Abstract

In Reasons and Persons, Derek Parfit presents a number of Many-person Prisoner’s Dilemmas and explores how they can be solved. Of particular interest are Contributors’ Dilemmas, where each member of some group has a choice between two acts: contributing to some public good (available for all regardless of whether they have contributed or not), or defecting.

The dilemma is this: even if someone contributes more to the good than what he pays, he may not himself benefit enough from his contribution to repay his costs. Thus, it may be better for each not to contribute; and this may be so whatever others do. But if fewer contribute, less good is available for each; and if none contribute, no good will be produced. Many environmental problems appear to pose this dilemma, climate change being one of them. A solution would be to get most, or better, everyone to contribute.

Standard solutions are political; the choice situation is changed, such that the self-interested behavior no longer is the best option for each (by installing economic incentives) or becomes impossible (by legal prohibitions).

However, Parfit suggests that moral solutions, where everyone’s motivation is changed into a suitable moral one, often would be better than political solutions, because unlike these they do not need enforcement and can thus be more effective; and in some cases, they may be the only attainable solutions.  Parfit is particularly interested in the solution where everyone becomes more altruistic, i.e. choose out of concern for the good of everyone. If everyone became sufficiently altruistic, each would choose to contribute to the public good, he claims.

But what exactly does an altruistic solution look like, and how could it be brought about? Parfit does not say much about that. The aim of this paper is to answer these questions. I shall proceed using climate change as an example. The public good is here avoidance of harm, and the solution of the dilemma, political as well as moral, must consist in achieving some form of self-restraint concerning activities that involve emissions of greenhouse gases.