich and powerful with additional means with which to extort them. Consequently, they pose profound risks to vulnerable people.

Second, maintaining Carmela Soprano’s attitude in the apocryphal scene – seeing extortion as a straightforward business transaction – is difficult. For most people, ‘it’s not personal, just business’ is a deeply impoverished, indeed offensive, way of understanding extortionate practices. Even Tony, himself a mob boss, finds taking such a perspective on the Dean’s offer unacceptable. Recognizing that he is being ‘shaken down’ is central to his assessment of what is going on and the reason he resists. This would be so even if Tony ultimately decided to pay off the Dean for his daughter’s sake (as Carmela does).

3.1. The GAP

One reason this matters is that the NAP has an intergenerational parallel. Call this, the Generationally Adequate Protection argument (GAP):

1. (1) Each generation will support robust climate action (e.g. especially major emissions reductions) if and only if, and to the extent that, it benefits that generation.

2. (2) Some generations benefit more from robust climate action than others.

3. (3) Those that benefit most are the most vulnerable generations, which are largely future generations.

4. (4) Those that benefit least are the least vulnerable generations, including the current generation, and especially the current generation of decision-makers.

5. (5) Those who benefit most from climate action do so because they are much more vulnerable to negative climate impacts.

6. (6) If the least vulnerable current generation engages in climate action only to the extent that such action benefits that generation, it will not do enough to protect the most vulnerable future generations.

7. (7) Therefore, to get sufficient climate action to protect the most vulnerable future generations, those generations must compensate the current generation.

3.2. Presumptive objections

Notably, the GAP has the same structure as the NAP, and supports a parallel conclusion. Consequently, other things being equal, it seems open to similar objections. In short, initially, there appears to be a strong moral presumption against the GAP.

First, consider the conclusion. Again, the claim is that in order to address climate change, the most vulnerable (this time, future generations) should ‘compensate’ or pay off the less vulnerable (this time, their predecessors and especially the current generation) to induce them to restrain their emissions. Again, the proposal is that the polluted pay (and polluters get paid). Again, on the face of it, from the ethical point of view, this proposal seems morally shocking, profoundly unjust, and to get things exactly backwards. Again, the natural presumption is not just that the polluters (the earlier generations) should pay, but also that they have a background responsibility not to expose the polluted (future generations) to such threats, and to protect them from such threats. Again, the specific threat is created by those who must be paid off, so that ‘compensation’ looks more like ‘money for menaces.’

Second, consider the underlying rationale. Again, the key idea appears to be a vulnerable pay principle. It is because they are so vulnerable to climate threats, and the current generation is less so, that future generations should pay. Again, this seems morally objectionable.

Third, there are more specific ethical objections. Again, the proposal seems to violate an initial ethical consensus, grounded in commonsense morality. In this case, the consensus is that the current generation has a duty to protect future generations, including against climate threats, and indeed also to promote their interests (see below). Most importantly for our purposes, again the situation appears extortionate. If the GAP is accepted, the current generation appears to obtain something of value through the inducement of a wrongful threat, involving an inappropriate use of asymmetric power (in this case, temporal power). Again, such extortion seems disrespectful (to future people and their allies), likely to lead to escalating social costs (e.g. by opening the door to further extortion), and a threat to the ethical self-conception of current people (e.g. by implicating them in an intergenerational protection racket).

In light of the strong moral presumption against the GAP, it is perhaps initially surprising that several philosophers have recently argued in favor of passing on the costs of climate action, and especially robust mitigation, to future generations. Arguments for ‘making the grandchildren pay’ tend to fall into two camps. One camp is concessive. The claim is that though such an exertion of intergenerational power is morally problematic, even deeply so, it is a defensible approach in light of the alternatives. By contrast, the other camp is enthusiastic. The claim is that making the grandchildren pay brings about a moral improvement. Intergenerational threats such as climate change can help create morally preferable distributions of resources across generations.

3.3. A concessive approach

Let us begin with a prominent example of the concessive approach offered by John Broome (Broome Reference Broome2012; see also Rendall Reference Rendall2011; Maltais Reference Maltais, McKinnon and Maltais2015).Footnote ¹⁹ Broome argues that adequate climate action can be achieved if the current generation are ‘bribed’ into undertaking robust mitigation at the expense of future people through an approach he calls ‘efficiency without sacrifice.’ The key idea is:

Broome’s thought is that, to the extent that climate action involves the current generation forgoing the advantages of a fossil fuel intensive, business as usual development path, we can “compensate” ourselves for that “sacrifice” by consuming more now and investing less for future generations. In other words, we can have all the advantages of burning fossil fuels without inflicting environmental damage on future people; they just need to pay us to stop emitting. This has attractions for both parties because it results in a strong pareto improvement: both the current generation and future generations are made better off than they would otherwise be (i.e. without robust climate action).

Broome believes that achieving the shift in resources needed for efficiency without sacrifice poses a practical challenge, but argues that the challenge can and should be met. Specifically, institutions should be created that shift resources toward the current generation and away from the future, and economists have a responsibility to make that happen:

Broome admits that efficiency without sacrifice is morally problematic. One reason is that it is morally inferior to the best approach to climate action, which on his view is efficiency with sacrifice, where ‘emitters reduce emissions enough to eliminate inefficiency, but are not compensated’ (Broome Reference Broome2012, 45).Footnote ²⁰ Another reason is that efficiency without sacrifice is seriously unjust:

Despite these problems, Broome advocates efficiency without sacrifice on the grounds that holding out for efficiency with sacrifice would be a strategic mistake, making ‘the best the enemy of the good.’ In addition, efficiency without sacrifice has the ‘moral purpose’ of pushing forward climate action, and may ultimately facilitate the better strategy.

There are a number of issues with Broome’s argument. To begin with, framing efficiency without sacrifice as ‘bribery’ is questionable and may sugarcoat what is at stake, morally speaking.

First, the claim is subtly misleading. Broome says that receivers ‘in effect bribe emitters not to harm them’ (Broome Reference Broome2012, 46). However, many ‘receivers’ are not in a position to ‘bribe’ anyone. In particular, future people do not yet exist, and many existing receivers are currently small children. Consequently, what efficiency without sacrifice actually proposes is that the current generation itself shifts resources toward its own consumption and away from the future, without the participation of future receivers. A similar point can be made about the language of ‘borrowing from the future’ employed by some wanting to burden future generations. Borrowing typically involves a loan that is to be repaid. In this case, however, there is no question of repayment, and also no question that this is a loan, in the sense that it is voluntarily entered into by the (future) people ‘providing’ the resources.

Second, returning to Broome, much then depends on the claim that ‘in effect’ efficiency without sacrifice amounts to bribery. Specifically, what generates the bribery claim is a key implicit assumption, that under efficiency without sacrifice current people shift resources in the name of future people, in other words in a way which future people themselves would endorse.Footnote ²¹ Yet, this claim requires justification since there are less savory possibilities than bribery. Crucially, if future people would not accept the shift, the proposal might better be described as theft. If they would accept the shift, but only under duress, it looks like extortion.Footnote ²² Notably, compared to ‘bribery,’ ‘theft,’ and ‘extortion’ have very different meanings and framing effects. Yet, in context, both appear strong possibilities.Footnote ²³

Third, most importantly, given the current generation’s unilateral ability to decide whether, how, and to what extent to impose burdens on future generations, it is not clear why we should expect the current generation to stop short of extreme extortion or even outright theft. Talk of bribery covers this up.

To see the force of these points more clearly, let us move on to consider some concerns about the language of efficiency without sacrifice. On the one hand, the main emphasis of Broome’s proposal is on the side of avoiding sacrifice for the current generation, where this is interpreted against the baseline of business as usual. (This is what is supposed to motivate the current generation to endorse robust climate action.) Three things are worth noticing about this side of the proposal.

First, the phrase ‘without sacrifice’ is potentially misleading. Notably, the business as usual baseline differs from other baselines that might more naturally fall under that label. For example, it is not the same as the baseline of ‘no worse off than currently,’ or ‘no worse off than under adequate conditions for human flourishing,’ or even ‘no worse off than under generous conditions for human flourishing.’ Yet, these baselines might be more morally salient, and perhaps even more politically relevant. For instance, it is clear why we might call climate action a sacrifice that make people worse off than they are now, or worse off with respect to adequate conditions for human flourishing. However, it is odd to call any cutbacks from an ongoing business as usual baseline of emissions ‘sacrifices,’ especially when this baseline threatens future people with climate catastrophe. Consider an analogy. Suppose we discover a pesticide that causes severe birth defects in three generations’ time. Would we normally describe giving it up as a ‘sacrifice’?Footnote ²⁴ Would we typically say that doing without it entitles people to ‘compensation’? Would we do so especially if giving it up makes them no worse off than now, and friendly conditions for human flourishing remain in place? I think not. Giving up the pesticide seems more like withholding an illegitimate threat.Footnote ²⁵

Second, ‘without sacrifice’ is also worrisome because the baseline of ‘business as usual’ may be very high, and in ways which suggest that describing deviations from it as ‘sacrifices’ is morally inappropriate. Specifically, Broome’s baseline represents at least the maximum gains that could be made by the current generation from the exploitation of fossil fuels over their lifetimes. However, in context, it is more likely to represent the current generation’s perceived expectations for such gains, which may be much higher still, and indeed higher than anything realistically sustainable, either economically or ecologically. Yet, surely it is unreasonable to describe any deviation whatsoever from such expectations as a ‘sacrifice.’Footnote ²⁶ To do so is to assume that the current generation have radically strong entitlements to the realization of their positive visions of the future, whatever they are. This seems deeply objectionable. For one thing, it seems to indulge in an almost fanatical kind of entitlement culture, and one funded off the backs of future generations. For another, it risks being efficiency without reality.

Third, in any case, the phrase ‘without sacrifice’ seems conceptually amiss, and in a way which suggests that even these radical baselines are too low. By itself, the language of ‘without sacrifice’ suggests only that current people will do no worse under Broome’s proposal than under business as usual (or perceived business as usual). However, what is motivating about doing ‘no worse’? Surely for Broome’s proposal actually to motivate them, current people would have to do better than they would otherwise.Footnote ²⁷

Notably, this point is implicitly reflected in the language of ‘bribery.’ Normally, if someone is to be bribed, they must be offered a positive inducement sufficient to motivate a change in their behavior. Yet, the offer to keep things as they are provides no positive inducement, it maintains neutrality.Footnote ²⁸ Consequently, it seems more realistic (and more in keeping with the GAP) to describe the operative version of Broome’s proposal as efficiency with profit (for the current generation), where this reflects a demanding baseline, with at least sufficient profit to make the change worthwhile, and perhaps also compelling.

These points about the demandingness of Broome’s baselines for the current generation have a mirror image on the other side of Broome’s proposal, the claim that future generations will no longer sacrifice. Notice that efficiency without sacrifice for the current generation does not yet provide a reason for future people to endorse it, and Broome clearly intends his proposal to result in an improvement for future people as well. However, the status of this claim is unclear.

Specifically, for Broome, the relevant baseline against which future generations must see an improvement is business as usual. In other words, future people are supposed to be better off than they would be under unconstrained greenhouse gas emissions. However, this baseline includes as a prominent possibility, and arguably its most salient feature, that business as usual may result in truly catastrophic climate change. Indeed, the vulnerability of future generations to such change drives both the GAP argument and the efficiency without sacrifice proposal.

This brings us to a critical point. If the most salient feature of the situation from the point of view of future people is a true catastrophe, the baseline for improving their situation becomes extremely low. Yet this makes meeting that baseline relatively easy. As long as the climate actions of the current generation make the future better off than they would be under a true catastrophe provoked by business as usual, even modest climate action may satisfy this side of Broome’s proposal. For instance, burdening future generations with both massive intergenerational debt and merely severe (as opposed to truly catastrophic) climate change may still leave them better off than under true catastrophe.

In one way, this point suggests a technical victory for Broome’s argument. It is surprisingly easy to fulfill the requirement of making future generations better off against the baseline he sets for them. However, in other ways, the critical point exposes the proposal’s deepest flaws.

The first flaw emerges from the fact that the above scenario of ‘massive debt, plus merely severe climate change’ involves the current generation leveraging its asymmetric threat advantage against future generations in an extreme way. While technically the proposal can still be described as efficiency without ‘sacrifice,’ it has really become ‘efficiency with extreme extortion.’ This is so even though both sides ‘benefit’ given the business as usual baseline.

The second flaw is that the critical point makes it much easier for future people to reject Broome’s proposal. Recall that the key idea is to shift resources from the future to the present. I insisted that to do so in the name of future generations requires that the shift be justified to them. Yet it is far from clear that ‘massive debt, plus merely severe climate change’ is sufficient to secure such a justification, and even that it is sufficient under duress. This is so even if the shift makes future people somewhat (perhaps only slightly) better off than business as usual.

For one thing, future generations facing climate catastrophe will probably reject the idea that the proposed ‘trade’ (a large transfer in resources in return for some, perhaps modest, reduction in climate risk) would involve no ‘sacrifice’ on their part in any relevant sense. Indeed, it seems plausible they will deny that all this talk of ‘sacrifices’ against the business as usual baseline reflects an especially salient feature of the situation. Instead, like Tony Soprano, they will likely regard the overwhelming issue as one of being ‘shaken down.’

For another thing, that being said, the most important reason to resist Broome’s approach may be that it poses fresh threats to future generations. As a prime example, consider the claim that economists must develop new institutions dedicated to increasing current consumption and reducing investment for the future. On the face of it, this proposal opens the door to further extortion of future generations. First, the new institutions may encourage the current generation to take more than is warranted for climate. Second, they may also encourage shifting even more resources from the future to the present to address other currently existing intergenerational threats (e.g. to drinking water, to biodiversity). Third, and worst of all, such institutions may provide strong incentives for the current generation to find creative ways to generate new threats to future generations, as a means to facilitate more shifts. In my view, it is difficult to overemphasize this risk. At its worst, it may usher in a new norm of intergenerational extortion, unprecedented in human history.Footnote ²⁹ This is a truly profound threat, and perhaps the most important one exposed by this paper. Consequently, both future people and their allies should be very cautious about unleashing it. Recall Tony’s initial instinct, ‘I won’t pay. I know too much about extortion.’

So far, I have argued that, on the face of it, efficiency without sacrifice appears to license climate extortion, and that this threat is sugarcoated by the language used to describe it. To illustrate this, we might contrast Broome’s story with a classic case of extortion:

Security without Sacrifice

I take it that the security without sacrifice story is seriously problematic. To be clear, the problem is not so much with the conclusion – that there is a case for paying off the Mafia – but rather with (first) how the argument is misleading at various points, (second) how this obscures the deep threat posed by the situation, and (third) with the extent to which the real action is ultimately elsewhere.

First, arguably the language of ‘security without sacrifice,’ while technically defensible in the terms of the story, is so deeply misleading as to be morally outrageous, and indeed to approach the Orwellian. Referring to departures from the baseline of severe violence as “sacrifices” (in security without sacrifice and the superior security with sacrifice) puts a positive moral spin on what is actually going on that seems so morally inappropriate as to be bizarre, and perhaps even corrupt. Importantly, the same points about the case for paying off the Mafia could and should be made in more morally appropriate language. For instance, it could highlight that the situation involves extortion and signal all of the moral and prudential baggage that comes with that.

Similarly, second, the language of Pareto improvement obscures the deep threat posed by the situation. To begin with, the implications of ‘security without sacrifice’ are radically unbounded. The range of what might (rather euphemistically) be termed potential ‘pareto improvements’ over Mafia violence is enormous. They run the gamut from a modest indulgence (e.g. free daily coffee), to moderate compensation (e.g. $100 a week), to extreme demands (e.g. all your business profits, forcing your participation in violent criminal activities, etc.). Crucially, the Pareto improvement story tells us nothing about where on this spectrum we are. It just assumes that we are on it, and that this means that the division is such that each party is better off than if the violent threat is carried out.

Moreover, again, the assumption is that from the point of view of the victims the baseline is catastrophic: the victims count as ‘better off’ so long as their fate is better than catastrophe, which in this case probably involves injury, death, poverty, and the loss of much that they care about. This makes the Pareto improvement condition very easy to satisfy, and perhaps so trivial as to count as no real constraint at all.

Third, as the flip-side of this, there is effectively no limit on what the extortionist may demand, so that the real action is ultimately elsewhere. On the one hand, if all that is needed is that you are left better off than under the violent catastrophe, all that you have is up for grabs. The extortion licensed by the security without sacrifice argument can therefore be extreme. Crucially, there is nothing about the argument that even suggests (let alone guarantees) that the extortion will be at the modest or moderate end of the spectrum. Indeed, the internal dynamic of the situation drives things in the opposite direction. If all the power lies with the extortionists, what reason is there for them to limit their exercise of that power, and accept only modest gains, or a moderate portion of the potential Pareto improvement available? On the contrary, they have strong reasons to insist at least on the lion’s share, and plausibly even on maximizing their gains, relative only to the constraint that the arrangement can continue long enough to maximally benefit them.

On the other hand, the security without sacrifice argument ignores another huge issue. It assumes that the only things on the table are Pareto improvements relative to the initial baseline. Yet, this may not be so. Once the Mafia gain a foothold in your life by threatening your business, they may find other avenues for extortion. For example, they may threaten your family, including by drawing them into their activities. This may even be the most important aspect of extortionists’ behavior, namely their tendency to colonize their victims’ lives in ways that are increasingly pervasive and dominating. (Among other things, this makes the conclusion that you should pay off the Mafia much less secure.)

When we return to climate extortion, the parallels should be both clear and disturbing. First, under the GAP, there is a range of possible Pareto improvements, and no reason to believe that the current generation will content itself with the modest or moderate ends of the spectrum. In fact, there is every reason to believe the opposite.

Second, given this, the thought that future people will also see an ‘improvement’ is not particularly encouraging. The baseline for making them better off is low, and probably catastrophic. Therefore, almost anything counts.

Third, importantly, this point is obscured by the baseline for what counts as a ‘sacrifice.’ For one thing, the current generation’s baseline is high, and the future generations’ low. For another, the ambiguity of ‘sacrifice’ encourages the misunderstanding that all that is on the table is modest baselines for the current generation, such as ‘better off than now’ and ‘better off than under adequate conditions for flourishing.’ Such baselines may invoke only a right to self-defense, not a generous license for extortion (Gardiner and Weisbach Reference Gardiner and Weisbach2016, 122–125).

Fourth, the talk of Pareto improvement is itself misleading and dangerous. On the one hand, it has no clear intuitive point when applied to catastrophic baselines. On the other hand, and more importantly, the actual strategy for implementing ‘efficiency without sacrifice’ opens the door to further extortion, perhaps in a dramatic way. Once an extortionate generation gets hold of the ability to ‘borrow from the future’ so extensively, what is to stop it from demanding more and more, maximizing its gains? Among other things, this should give current advocates for future generations serious misgivings about ‘letting the economists lose’ on creating new institutions that facilitate shifting resources from the future to the present. Perhaps doing so simply amounts to giving the climate mafia more weapons to use against future people.

I conclude that the initial case against making the grandchildren pay is serious, and implies that the GAP and arguments like it are insufficient. Although it may be possible to justify passing some climate burdens to the future, the GAP is radically unbounded and so opens a door to extreme forms of extortion. Consequently, other arguments are needed to make proposals similar to Broome’s at all attractive, and these must ultimately be ethical arguments. In particular, we must specify the ethical criteria that ‘making the grandchildren pay’ must satisfy in order to count as morally reasonable. Such criteria may invoke a variety of ethical standards of different normative strengths, such as the broadly acceptable, the minimally decent, or perhaps the tolerably indecent (Gardiner Reference Gardinerforthcoming). However, some such requirements are necessary. Without them, proposals such as ‘efficiency without sacrifice’ pose profound risks to future people since they are compatible not just with extortion but with extreme extortion. In practice, they may also facilitate making the situation of future people much worse than under even severe climate change, since they may serve as cover for providing the current generation with additional means with which to extort the future.

3.4. Enthusiastic approaches

Overtly concessive arguments such as ‘efficiency without sacrifice’ sometimes implicitly appeal to a more enthusiastic argument for transfers from future people. The most obvious way of resisting the parallel between the NAP and GAP is to argue that there is a key difference: whereas the NAP targets the poor (countries), the GAP targets the rich (future generations). Targeting such people, the thought goes, makes the exertion of intergenerational power in the GAP defensible. On this view, taking resources from the rich is morally laudable. There are two central reasons: one is that the exertion of intergenerational power increases welfare across generations; the other that it enhances respect for equality equality and thereby promotes justice.Footnote ³⁰

The rough form of the welfare argument for intergenerational transfers is straightforward:

1. (1) Our goal should be to promote welfare.

2. (2) Future generations will be richer than the current generation.

3. (3) Other things being equal, a transfer of resources from future generations to the current generation would promote welfare more in the current generation than leaving those resources in the hands of future people would promote welfare in the future.

4. (4) Such a transfer is possible.

5. (5) Our strategy for promoting welfare should be to transfer resources from future generations to the current generation.

The welfare argument may be defended in a number of ways. One basic rationale is easy to grasp, and seems compelling. On many views, wealth has declining marginal utility: the richer you are, the less welfare you get from an additional unit of wealth. Therefore, other things being equal, if the objective is to promote welfare, it is better to allocate additional resources to those with less welfare.

The rough form of equality argument for intergenerational transfers is also straightforward:

1. (1) All persons should be treated as moral equals.

2. (2) Therefore, persons in different generations should be treated as moral equals.

3. (3) Being treated as a moral equal requires having equal access to resources (broadly speaking).

4. (4) Other things being equal, members of future generations will have more access to resources than members of the current generation.

5. (5) Transfers of resources from future generations to the current generation are possible.

6. (6) Resources should be transferred from future generations to the current generation.

The equality argument may also be defended in numerous ways. One basic rationale is easy to grasp and initially compelling. The time at which a person is born ought to have no relevance to how that person fares in comparison with others, especially in terms of fundamental entitlements (e.g. luck egalitarianism). Therefore, other things being equal, intergenerational inequalities in such entitlements violate basic moral equality. If it is possible to rectify such inequalities, this should be done.Footnote ³¹

As simple and straightforward as the two arguments are, they stand in stark contrast to a number of propositions that many of us usually embrace about intergenerational relations.Footnote ³² Let me simply list these propositions, roughly in increasing order of strength:Footnote ³³

1. (1) Non-neutrality: It is not morally problematic in itself if future generations are better off than us (i.e. the current generation).

2. (2) Promoting Future Resources: We should promote the access of future generations to resources and opportunities, so that this is better than our own.

3. (3) Promoting Future Welfare: We should promote the welfare of future generations, including by doing what we can to ensure that it is higher than ours.

4. (4) Duty to the Future: We owe it to future generations to provide more for them than we ourselves have.

5. (5) Fundamental Duty to the Future: We owe future generations more than we ourselves have out of basic concern for them as moral equals.

At first glance, the enthusiastic (welfare and equality) arguments above have radical implications for these claims of commonsense morality. They suggest that cultural norms that endorse intergenerational inequalities should be repudiated. In other words, we should instigate a cultural revolution against the usual intergenerational ethical norms.

The moral status of such a cultural revolution might be understood in different ways. On one view, future people have no entitlement to a superior position; consequently, a shift in intergenerational resources to the present is not extortionate since it violates no defensible moral norms. On another view, while it may be true that intergenerational shifts violate defensible moral norms, and so are extortionate, these norms are less important than the values promoted by the enthusiastic arguments, so that such extortion is justifiable. For instance, perhaps the commonsense intergenerational norms are akin to the conventional property rights of King John and the Norman aristocracy in medieval England. Robin Hood violates such norms, but (at least according to legend) his extortionate actions are justifiable, indeed laudable, in light of more important values and the wider social context. Thus, even though it involves extortion, perhaps we have similarly good moral reasons to become intergenerational Robin Hoods.

3.5. Limits

In summary, we face a standoff between commonsense morality and what core values of moral and political philosophy seem to imply. I will not resolve that standoff here. What I will do is suggest that a concern for resisting intergenerational extortion can inform a reply.

The concern for intra-generational extortion in the NAP suggests that a key worry is the relevant baseline. Paradigm extortion cases are morally problematic because they exploit vulnerabilities that reflect morally inappropriate baselines. For instance, the protection racketeer exploits the baseline of a superior capacity for physical violence. Similarly, the NAP fails because richer countries exploit key background vulnerabilities (e.g. poverty) of those countries most susceptible to negative climate impacts. The GAP is problematic for a parallel reason: the current generation exploits the vulnerability of future generations to its asymmetric temporal power.

Given this, the most obvious first move is to argue that an exertion of intergenerational power is unjustified because it violates entitlements, including fundamental entitlements, of future generations. For example, suppose future generations have key rights, such as to subsistence, basic security, and so on. If the GAP allows the current generation to threaten such rights and receive ‘compensation’ on these grounds, then it looks like a core case of extortion since it compromises the most morally relevant baseline.

This move is important both theoretically and in practice. It will cover many cases of extortion and should be investigated further. Nevertheless, there are reasons to think that entitlement baselines will not cover all the extortion that might concern us. One reason is that it is not clear that we should expect every case of extortion to correspond to some independently specifiable entitlement of the victim. Instead, some threats, though illegitimate, seem not to be threats to the independent entitlements of victims.Footnote ³⁴ One sign of this is that attempts to enumerate the necessary entitlements sometimes seem a stretch. For instance, they introduce new rights (say) which seem rather distant from more central rights, and whose content risks appearing ad hoc (e.g. perhaps the ‘right to a stable climate’).

One place where this worry surfaces is in the apocryphal Soprano case on college admission. Suppose we ask what independent entitlement of the Soprano family Tony thinks the Dean has violated. The answer is not obvious. Moreover, even if such an entitlement could be found, it is not clear that it would provide the right kind of story. For example, presumably there is a right to equal opportunity in college admission, or at least to a fair process in admission. Suppose that the Dean violates such entitlements, and therefore is guilty of official extortion (‘the use of official authority as a pretext or cover for the commission of some corrupt or vicious act’ (Lindgren Reference Lindgren1993)). Still, it is not clear that this amounts to extortion of the Sopranos, in the sense of coercive extortion, ‘extortion by threats or fear.’ Notice the implicit suggestion is that Tony’s daughter will receive an extra advantage in admission if the ‘donation’ is made. Therefore, the Dean is offering a benefit to the Sopranos rather than threatening them,Footnote ³⁵ and, it is unclear how this offer of a benefit could count as violating their entitlements (e.g. as opposed to those of other students). Nevertheless, Tony’s view of the situation – that he is being ‘shaken down’ – seems plausible. So, we need an alternative explanation.Footnote ³⁶

We might get some insight if we look at other examples of extortion which do not center on threats to those being extorted. First, it is not clear that anyone’s entitlements need to be at stake for the problem of extortion to arise. For instance, suppose the extortionist threatens an entity without entitlements, such as an artifact and a place of historical importance. Suppose, for example, that the threat is to blow up Stonehenge, level Machu Picchu, or deface the Pyramids.Footnote ³⁷ These cases seem extortionate; yet, there are no direct entitlements at stake (e.g. Stonehenge does not have rights). Instead, the key issue seems rather different.Footnote ³⁸

In general, and without delving into deeper theory, we might say that archeological or cultural extortion involves taking an inappropriate baseline for demanding compensation, and that respecting better baselines involves withholding various kinds of threats.Footnote ³⁹ As one way of fleshing this out, we might add that part of what seems morally outrageous here is that the extortionate demands violate important norms of responsibility, and responsibility in general, not responsibility specifically tied to entitlements.Footnote ⁴⁰ In the Stonehenge case, those of us who are extorted may believe that part of what has gone wrong is simply that such threats ought not to be made. In particular, we may say that all of us have some generalized responsibilities to protect items of significant cultural value, which includes a responsibility not to make destructive threats. Notably, those who threaten Stonehenge not only fail to fulfill their own responsibilities, but must rely on the rest of us to acknowledge that we have such responsibilities if the extortion is to succeed.Footnote ⁴¹

The idea that certain threats (and offers) should not be made may also explain Tony’s reaction to the Dean’s proposals in the two cases with which we began. In the first case, Tony claims that his daughter is being held hostage, that there is an inappropriate threat to her well-being. In the second (apocryphal) case, the offer is also inappropriate, regardless of the benefit to the Sopranos of admission because universities should not run in such a way. In both cases, the philosophical action is in the inappropriateness of the threat or offer. While some of this inappropriateness may depend on the violation of entitlements, some may not.

In this vein, consider a second case recounted by Stephen Sachs:

Sachs believes most people will count this as extortion. However, he recognizes that the standard law of extortion does not cover such cases, and so he advocates changing the law.Footnote ⁴²

I agree with Sachs that Toby’s case is at least a strong candidate for a case of extortion. However, the point I want to make is that the entitlement view does not provide the most compelling explanation of this. Consider three quick points.

First, Toby’s owner does not appear to violate any entitlement of the victims of the extortion. Perhaps he violates Toby’s entitlements by making an illegitimate threat, or perhaps he undermines his relationship with Toby by acting in a way antithetical to that of a good pet owner. Even so, the human victims of the extortion themselves do not appear to have any entitlement that Toby be well-treated, or even unthreatened. They do not have any independent entitlement, nor do they have any entitlement based on their relationship to Toby. The rabbit himself and his entitlements are just too distant from them.

Second, even if the human third parties did have some kind of indirect entitlement, it is doubtful that this would be sufficient to turn the case into one of extortion. In particular, if the owner has at least a legal right to eat his rabbit, this would normally trump the concerns of other humans. Given this, entitlement views struggle to explain why this is even a candidate case of extortion.Footnote ⁴³

Third, the responsibility view does better. Suppose we all have at least a weak generalized responsibility to protect innocent animals (or perhaps pets specifically), which includes a responsibility not to make unnecessary destructive threats. When Toby’s owner threatens the rabbit, he fails to acknowledge this responsibility (as well as his special responsibilities of care as the pet owner). Notably, if his attempt at extortion is to succeed, he must also implicitly rely on the rest of us acknowledging that we have such generalized responsibilities.

Putting all this together, I have argued that baselines that reflect illegitimate demands are platforms for extortion, and that the heart of the matter lies not in entitlements alone, but in the wider question of illegitimate threats (and offers). This opens a door to understanding why the enthusiastic arguments for intergenerational redistribution may not be decisive. Although we can see why resource shifts may be desirable on grounds of values such as welfare and equality considered in isolation, this is not yet sufficient to justify them. Perhaps threatening Stonehenge or pet rabbits could also serve such ends. Yet, we do not normally even consider such proposals; instead, we think that they rest on illegitimate threats that are ruled out from the beginning. Generic proposals to ‘make the grandchildren pay’ may make a similar mistake. For instance, they may violate important intergenerational responsibilities, including perhaps those involved in the propositions from commonsense morality.