In this article I want to suggest that much of the use we make of fossil-fuelled cars might be morally wrong, or at the very least ought to be subject to serious moral assessment. Rather than adopting just one kind of ethical framework, though, I will try to show that the non-essential driving of fossil-fuelled cars is morally questionable according to reasonable interpretations of four major contemporary approaches in moral philosophy: the doctrine of double effect, utilitarianism, contractualism, and virtue ethics.
Double Effect Driving
Driving a fossil-fuelled car (or even just turning on the engine) causes harms of many different kinds. It pollutes the air, exacerbating symptoms of cardiovascular diseases and releasing carcinogens; it intensifies greenhouse effects, such as climate change; it increases the risk of killing, injuring, and maiming people; it reduces the public space available for other uses; it generates noise pollution and stress; it maintains sedentary lifestyles; and so on.
I take it that, all other things being equal, causing harm is morally wrong. There is no plausible ethical framework that suggests that we ought to cause harm without further justification. But causing harm can nevertheless be justified within different ethical frameworks in different ways. We will look at four ways in which the harm-caused by driving fossil-fuelled cars might be justified.
Consider, for a baseline moral assessment, idling, where a car has its engine running without the car moving. It is illegal in the UK and elsewhere to idle your engine unnecessarily.
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The Two Dennises
Hannah Mortimer observes a close encounter of the same kind.
Heraclitus (c.500 BC)
Harry Keith lets flow a stream of ideas about permanence and change.
Does the Cosmos Have a Purpose?
Raymond Tallis argues intently against universal intention.
Is Driving Fossil-Fuelled Cars Immoral?
Rufus Duits asks when we can justify driving our carbon contributors.
Abelard & Carneades Yes & No
Frank Breslin says 'yes and no' to presenting both sides of an argument.
Frankl & Sartre in Search of Meaning
Georgia Arkell compares logotherapy and atheistic existentialism.
Luce Irigaray
Luce Irigaray, now ninety-two years old, was, among many other things, one of the most impactful feminists of the 1970s liberation movements - before she was marginalised, then ostracised, from the francophone intellectual sphere.
Significance
Ruben David Azevedo tells us why, in a limitless universe, we’re not insignificant.
The Present Is Not All There Is To Happiness
Rob Glacier says don’t just live in the now.
Philosophers Exploring The Good Life
Jim Mepham quests with philosophers to discover what makes a life good.