Ewan Kingston: Joyguzzling, Consumer Ethics, and the Philosophical Foundation for Climate Debates

Ewan Kingston is a Postdoctoral Research Associate at Princeton High Meadows Environmental Institute and the University Center of Human Values. He works at the intersection of political philosophy, business ethics, and environmental ethics. He has focused on climate change and global supply chains, as well as on the interplay of markets and democracy to outline legitimate and effective institutional designs to solve complex collective action problems. The long conversation between Ewan and Tiger touches on topics ranging from the justification of “joyguzzling” to consumers’ obligations to remedy their purchase of tainted goods.

Ewan defines joyguzzling as “joyriding in a gas guzzler,” an activity that one emits greenhouse gases (GHGs) solely in order to enjoy oneself. Ewan and his co-author and philosopher Walter Sinnott-Armstrong argue that there is no moral requirement to refrain from joyguzzling. They acknowledge that climate change is real and needs to be addressed, but they pose a nuanced philosophical question as to the exact nature of individuals’ responsibility and obligation to contributing to carbon emissions.

Some believe that carbon emissions are only harmful in an aggregative and emergent way, and individual emissions do not impose harm on the environment. Therefore, when someone contributes a relatively infinitesimal amount of carbon emission because of a joyride, this person shouldn’t be blamed for the nearly negligible amount of harm they’re causing for the environment. “Just as individual molecules of oil do not cause parts of sensations of sliminess (or yellowish color), so individual molecules of greenhouse gas do not cause parts of dangerous climate impacts.”

Ewan argues that the scientific community cannot answer how exactly a singular joyguzzling activity harms the Earth, and the notion of contribution through the emergent property should not be sufficient to constitute moral blame for the individual emission. We dive deep into his path-breaking philosophy journal and all the important implications these environmental ethics debates may have on policy and social norms.

In relation to environmental ethics, we also discuss consumer ethics. Ewan writes that most consumers buy some “tainted goods” – those that have upstream practices that are morally bad in a significant sense, like chicken from factory farming or roses picked by children exposed to highly toxic pesticides in underdeveloped countries. Ewan has been developing a moral account that privileges contributing to positive structural changes over shunning bad goods and selecting the “right” goods. He advocates that we should think about channeling the unruly benefits and actively compensate for the harm we’ve already caused, rather than obsessing over eliminating the side-effects altogether, which seems to be a goal too unrealistic to achieve.

This interview is part of our ongoing “Aspiring Intellectuals” special coverage, where we interview scholars about more foundational questions in their fields and deal more with the abstract than with concrete questions.

Ewan Kingston