Rawls and Climate Change:

Does Rawlsian Political Philosophy Pass the Global Test?1

Stephen M. Gardiner
Department of Philosophy and Program on Values in Society
University of Washington, Seattle
DRAFT
Comments welcome: smgard@u.washington.edu
I begin with an assumption which few would deny, but about which
many are in denial: human beings are transforming Earth in ways
that are devastating for other forms of life, future human beings,
and many of our human contemporaries.
Dale Jamieson2
However concerned they are in practice, at the level of theory most political philosophers remain
unperturbed by global environmental change in general, and climate change in particular. For some, this
is because they believe that these are just normal political problems, perplexing in their scale perhaps, but
not of a new, or fundamentally different kind that requires special treatment. For others, it is because they
hold that, to the extent that global environmental woes are distinctive, some version of the dominant
political philosophy of the day the Rawlsian approach will inevitably emerge to deal with them.3
Elsewhere I have tried to address the first attitude, arguing that it is guilty of a worrying theoretical
complacency.4 In this paper, I consider whether the Rawlsian approach is vulnerable to the same
objection. I begin by briefly describing why climate change constitutes a significant challenge to
contemporary political philosophy, and so why the threat of complacency emerges.5 Then, I critically
examine a variety of previous attempts to deal with environmental problems from within Rawls theory,
and argue that they do not succeed. Next, I suggest that the most promising avenues open to Rawlsians
lie in areas that have not yet been explored, but where his thought is very underdeveloped. This already
implies that complacency is unwarranted, since a successful development would be a major task, with
significant practical implications. However, I go on to claim that advancement in these areas is likely to
push us beyond the boundaries of Rawls own approach into new theoretical realms. If this is correct,
attempts to deal with problems like climate change are likely to be transformative, going beyond mere
extensions of the original theory in Rawls sense, to major augmentations to, or even a replacement of,
his approach. Given this, Rawlsians have extra reason to reject theoretical complacency, and rise to the
challenge posed by serious environmental problems.
Earlier versions of this paper were presented to the fellows seminar at the Center for Human Values at Princeton
University (2005), and at conferences at the Universities of Bremen (2005), Oslo (2008) and Reading (2007). I am
grateful to those audiences, and especially to Justin DArms, Gideon Calder, Nir Eyal, Ellen Marie Forsberg, Espen
Gamlund, Axel Gosseries, Dale Jamieson, Stephen Macedo, Lukas Meyer, Cara Nine, and Philip Pettit. For further
comments, I am especially grateful to Alyssa Berstein, Katie Eyre, Asia Ferrin, Mark Le Bar, Catriona McKinnon
and Bill Talbott. I thank Lauren Hartzell and Clark Wolf for permission to discuss work of theirs that was not yet in
print at the time of writing.
2
Jamieson 2007, 160.
3
I am frequently asked questions like this by students and audiences. But I am grateful to Stephen Macedo for
pressing them most forcefully.
4
Gardiner 2010a; see also Gardiner forthcoming, 2006, 2004a.
5
Though my discussion will focus on climate change, much of it is relevant to global environmental change more
generally (including, for example, ocean acidification, and the intersection of human population and environmental
degradation), and to other global threats (such as major asteroid collisions and severe pandemics).
1

I should emphasize at the outset that my main aim is to start a conversation, rather than finish one.
Having some sympathy for the Rawlsian approach, but also grave environmental concerns, I hope to
rouse other sympathizers from their current dogmatic slumber about global environmental issues. To
do so, I offer a critical overview of the most central options apparently available to Rawsians for dealing
with an issue like climate change. This overview reveals the options to be both various (raising questions
about which should be pursued), and open to substantial challenges (raising questions about whether any
is likely to succeed). Inevitably, since this is an overview, the objections I put forward will require
further discussion and elaboration. Still, an initial foray should be sufficient to impose a burden of proof
on the Rawlsian, and this is enough for present purposes. Ideally, some will be prompted to defend the
views I criticize, others will try to find other ways to extend Rawls for climate change, and still others
will want to press further in the new directions I suggest. In my view, such a discussion is well worth
having, and constitutes a useful first step in overcoming theoretical complacency.
I. A Reality Check
Many of the most compelling scientific presentations on climate change begin with images of the Earth as
viewed from space, and comparisons of its atmosphere and surface conditions with those of Mars and
Venus, its near neighbors. In my view, this approach is not just superficially effective, but also deeply
appropriate. From a moral and political point of view, as well as from the scientific, this is simply the
right place to begin.
How might one make sense of this thought? One possibility is to start with a claim that I shall call the
Perspective of Humanity:
The basic position of human individuals is that of members of a recently-evolved species on a small
planet in an otherwise inhospitable solar system, amidst a vast, and currently unreachable universe.
At present, the only viable home for the human species and for all (known) others is the planet on
which we reside. But humans have attained unprecedented power over the planet, and now have the
ability to influence profoundly the basic physical and ecological systems that support life as we know
it.
In my view, this claim captures fundamental facts about our situation that must be respected by moral and
political theories. These facts pose questions about how we are to understand ourselves and how we are
to act. Moreover, it is natural to think that such questions are fundamental to social and political
philosophy, in the sense that our responses to them frame and limit the answers we may give to other
pressing social and political questions, such as how we are to live our own lives, and what we owe to
contemporaries of our own species. As a consequence, accepting the perspective of humanity implies
believing that there are approaches to social and political questions that are incomplete, misguided, and
even unacceptable. In addition, it suggests that, in at least some settings, ignoring the perspective
altogether will not constitute an adequate defense.
The perspective of humanity poses a challenge to much contemporary work in moral and political theory.
It raises questions about humanitys relationship to nonhuman nature (i.e., to other animals, to plants, to
ecosystems, and so on), about the relationship between particular humans and their societies as mediated
through nonhuman nature, and also about how we understand the intersection of these domains. In the
end, I am not confident that such questions are fully separable. Still, in this paper, I will assume that our
subject is restricted to the second issue the relationship between humans as mediated through nature.6
Given the scope and aims of the paper, this simplifying assumption does not seem prejudicial; on the
contrary, it is extremely generous. For one thing, as far as I know, no one including Rawls himself 6

I thank Bill Talbott for recommending this restriction.

2

believes that he has the resources to address the first or third questions.7 For another, though it may be
possible to enrich the understanding of the Rawlsian moves I will consider by calling on distinctively
natural concerns, it is hardly necessary: as far as I can tell, all of them would be compatible with the
eventual paving of the planet so that humanity could live in huge artificial domes. This is a deep
problem, and one that many will conclude must doom the Rawlsian project from the start. But here I will
simply note it, and move on.
How might we focus the general concern about human relations mediated through nature that emerges
from the perspective of humanity? Elsewhere, I have described one (very limited) strategy: social and
political systems that is, social and political institutions, and the theories that support them should be
subject to a minimal global test.8 The basic idea of the test is as follows. Suppose that human life on this
planet were subject to some serious threat. Suppose also that this threat was both caused by human
activities, but also preventable by changes in those activities. Suppose then that existing social and
political systems had both allowed this threat to emerge and then shown themselves to be incapable of
adequately responding to it. According to the global test, this fact would count as a criticism of those
systems, and one potentially fatal to their acceptability.9
Does climate change bring on the global test? There are strong prima facie reasons to think so. First, it is
hard to deny that the potential impacts are serious even potentially catastrophic and that this implies
that existing social and political institutions may struggle to address them.10 Second, the shape of the
problem is such as to pose a serious challenge to social and political institutions. In particular, climate
change involves a nasty convergence of problems for ethical action that elsewhere I call a perfect moral
storm. In short, it is a genuinely global and crucially intergenerational collective action problem in a
setting where our understanding of the issues is theoretically underdeveloped and open to moral
corruption. Such a setting, I argue, poses a severe threat to humanitys ability to behave as it should, and
also to political theory.11
If climate change brings on the global test, there is good reason to think that existing social and political
institutions are already failing to meet it. We have known for nearly twenty years that there is a real
possibility that climate change may result in serious or catastrophic impacts. Yet, the period from 1990
(the IPCCs first assessment report) to 2007 (its fourth) has been characterized by rapidly accelerating
global emissions (an increase of more than 30% to date) and continued investment in emissions-intensive
infrastructure. Though much political effort and good will has been expended on the Kyoto Protocol, this
has achieved little of substance, and incorporates serious structural flaws likely to be damaging to further

For some complications, see Bell 2006, who focuses on Rawls remarks about majority voting on environmental
issues (cf. Rawls 2001, 152, n. 26). In my view, this approach does not seem sufficient even for the case Rawls
considers, federal funding for national parks. Consider, for example, a proposal to turn the Grand Canyon over to
the private sector so that it might be turned into a skateboard park. It is hard to believe that this is most
appropriately left to a simple vote based on the comprehensive doctrines of a particular generation of American
legislators. Surely there are important values to be considered here which are not obviously best treated in this way:
values reflected, for example, in the designation of the Grand Canyon as a World Heritage center (a site of
outstanding universal value) by UNESCO. (I say more in the longer version of this paper, and the footnote
below.)
8
The remainder of this section summarizes parts of Gardiner 2010a.
9
Is failure of the test less damning if the systems were designed for other purposes, and the production was
unintentional? Perhaps. But notice (below) that relevant criticisms include those of obliviousness, complacency,
and the abdication of fundamental responsibilities. Thus, ignorance has its limits as a line of defense.
10
For a more precise account of the threat, see Gardiner 2010a.
11
Gardiner 2006.
7

progress.12 Moreover, at the time of writing, there is much rhetoric, but little actual political or social
progress towards a meaningful replacement.
Given this, it seems apt to describe humanitys dominant ongoing strategy for dealing with climate
change as one of accept and endure.13 By accept, I mean a policy of addressing the causes of
climate change that consists in allowing them to continue unchecked without any serious attempt to
control their magnitude. By endure, I mean a policy of making no meaningful attempts to prepare for
the impacts of climate change (in terms of preventing, mitigating, or getting ready to offset or cope with
their implications), but instead simply being resigned to taking what comes. In my view, the persistence
of the accept and endure strategy already constitutes a serious failure of the global test on the part of
current social and political systems. Should this strategy continue into the future, the failure will likely
become severe.
While the charge of failure applies most directly to current social and political institutions14, it also has
implications for how we evaluate social and political theories. Some theories are already indirectly
implicated insofar as they are often invoked to support existing arrangements.15 But it is less clear
whether any are directly implicated, especially since advocates will inevitably complain that their favorite
theories are imperfectly instantiated in the real world. Still, there are some general reasons for concern.
One is the deafening silence of most contemporary theories on topics such as climate change in particular,
and the relevance of the perspective of humanity and the global test more generally. Indeed, this apparent
obliviousness appears to be a significant vice of such theories.
A further vice is what one might call the methodological complacency of many approaches. Some
advocates will say that their favorite theories must in principle address global threats, simply because the
concerns at the heart of those theories such as utility, human rights, or the preservation of a distinctive
culture must be severely affected by severe or catastrophic impacts. There is something right about
this: surely such concerns would be badly affected, and this accounts for a major part of our worries about
global threats. Still, as a response from within political theory, it remains deeply unsatisfactory.
This concern is difficult to pin down precisely. However, loosely-speaking, we might say that there is
simply something too opaque, ex post, and evasive about the response which makes it too complacent to
bear. Even if, at the foundational level, some theories are shielded from the global test to some extent,
this is not comforting. We want theories especially political theories that actually address the
fundamental problems that we face, and that tell us how and why they address them. To put the point
strongly, we can imagine someone complaining: It is not enough to offer vague assurances that a
political theory could, or even must in principle, address our fundamental problems, albeit from some
extremely abstract point of view. Theories that are complacent or evasive in this sense fail the global test
because of it (despite their friends protestations otherwise). Indeed, they are guilty of a form of
isolationism and imperviousness to the basic concerns of political life that amounts to a central abdication
of responsibility.16

Gardiner 2004b.
Catriona McKinnon suggests to me that deny and ignore might be more apt.
14
Dryzek 1987 is relevant here.
15
E.g., economic utilitarianism, libertarianism, communitarianism, nationalism and Rawlsian liberalism.
16
We need not deny that some level of abstraction has its virtues, in that it allows theories to transcend many
irrelevant and tangential contextual features of real situations. The claim here is that what is at stake in issues such
as climate change is central in such a way that current abstractions leave out something essential.
12
13

II. Why Rawls?

Is Rawlsian liberalism vulnerable to such objections?17 Perhaps not. Rawls approach has at least three
features that make it attractive in this context. First, Rawls has a fundamental methodological
commitment to realism that resonates well with the perspective of humanity. He characterizes his
political theory as realistically utopian, in the sense that it extends what are ordinarily thought to be the
limits of practicable political possibility and, in doing so, reconciles us to our political and social
condition.18 This aim of reconciliation to our basic circumstances is central to the appeal of the
perspective of humanity, and Rawls framework contains an explicit commitment to this ideal.
Second, Rawls considers the possibility that there may be issues that his theory does not address, and
suggests a framework for dealing with them. To begin with, like other conventional political theorists,
Rawls treats environmental issues as minor secondary issues, an afterthought at best. But he also
suggests a rationale for this approach in his distinction between the fundamental question of political
justice, and other questions we can discuss later.19 For Rawls, the fundamental question of political
justice is: [W]hat is the most appropriate conception of justice for specifying the terms of social
cooperation between citizens regarded as free and equal, and as normal and fully cooperating members of
society over a complete life?20 Rawls calls the other, deferrable questions, problems of extension.
These include intergenerational justice, international justice, justice for those with disabilities, and what
is owed to animals and to the rest of nature.21
This method suggests a certain attitude to those questions Rawls regards as extensions. (This attitude
does not appear to be exactly Rawls own for reasons mentioned at the end of the paper but it is worth
isolating nonetheless, to see what might be at stake.) The attitude consists of two main assumptions. The
first is that the central account of justice operates within a largely autonomous sphere with respect to the
problems of extension.22 In particular, the role of extensions is minor in at least the following senses: (a)
whatever revisions to the central (unextended) account those extensions may require, these cannot be
serious enough to undermine the point of initially considering Rawls fundamental question in isolation;
and (b) reflection on the extensions does not significantly alter the shape of the main conclusions of
Rawls central account. The second assumption is that to the extent that there is interaction between the
central account and the extensions, the central account predominantly frames how other questions are
answered, and not the other way around. In other words, the main direction of influence is from the
fundamental to the extended areas. On the whole, we should expect the methods and principles
characteristic of the fundamental sphere to be projected outwards, rather than expecting issues of
extension to provoke important revisions of the fundamental theory.
This framework presents a natural way in which to understand the challenge posed to Rawls theory by
the global test. The basic question will be whether Rawls central account, which applies to a single
society and the terms of cooperation between its members, can be successfully extended to deal with
There are good general reasons for focusing on the Rawlsian approach. For one thing, it is arguably the most
influential philosophical theory of the day when it comes to global problems, and it is comparatively well-worked
out in detail. For another, versions of it appeal to a wide variety of audiences. For example, Rawls own
international theory - the Law of Peoples has some appeal for communitarians and nationalists, whilst many of his
cosmopolitan critics accept much of his domestic framework and want simply to export it to the global level. (See
Rawls 1999a.)
18
Rawls, 1999, 11.
19
Rawls, 1993, 20.
20
Rawls, 1993, 20.
21
Rawls, 1993, 21.
22
The assumption that there are such spheres is unusual. Utilitarians and libertarians, for example, do not typically
reason in this way.
17

threats of global failure and in such a way as to appropriately respect the perspective of humanity.
Moreover, it is easy to see why climate change emerges as a natural test case for this framework. After
all, it involves the intersection of three of the areas Rawls identifies as left out of the core account
(international and intergenerational justice, and humanitys relationship to the rest of nature), and given
the possibility of the severe and catastrophic impacts it does so in a particularly serious way.
The third attractive feature of Rawls view emerges from the fact that it aims to integrate various distinct
theoretical concerns within a detailed and definite hierarchical structure. Let us begin by reviewing this
structure. First, Rawls envisions different levels of political theorizing: he distinguishes the
preconstitutional from the constitutional, the constitutional from the legislative, and the legislative from
the judicial. Second, he believes that different levels are to be treated independently of one another, at
least in the initial construction of the theory.23 Thus, preconstitutional reasoning is prior to, and
constrains, constitutional reasoning; constitutional reasoning is prior to and constrains legislative
reasoning; and so on. Third, he thinks that different kinds of political argument are appropriate both to
different levels - for example, considerations that would be appropriate for the lawmaker to consider are
not appropriate for the judge and also within the more detailed substructure of the same level - for
example, in preconstitutional argument, some considerations are appropriate to the construction of the
original position, some are appropriate to deliberation within the original position, and still others are
appropriate to assessing the original position itself (together with the principles of justice it produces)
against other possible circumstances of choice (and their associated principles).
Rawls highly structured approach to political reasoning is appealing for three reasons. First, it seems
promising if we are to avoid the problems of opacity and evasiveness faced by more abstract
characterizations of theories. In particular, we get beyond the mere assertion that theory X must
ultimately and in principle address catastrophic climate change to questions about where and how.
Second, the approacg implies that some political concerns are more fundamental than others, and so
suggests a framework within which we might be able to articulate the kind of basic importance gestured
at by the global test and perspective of humanity. Third, such a framework need not be of partisan
interest only. Given the problems of opacity and obliviousness, theorists of other stripes may want to pay
close attention to issues of structure, and Rawls framework is of interest here, even if one does not accept
Rawls reasons for it.
Given the basic appeal of Rawls approach, it is perhaps surprising that for most of the last thirty years a
period in which serious environmental concerns were politically prominent - neither Rawls himself, nor
the otherwise voluminous writings inspired by his approach, have paid much attention to the natural
environment. Recently, however, a few Rawlsian theorists have tried to modify or extend the theory,
largely in response to climate change. They have done so at a variety of different levels. In what follows,
I will briefly consider some of these approaches.
Though attempts to extend Rawls so as to deal with climate change are in their infancy, I hope that this
discussion will serve a number of purposes. First, in making clear that arguments can be made at various
levels, it will show that it is not enough to focus on just one part of Rawls and assert that extending that
part will solve the problem. One of the tasks at hand is to explain which component (or combination of
components) of the Rawlsian framework should be extended and why, and how this should be done.
Second, though each proposal is considered on its own terms, the criticisms will be suggestive of more
general limits on extensions at each level. Third, this discussion will make plausible the claim that the
best bet for extending Rawls is in the hitherto neglected area of external interventions. Nevertheless,
fourth, it will suggest that such interventions pose a serious challenge to the extension model.
23

Later, of course, the theory as a whole is subjected to evaluation through wide reflective equilibrium.
6

III. Internal Modifications

The first category of extensions is that of internal modifications.24 These take particular components of
Rawls theory and try to adjust them to meet environmental concerns.
1. Primary Goods
One option is to extend Rawls account of social primary goods. This is initially appealing. Since
primary goods are sometimes said by Rawls to be things it is rational to want whatever else one
wants25, they appear to capture a sense of the universal and underlying that seems apt for some
environmental concerns, and especially those associated with the global test. Still, it is not enough merely
to announce that the environmental factors constitute a primary good. Instead, the account must be spelled
out. For one thing, we need a rationale; for another, we need to know how this rationale manifests itself
in the Rawlsian hierarchy, presumably either within or in addition to the existing principles of justice
(which govern the other primary goods).
One suggestion, made by Russ Manning26, is that we add health to Rawls list of primary goods, link that
to the second principle of justice dealing with equality of opportunity, and then link both to a concern for
environmental resources. This is an interesting proposal; but there are reasons for hesitation.
First, the idea that environmental security falls under fair equality of opportunity, and so after the
principle of equal liberty, seems questionable. In particular, one might have thought that environmental
security was superior to some more traditional equality of opportunity considerations and perhaps at least
as important as the principle of equal liberty. For example, though both are important, isnt avoiding
catastrophic climate change more so than maintaining equal access to higher education?
Second, the idea that human concern for the natural environment derives solely from health is surprising.
Though no one would dispute the importance of health, or of environmental effects on health, there is
more to our situation with respect to the planet than this. For example, would humanitys interest in
nonhuman nature disappear if we had enough fancy pharmaceuticals to neutralize effects on health?27 It
seems not. But then Mannings approach seems too narrow and indirect to capture the importance of the
perspective of humanity, or the gravity of the global test.
Finally, there is a more general worry about primary goods extensions. Rawls specifically says that his
account of primary goods is embedded in a specifically liberal conception of society, and so has
application only within certain limited set of national boundaries.28 But this does not appear to do justice
to either the scope or the importance of the global test.

24

In the longer version of this paper, I also consider downstream interventions, where the issues are to be handled
through normal up and down voting procedures. Such an approach to environmental concerns is suggested by
Rawls 2001, 152, n. 26, and pursued by Bell 2006, 214-5. My main reason for rejecting it is that it seems too
contingent for problems such as climate change. After all, if the current generation of voters in a particular (perhaps
powerful) country do not care about some serious global threat, then this approach can only say is that this is too bad
(for future generations, other nations, and humanity at large). But for a political theory to treat global environmental
issues in this way seems an abdication of responsibility: if other important matters, such as individual rights and
opportunities in the current generation, cannot be left to an up and down majority vote, why should threats to
humanity at large?
25
Rawls 1973, 223.
26
Manning 1981, 160; quoted by Dobson 1998, 127. Dobson adds that this brings us to a concern for environmental
sustainability, understood as the conservation of crucial natural resources, such as water.
27
I thank Catriona McKinnon for this example.
28
Rawls 1999b, 386.
7

2. Basic Needs Principle

The second type of internal modification to consider is that of the principles of justice themselves. For
example, Clark Wolf points out that Rawls says:
the first principle covering the equal basic rights and liberties may easily be preceded by a
lexically prior principle requiring that citizens basic needs be met, at least insofar as their being met
is necessary for citizens to understand and to be able fruitfully to exercise [their] rights and liberties.
Certainly any such principle must be assumed in applying the first principle.29
Wolfs gloss on this paragraph is:
Satisfaction of basic needs is a precondition for the significance of the equal liberty principle and the
value of the rights and liberties it guarantees. Without a prior needs principle, the second principle of
justice would protect rights and liberties that might be valueless to those who possess them but who
lack any ability to exercise or understand them. Within Rawlss framework, this consideration gives
parties to the original position a strong reason to choose a needs principle first. It should also be a
compelling argument for those who may be skeptical of Rawls project. We have good reason to
accept that the objective to meet basic needs must be a fundamental priority for any plausible theory
of liberal justice.30
Hence, Wolf claims that Rawls is committed to a basic needs principle that is prior to what Rawls usually
calls his first principle of justice, the equal liberty principle. He goes on to argue that this is highly
relevant to a Rawlsian approach to climate change.
On the face of it, the basic needs principle looks like a better candidate for addressing the global test than
the equality of opportunity principle. In particular, it incorporates a fundamental concern for basic human
interests that might apply across societies rather than only within them. Still, there are reasons for
caution.
First, despite its textual basis, Wolfs move implies a radical revision of how Rawls theory is usually
understood, and one so radical as to cast serious doubt on its claim to be an extension of the position in
Rawls sense. If Rawls is really committed to a basic needs principle that has priority over all his other
principles, we might suspect that this would transform other parts of his theory. For example, as Wolf
points out, the argument for the difference principle might look different and perhaps be undermined - if
basic needs have already been guaranteed.31
The second reason for caution is that the needs principle is still generated out of the concerns of a
distinctively liberal society. Rawls ties both the rationale for the provision of basic needs and (therefore)
their content to the exercise of a specific set of rights and liberties. As Wolf puts it, the idea is that
without a prior needs principle, the second principle of justice would protect rights and liberties that
might be valueless to those who possess them32. Since the rights and liberties at stake here are those
protected by the principle of equal liberty, the link to liberal priorities is clear.

29

Rawls 1993, 7, emphasis added; see also p. 166, and pp. 228-9. Cited by Wolf (in press), 7. See also Peffer
1990.
30
Wolf (in press), 7; emphasis added.
31
Wolf (in press), 8.
32

REF
8

3. Territorial Obligations
The previous two approaches both focus on aspects of environmental concerns that relate to human
security. Still, each is limited in its purview to liberal societies. Since climate change is a genuinely
global problem, it is natural to look to Rawls international theory to overcome this deficiency. This is
the approach adopted by Lauren Hartzell33, who highlights Rawls imposition of a duty on peoples to
preserve the environmental integrity of their own territory.34 Rawls says:
[A]n important role of government, however arbitrary a societys boundaries may appear from a
historical point of view, is to be the effective agent of a people as they take responsibility for their
territory and the size of their population, as well as for maintaining the lands environmental
integrity.
His rationale is:
Unless a definite agent is given responsibility for maintaining an asset and bears the responsibility
and loss for not doing so, that asset tends to deteriorate. On my account the role of the institution of
property is to prevent this deterioration from occurring. In the present case, the asset is the peoples
territory and its potential capacity to support them in perpetuity; and the agent is the people itself as
politically organized. The perpetuity condition is crucial. People must recognize that they cannot
make up for failing to regulate their numbers or to care for their land by conquest in war, or by
migrating into another peoples territory without their consent.35
The central problem with extending this approach to climate change is that Rawls rationale for assigning
territorial integrity to peoples seems inadequate to the task. Rawls assigns property rights to definite
agents to protect assets by internalizing the costs of their deterioration. In doing so, he hopes to
undermine various commons problems. But in the setting of climate change, the rationale seems not to
hold, for two reasons.
First, Rawls simply stipulates that societies will care for their territory in perpetuity. But this is to assume
away one of the most important dimensions of environmental problems in general, and climate change in
particular namely, its intergenerational aspect. If one of the key problems with climate change is that
the current generation might take advantage of its temporal position to impose unwarranted or unfair costs
on future generations, then Rawls assignment of property rights does little to address that problem.36
Now, Rawlsians may claim that this problem is dealt with by the intergenerational component of his
theory the principle of just savings (which we will address in a subsequent section). But even if this
were so, there would be a second problem, which is that climate change, like other global environmental
problems, is a genuinely global problem precisely because the costs of harmful activity are not
internalized to particular societies: since the main greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide, is a well-mixed gas,
emissions from anywhere on the earths surface have both an international and an intergenerational reach.
By contrast, Rawls account of territorial integrity emphasizes responsibility for domestic effects
maintenance and bearing losses. It does not overtly consider either rights to protect against external
threats, or obligations not to be the cause of such threats to others. Moreover, such considerations do not
seem to fall under the property rights rationale, or at least would presumably justify different kinds of

Hartzell 2007. I have benefited from discussion with Asia Ferrin on Hartzells approach.
Hartzell also discusses Rawls account of human rights. See later footnote.
35
Rawls, 1999, p.8: italics in original; see also 38-9.
36
Gardiner 2001, 2003, 2006, forthcoming.
33
34

property rights. In short, there seems to be a mismatch between Rawls appeal to property rights for
particular peoples and the global nature of the problem at hand.
Hartzell recognizes that Rawls domestic focus poses a problem in the case of climate change, and
concedes that Rawls himself does not go far enough. Nevertheless, she argues that the property rights
of peoples will give them some motivation to address the causes of climate change: since the integrity of
local environments in part rests on the integrity of the global environment, then part of a peoples
responsibility to their local environment will be their responsibility to address global environmental
concerns as such.37 As Hartzell mentions, this defense is incomplete, in that up to some point climate
change will involve winners and losers, so that not all will want to restrict climate change.
(Simplistically, perhaps at modest increases in temperature the Russians and Canadians would like
warmer weather in their countries.) Still, she says that there will be some point at which all local
environments are threatened, and this means that:
Rawls theory needs to be extended such that it requires peoples to first explicitly recognize their
duty to support the integrity of the global (in addition to their local) environment as a whole and
second to thus address the causes of climate change since, although the changes incurred by climate
change will be diverse across time and space, the stability of all local environments will likely be
threatened.38
This argument seems to be on the right general track. However, there are some worries about how well it
works in the context of Rawls theory.
First, the issue of incentives needs further scrutiny. On the one hand, the incentives are more complex
than the invocation of a threshold level suggests. In particular, the relative costs and benefits to particular
societies will vary both above and below the threshold: below the threshold, although some will not gain
from participating, it may be possible to induce their cooperation through side payments39; above the
threshold, some still stand to lose more than others and so should be willing, in principle, to shoulder a
greater burden in addressing the problem. Either way, collective action is still possible, so it is not clear
that the appeal to a threshold succeeds in neutralizing the incentive problem.40 On the other hand, there
are significant moral objections to looking at the problem in this general way: i.e., as an agreement based
on self-interested bargaining resting on an initial allocation of property rights. This is especially the case
in the actual world where the initial allocation is widely seen to be unjust, even from a Rawlsian point of
view.41
Second, the abstract appeal of the crucial term environmental integrity may be misleading in context.
Rawls concern with environmental integrity focuses on the prevention of conflict, such as war and
migration. These concerns do, of course, play an important role in worries about the impacts of climate
Hartzell 2007, 8.
Hartzell 2007, 9.
39
cf. Posner and Sunstein 2007.
40
There is also a deeper worry. The focus of Hartzells extension is to show (a) that the individual actors (in this
case peoples) in this collective action problem have some incentive to cooperate. But this is only a first step in
dealing with a commons problem. Moreover, it is the least contentious, since it is highly plausible to assume that
societies have some reason to avoid catastrophic scenarios. The more difficult steps are to show (b) that this
motivation is, or ought to be, in some sense dominant over other concerns, and (c) that there is some way to
operationalize it so that it is dominant in practice. Without these additional steps, it is not clear that the extension
here is much more than a statement of the problem.
41
Even if this problem could be overcome, such an approach seems intuitively misguided as a response to the global
test and perspective of humanity, especially given the intergenerational dimension of the problem.
37
38

10

change. Still, they seem too narrow for the current purpose. For example, preventing the extinction of the
polar bear would usually count as preserving environmental integrity. But our concern for the polar bear
has nothing to do with averting war.42
Third, as Hartzell makes clear, even if otherwise successful, the Rawlsian account is extremely
underdeveloped, and does not provide a specific or sufficient action-guiding framework for addressing
the causes of climate change.43 This is a real concern given the hopes we had for the structural
advantages of Rawls theory in addressing the problems of opacity, evasiveness and complacency.
Finally, the basic account might seem to get things backwards. Hartzell argues that a global duty might
be generated out of the domestic. But the global test and perspective of humanity fit more naturally with
the opposite suggestion: that a global duty ought to come first, and frame and limit the domestic duties
that fall under it, and the property rights associated with them. After all, the core worry represented by
the global test in cases where severe and catastrophic scenarios are possible concerns the integrity of the
global system, and the question is what kinds of institutions and what principles a good response to such
concerns might justify. One way to express this from a Rawlsian point of view would be to say that such
matters concern the global physical structure of the planet, and that this plays a role similar to that of
Rawls basic structure in shaping the life prospects of individuals, and so constituting the basic subject
matter of justice. This is the kind of environmental integrity that matters; but Rawls account does not
seem to address it.44
IV. External Interventions
Each of the previous appeals to primary goods, basic needs, and environmental integrity points to a
key background condition under which acceptable visions of society are possible. I suspect that one
reason that these appeals initially seem promising is that threats to such conditions need to be addressed,
and something of this sort is what concerns us in the global test. So, one way to proceed is to ask what
resources Rawls can deploy to address such a concern. In this section, I will consider five candidates.
1. Circumstances of Justice
The structural component of Rawls view that seems most closely associated with the notion of a key
background condition is his account of the circumstances of justice. Unfortunately, what Rawls has to
say here is underdeveloped. While the general idea is clearly that the circumstances of justice provide the
context of justice and in such a way as to shape its principles, Rawls is unclear about their precise nature
and role. These matters require further discussion; hence here I will simply try to explain why that
discussion might be important, and in what way it seems to involve moving beyond Rawls. I begin by
sketching four different ways in which the circumstances of justice might be understood.
I thank Catriona McKinnon for this example.
Hartzell 2007, 14.
44
The second component of Hartzells proposal might help here. Respect for basic human rights is the basic
requirement that Rawls applies to the global political system, and there seems no doubt that reference to basic
human rights plays some role in explaining what is wrong with catastrophic change. Still, there are reasons for
concern. First, at least on the usual interpretations, Rawls list of basic human rights appears too limited to provide
adequate protection against the ravages of extreme scenarios. If this is all that is secured, it may be a check against
the most apocalyptic threats, but not much else. (For a contrary interpretation of Rawls, which may be helpful here,
see Reidy 2006.) Second, as in the case of environmental integrity, human rights for Rawls have an unusual focus:
they seem to be aimed at specifying the limits of intervention in the affairs of other countries. But these concerns
are likely to be more minimal and have a different focus than the ones implied by the global test. Third, if
intervention is the wrong focus for a doctrine of human rights which I suspect that it is Rawls account of them
offers little guidance as to the kind of political principles and institutions that might be needed in order to confront
problems such as climate change.
42

43

11

The first possibility emerges in Hume, from whom Rawls claims to take his own account. Brian Barry45
describes the Humean view as follows:
Humes doctrine of the circumstances of justice took the form of a theory to the effect that the
three circumstances of justice constitute necessary conditions for the adoption and maintenance of
rules of justice: if any of these conditions fails to hold, rules of justice are perfectly useless and
therefore fail to come into being or (if they exist already) fall into disuse.46
On the Humean view, then, the circumstances are necessary conditions that play a crucial role in making
the instantiation of justice possible. Initially, such conditions seem highly relevant to the global test:
surely, if conditions necessary to the very possibility of justice are under threat, then this raises political
questions of a special seriousness and status.
Still, the Humean conception does not seem to be what is needed here. The first difficulty concerns the
status of the circumstances of justice. Hume intends them to be descriptive matters of fact that either hold
or do not. If this is the case, then a theory of justice that simply assumes their presence seems to have
nothing to say about what to do when they are subject to change. But this is unhelpful. If the point is to
solve the global test, we need reasons to protect the key conditions.47
The second difficulty concerns the role of the circumstances of justice. It is not so clear that what
concerns us in the case of climate change is a set of necessary conditions for human or social life in the
sense that they admit of no substitutes. It is surely at least possible in principle for humanity to live
elsewhere than in the earths biosphere (in huge artificial domes, for example, or on other planets).
Though this is not yet possible in practice, it does limit what we should say as a matter of political theory
about the role of climate. In particular, it raises the likelihood that some appeals to the value of the
earths climate system will reflect disguised value judgments rather than uncontentious appeals to
necessity.
The final difficulty concerns the content of the circumstances of justice. The factors that Hume and
Rawls identify such as limited altruism and moderate scarcity do not seem to be of the right sort to
play the role envisioned. For one thing, it is not clear that we have reason to protect them. For example,
as Hume points out, the world might be a better place and beyond justice if the condition of
moderate scarcity were replaced by one of abundance. For another, the Humean conditions seem to be
more clearly ones that constrain human possibilities, rather than providing a setting for (or facilitating)
them.
These difficulties suggest that we need a more nuanced view of the role of the climate system than that of
necessary means to justice. Considering the first and second objections to the Humean proposal, we
might suspect that the best approach would involve moving from the descriptive and necessary to the
normative and sufficient. Interestingly enough, Barry suggests that Rawls sometimes employs an
alternative reading of this sort. Unfortunately, both he and Rawls are unclear about what this alternative
really consists in. Still, their remarks suggest two main possibilities.48 The first is that the circumstances
of justice are (a) sufficient for the applicability of the concept of justice in the sense that when they are
Barry 1978.
Barry 1978, 230, emphasis added.
47
It is not clear that simply invoking the duty to maintain and create just institutions solves this basic problem.
After all, if the circumstances of justice are descriptive and determine when justice can be sought, one might take the
view that the duty applies only when the circumstances of justice are instantiated. For more on this duty, see section
IV.3.
48
A full analysis of Barry and Rawls would take more space than I have here. So, I leave it for another occasion.
45
46

12

present, justice is possible, but (b) not necessary for the application of the term because there are other
possible conditions under which justice would also be possible. The second possibility adds to these
claims (c) that the account of justice that would emerge under the circumstances of justice provides the
appropriate model for other settings (i.e., the principles of justice that emerge from the circumstances of
justice are the correct principles of justice for other conditions as well).
Now, whatever their other merits, neither of these proposals seems to answer the question about what to
do when the circumstances of justice themselves are subject to change. On each proposal the relevance of
the circumstances of justice is theoretical, not practical. This would change if we adopted a third, even
stronger, normative understanding of the circumstances of justice, and said that justice required imposing
the circumstances of justice even in initially deviant conditions, so that they were both normative and
necessary. Then, it would seem that we could invoke Rawls natural duty to maintain and promote just
institutions in order to protect the circumstances of justice against threats. Such protection would be
foundational to justice in the strong sense.
Still, as we have seen, it is not clear that this move will work in the current context. First, the claim that
our particular set of natural conditions are necessary for justice seems overblown - there is always the
domes, or Mars. Second, some of the conditions Rawls and Hume claim are circumstances of justice at
least seem less than fully desirable, so that attempts to maintain them would seem unwarranted.
Perhaps the core worry here is that we might expect the circumstances of justice themselves, as normative
conditions, to have a closer connection to the desirable. Given this, one might envisage a fourth potential
role for the circumstances of justice, as constitutive conditions. For example, societies (or humanity
itself) might establish a set of conditions that constitute the setting in which they wish to live their lives,
including an appropriate backdrop for justice, and perhaps also distinctive cultural and environmental
values.
There are many ways in which such conditions might be understood. But one possibility would be that
they were indicative, or perhaps even derivative, of the positive conception of justice itself.49 In other
words, societies might generate circumstances of justice that they are committed to maintaining precisely
because they made a wider vision of justice, or social life more generally, possible. Hence, for example, a
Rawlsian might ask what actual circumstances of justice would make her principles of justice most
accessible, working backwards from the principles themselves to enrich her original conception of the key
background conditions, in a manner similar to that of reflective equilibrium.
Such a possibility is suggestive and no doubt resonates with various aspects of Rawlss actual views
(including his more communitarian sympathies). Clearly, it deserves further investigation. Still, it is
worth noting an initial reservation. An indicative approach will be awkward not just for Rawls Humean
sympathies, but also for his basic methodology and his commitment to realistic utopia. Such an approach
suggests that the circumstances of justice must play the role of both constraint (in the early generation of
principles of justice) and aspiration (in their implementation). Though intriguing, these views appear to
be in tension: it is unclear how such a position is to work, or be justified.
The above sketch of (some) different ways of understanding the circumstances of justice is very
incomplete. Still, it suggests that in this area we quickly move far from Rawls own account, and the
explicit elements of a distinctively Rawlsian theory. Investigation of various possible accounts of the
circumstances of justice may be a useful research project but it remains to be shown that the best
account would be a direct extension of the Rawlsian view in Rawls limited sense, rather than an
substantial augmentation or revision of the Rawlsian project.
49

This seems to be a more specific version of the first, constitutive condition.

13

2. The Conception of Society

A second candidate for addressing the concern about threats to key background conditions is Rawls
conception of society. One place where Rawls may make a substantive constitutive move is in his
stipulation that political society is always regarded as a scheme of cooperation over time indefinitely; the
idea of a future time when its affairs are to be wound up and society disbanded is foreign to our
conception of society.50 This stipulation appears to assert a minimal benchmark that is relevant to the
global test: since society is expected to persist indefinitely through time, it would seem that we must take
steps to protect it against at least some predictable threats.
We get some sense of how Rawls expects this stipulation to function in political theory from his defense
of the family as a basic social institution.51 There Rawls specifically invokes the idea of political society
as a scheme of cooperation over time indefinitely, and then draws on it to argue that the family is part
of the basic structure, the reason being that one of its essential roles is to establish the orderly production
and reproduction of society and of its culture from one generation to the next.52 To this, he adds that
reproductive labor is socially necessary labor [and] the family must fulfill this role in appropriate
numbers to maintain an enduring society.53 Most importantly, he asserts that these necessities limit all
arrangements of the basic structure.54
These remarks suggest that Rawls view is that there are certain activities which are necessary to the
continuation of society in an appropriate form, and that such activities impose limits on the possible
arrangements of the basic structure, and so on the principles of justice. This implies that there is a special
class of concerns which are prior to, and provide constraints on, the principles of justice generated by
Rawls core theory, and that these are concerns relating to the continuation of society itself in some
appropriate form. Moreover, the defense of the family suggests that these concerns are of the same form
as those of interest to global ethics: population, sustainability (broadly conceived), and issues of
fundamental environmental security.55 Hence, the discussion is highly relevant. So far, so good.
Unfortunately, though all theories must start somewhere, Rawls particular stipulation seems both too
demanding and too bold. It is too demanding in that it might be read so as to suggest that social survival
is the supreme value, so that social disintegration should be prevented at all costs.56 But this is dubious,
for three reasons.
First, society appears to be the wrong focal point. Particular societies do evolve and are occasionally lost.
Sometimes this can be a voluntary process; but even when it is not, this does not imply that it ought never
to be contemplated or accepted. Surely there are circumstances under which the end of a particular
society is acceptable.

50

Rawls 2001, 160-2.

It should be noted that Rawls does not take himself to be defending a specific form of family life: Still, no
particular form of the family (monogamous, heterosexual, or otherwise) is so far required by a political conception
of justice so long as it is arranged to fulfill these tasks effectively and does not run afoul of other political values.
Rawls 2001, 162-3.
52
Rawls 2001, 162.
53
Rawls 2001, 162-3.
54
Rawls 2001, 163.
55
Of course, Rawls is not seeing these as global issues, but as societal ones. But the argument on that issue should
be carried out elsewhere.
56
See also, Gardiner 2009; Blake 2002.
51

14

Second, it is not particular societies, but humanity as such, that is the core concern of the global test; yet
the stipulation would be too strong even if it focused on humanity as such. Survival at all costs seems
much too demanding a criterion. Suppose, for example, that humanity could survive a catastrophic
impact scenario, but only for a few centuries under extremely harsh conditions.57 Under such
circumstances, it is not clear that questions about whether to wind up human affairs could not, or should
not, be entertained.
Third, and more generally, to deal with such momentous issues through mere stipulation seems too bold.
This need not be a criticism of Rawls, since the stipulation might be a reasonable simplifying assumption
from the point of view of generating his core theory for a single society. But it does seem to defeat the
proposal that an appropriate extension to deal with the global test and the perspective of humanity could
take the form of simply deploying that stipulation. The stipulation assumes too much of what might be at
issue, and without any argument, elaboration or justification of its central claim. Wider questions about
the fundamental aims of justice and human societies need to be asked.
3. The Duty to Maintain and Promote Just Institutions
The third component of Rawls view that addresses key background conditions is his account of the
natural duty to promote and maintain just institutions.58 On the face of it, this duty has a tighter, more
appropriate focus than the stipulation just discussed. Still, there are a variety of possible views about its
scope, and this generates problems in the present setting.
To begin with, consider the difference between Hume and Rawls. If one accepted Humes theory of
social development, the domain where the duty to create distinctively just institutions would be operative
would be limited. Hume thinks that justice is only relevant under the circumstances of justice: in less
favorable conditions it is not possible, and in more favorable ones it is unnecessary. Therefore, for Hume,
social development has at least three levels: beneath justice, within the circumstances of justice, and
beyond justice. If one were to adopt this vision, then one might accept a duty to maintain just institutions
against a fall into less favorable circumstances, but then either not resist, or else promote, the
transcendence of the circumstances of justice.
Rawls view is different. He adopts a two-stage theory of social development. The first, accumulation
phase, occurs when societies seek to reach a level where just institutions are possible; the second, steadystate phase is reached when that level is attained and just institutions are put in place.59 Once the second
level is reached, Rawls believes that further development is optional: countries can choose to pursue it so
long as justice is not compromised; but the pursuit itself is not a matter of justice. He also suggests that
there may be some limit to how far development ought to be pursued.
In short, Rawls view departs from Humes in at least three ways. First, justice is relevant to all levels of
social development. Second, there remains a duty to promote just institutions even under unfavorable
circumstances when they are not (yet) possible. Third, there is no duty of justice to improve society
beyond the point at which just institutions are instantiated.
Rawls model has some appeal. Still, there are some issues. First, the two-stage model of social
development is hardly a full theory, and at this point stands as a simple assertion, rather than something
supported by a robust independent account of the nature of human society. Second, in invoking only two
levels, with a very sharp threshold constraint, Rawls model appears likely to be too simplistic. Third, the
model seems unduly complacent about development above the threshold. In addition, this complacency
Lovelock 2006.
Rawls 1973, 334, 110.
59
Gosseries 2001; Gosseries and Gaspart 2007.
57
58

15

seems subject to a dilemma. On the one hand, complacency seems plausible if the requirements of justice
(at the threshold) are very demanding; but this threatens to make Rawls conception of justice unduly
utopian (and perhaps close to Humes beyond justice). On the other hand, complacency seems much
less plausible if the requirements at the threshold are minimal. If just institutions are possible even for
societies that are quite poor by contemporary standards, then we might seriously question why there is no
obligation to do better.60
It is not surprising that Rawls account begins to peter out at this point, as for Rawls these issues are a
matter of deep background assumptions, shaping his own core theory. Still, it is worrying that the
account fades just as we reach a crucial juncture from the point of view of the global test and the
perspective of humanity. These concerns are amplified when one considers the limited details Rawls
provides on how to implement the natural duty. The primary vehicles of implementation are the duty of
assistance in the international realm, and the just savings principle in the domestic. These principles are
both underdeveloped; but they are also tensions between them, and doubts about the adequacy of this
mixed account of the natural duty.
4. The Duty of Assistance
Let us begin with the fourth candidate for addressing key background conditions. Rawls duty of
assistance is directed towards burdened societies, who lack the political and cultural traditions, the
human capital and know-how, and, often, the material and technological resources needed to be wellordered.61 Infamously, Rawls says that its aim is not to establish distributive justice between societies,
but only to make it possible for the burdened to join the Society of Peoples.62 There is some doubt about
how to interpret this aim, and this complicates attempts to assess its limitations. Still, there are general
reasons to suspect that it would be inadequate as the foundation of an international response to climate
change.
The first is that the duty seems too reactive for the purpose. As Rawls envisions it, the duty of assistance
is invoked as a last resort, when just or decent states are not yet in existence, or have failed, because of a
lack of appropriate resources. Up until that point, the responsibility for maintaining just institutions is
domestic. This gives rise to a number of concerns. First, the duty of assistance appears not appear to
generate appropriate anticipatory behavior at the international level, such as the taking of precautionary
measures against the failure of just institutions.63 Second, in the most dangerous climate scenarios, the
scope of the impacts may be so broad and deep that no country will be left in a position to discharge the
duty of assistance, at least to all those affected and to the level needed for them to reach well-orderedness.
Perhaps this is because all have fallen into a burdened state, or because enough have, or because the wellordered societies that remain can only retain their position as well-ordered by holding on to all the
resources that they have at their disposal. Of course, these are extreme possibilities. But if the duty of
assistance is the main vehicle for addressing the global test, it is worrying that in its reactive stance - it
seems so complacent about them.
Though there are some vexed questions of interpretation here, most seem to think that Rawls theory is more
vulnerable to this second horn of the dilemma.
61
Rawls 1999a, 106.
62
Rawls 1999a, 106.
63
Against this, it may be objected that well-ordered peoples will be motivated not to cause or allow failures to
occur, since these will cost them once the duty of assistance is invoked. But this is a limited defense. For one
thing, it may depend on how a cost-benefit calculation works out perhaps sometimes it is more expensive to
prevent a society from failing than it is to help it reform itself once it has failed but this need not be the most
appropriate way for well-ordered societies to make decisions about when to aid. For another, the burdens of the
duty of assistance are shared among all well-ordered societies, so there is the possibility of a mismatch of incentives,
as in the familiar tragedy of the commons. Finally, the motivation cited here is a prudential, not a moral, one.
60

16

The second ground for doubt is that the duty of assistance seems too minimal. First, if, as Rawls believes,
the background conditions required for just institutions to be possible are not very demanding, then there
are sharp limits on what the duty requires. But this may be inadequate to deal with many costs imposed
by global threats such as climate change.64 Second, some negative impacts may not be easily or
adequately addressed through assistance. Suppose, for example, that a catastrophic climate change
irrevocably destroys a certain way of life.65 If the duty of assistance is the only vehicle for addressing
climate change internationally, then it effectively ignores such burdens. The victims may simply have to
absorb their losses.
The third ground for doubt is that the duty of assistance is very atomistic in its approach. For one thing,
its narrow focus on donors and recipients of aid seems to reflect a country-to-country logic that neglects
the genuinely global dimensions of problems like climate change. For another, its focus on the time when
assistance is needed hides the intergenerational aspect of many problems such as climate change. If
earlier generations of one country A impose unacceptable costs on future generations of some country B,
then to say that future generations of A (or other countries) ought to step up and provide assistance seems
to miss a crucial dimension of the problem. More generally, the country-to-country and time-of-need
approach appears to avoid the question of what background conditions are required to preserve the
general possibility of just institutions into the long-term future, and what the duties of Peoples are with
respect to these conditions. Since such concerns seem to be central to the status of global environment as
a background condition, the duty of assistance seems inadequate to the task.
5. The Just Savings Principle
This leads us to our fifth candidate for addressing key background conditions. Domestically, the principle
that furthers the duty to create and maintain just institutions is the just savings principle. Initially, this
seems to be a substantial improvement on the duty of assistance.
First, it has a higher status. For one thing, the just savings principle is embedded within the basic
domestic principles of justice for a liberal society. By contrast, the duty of assistance at least appears to
come afterwards, as an obligation that applies only once a society has become well-ordered. For another,
the just savings principle has a high status within the principles of justice it serves as a constraint on the
difference principle. Hence, within their own societies, liberal peoples must give priority to the
preservation of just institutions for future generations over questions of intragenerational distribution.
But this does not appear to be the case for the duty of assistance. For example, as far as I am aware, there
is no suggestion in Rawls that societies should satisfy the duty of assistance (internationally) before
satisfying the difference principle (domestically).
64

In one respect, this may be a good thing. It suggests that sometimes countries must accept a decline in cultural
and economic prosperity as the price for passing the global test. This is plausible in at least some cases. For
example, if what were required to save humanity from a catastrophic threat were that many countries give up modest
amounts of luxury goods - but no one gave up subsistence goods then this may well be acceptable from a moral
and political point of view. Still, there are other setting in which the limits of the duty of assistance seem too
complacent. For example, suppose that country A is initially at a high level of cultural and economic development,
but then falls into disorder as a result of a climate crisis. The duty of assistance does not seem to require restoring
them to their previous level, but only to some minimal level. For example, if France were to fall, the duty of
assistance may only require enabling the French to establish just institutions at the economic level of, say,
Bangladesh. But it is not clear that countries have reason to accept such a minimal understanding of the appropriate
international response to serious disasters. (One reply to this would be to point out that Rawls says at one point that
it is up to burdened societies to set the level at which just institutions are possible for them. But this has obvious
defects. For one thing, it is open to corruption. For another, it seems to undermine Rawls efforts to impose real
limits on the demandingness of the duty of assistance.)
65
See Gardiner 2010a.
17

Second, the just savings principle is more demanding in its content. Rawls stipulates that generations
have at least to maintain their initial stock of capital to pass on to their successors. This seems to apply
even when the country has far more than enough resources to maintain just institutions. Hence, it goes
beyond the duty of assistance.
The stronger demands of the just savings principle introduce an asymmetry between domestic and foreign
future generations that requires some discussion. In the domestic setting, we (the current generation of a
particular country) owe future generations of our country a nondeclining level of development, but
internationally we (whoever happens to be well-ordered at the time) owe whoever happens to fall into a
burdened state help in emerging from it. This is a very strong difference, and yet it is not clear what
justifies it. For one thing, it may be that some future generations of Americans (say) are culturally,
ideologically and even given migration genetically more distant from us than current generations of
other countries. If so, it is not clear why Rawls should insist on such a different account of our obligations
with respect to them. For another, from the point of view of the global test, it is not clear why a system
characterized by such asymmetry is justified.
To avoid these problems, some Rawlsians will be tempted to impose the just savings principle at the
global level.66 There is something appealing about this move. For example, the just savings principle
appears to stop a profligate generation from spending its inheritance and so undoing intergenerational
progress, and presumably some such restriction would also be appropriate on the global level. After all,
why should one generation of humanity have the option of undermining centuries of human progress for
its own gain?
Still, promising as it seems, it is not clear that merely endorsing a global just savings principle alone is
enough to solve the problem at hand. In particular, the just savings principle is subject to internal
objections, and in ways that are relevant to climate change. First, the principle appears to introduce too
strong a status quo bias. For example, it appears to rule out a one-generation decline in capital made for
the sake of a large longer-term gain, even if overall the society always remains well above the threshold
necessary for just institutions. But this seems too much. Why cant we as a matter of intergenerational
justice - require twenty-first century Americans to consume less than late twentieth century Americans?
If the justice of their basic institutions would not be threatened, and if this drop in consumption were
essential to solving the climate problem, why would demanding it be unjust?
Second, the focus of the just savings principle on the transfer of goods seems too narrow to deal with
everything that matters about humanitys relationship to nature. This is so even when these goods are
understood broadly to include knowledge and culture, as Rawls intends. For one thing, if we leave future
generations a bundle of goods that includes Shakespeare and Einstein, but also destroy the Everglades and
the polar bear, and even perhaps deny them the ability to walk on the surface, then it is plausible to think
that we may have wronged them. For another, the suggestion that we should simply expand the purview
of the just savings principle to include such items seems too quick. Understanding the nature of the
relevant wrong seems central to our current purpose, and it is far from clear that turning every thing that
matters into a good to be consumed is the best approach.
Despite these worries, the strategy of expanding Rawls just savings principle into something genuinely
global seems one of the most promising avenues for future exploration. Still, much work would be
needed to clarify the substance of such a principle and the rationale behind it. This supports the main
point I am trying to make in these sections: that the Rawlsian duty to maintain and promote just
institutions does not already address the central issues related to climate change. Rather, at best, it merely
66

Cf. the instincts of Beitz 1979, and Pogge 1989.

18

gestures at the relevant areas in vague and largely stipulative ways. If Rawlsians are to satisfy the global
test and escape the charges of complacency, evasiveness, and abdication of responsibility - this does
not seem sufficient.67
V. Conclusion
The topic of this paper has been whether Rawls political philosophy has the wherewithal to address
important global environmental issues, such as climate change. I have argued for three conclusions.
First, Rawls does not already solve such problems, and simple extensions of his theory are unlikely to do
the trick. This is so despite the rich structure of Rawls philosophy, and the appeal of some of its parts.
Second, the most promising areas for extension are those that have not yet been explored. These include
extensions of the circumstances of justice (especially the constitutive approach), the duty to maintain and
promote just institutions (especially the just savings principle), and his vision of social development
(especially the target of the duty of assistance). Third, unfortunately, Rawls views on these topics are
both seriously underdeveloped, and largely stipulative. This implies, first, that such extension efforts are
very much underdetermined by the text, so that moves in these directions are likely to be contentious even
within Rawlsian circles; and, second, that, given the centrality of the concerns at stake, and the level of
underdetermination, a successful working out of the necessary ideas is likely to be sufficiently
independent, and perhaps transformative, of the core theory that its claim to be an extension (in Rawls
restricted sense) will not be plausible. In short, in trying to meet climate change, Rawlsians are more
likely to add new theories to Rawls, and perhaps even to transform his original account, than to generate
an approach from the inside out.
These conclusions might be challenged in a variety of ways. First, and most obviously, Rawlsians may
seek to rehabilitate the existing sites of extension in light of my objections, or else find ways to extend the
view not considered here. (I have made a few suggestions about the more promising possibilities in the
text.) Second, they may attempt a form of extension hinted at earlier, drawing on an indicative model of
social justice that proceeds from Rawls principles of justice (the conclusions of his theory) to enrich his
original assumptions. Third, they may argue for an integrative approach, accepting that that none of
Rawls moves by itself solves problems like climate change, but nevertheless arguing that they can do so
when taken together. Such a strategy might emphasize the multiplicity of our environmental concerns,
and so the appropriateness of dealing with them at different theoretical levels (rather than monolithically)
in a way facilitated by the internal complexity of the Rawlsian approach.
These possibilities are worth exploring, and indeed one purpose of this paper has been to draw them out.
Still, it is worth recognizing in advance that they face significant obstacles.
One of the most general and serious is the need to find some level or combination of levels where the
Rawsian model can deal with the sense of fundamentality suggested by the global test and perspective of
humanity. Arguably, this is where the most central challenge lies.
A second obstacle is that of integrating concern for humanitys relationship with nature into the theory.
(The concern I set aside earlier.) This is a large challenge and none of the elements of Rawlsian theory
explicitly addresses it; implicitly, the suggestion seems to be that whatever is outside of the Rawlsian
67

One way to clarify the challenge is to invoke a rival account by another Rawsian sympathizer, Martha Nussbaum.
Nussbaum also argues for a basic threshold view, but hers is one that appeals to a substantive account of the human
good embodied in a set of human capabilities. Perhaps this could be the target of the duty to create and maintain
just institutions. But few people would call this a simple Rawlsian extension. Instead, this move seems likely to
make the capabilities approach swamp Rawls account in importance, and also to transform our understanding of its
principles. In short, now the capabilities approach would form the core, and Rawls principles of justice would be
(at most) an extension.
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framework can, from the point of view of political philosophy, be safely ignored.68 Indeed, Rawls
himself sometimes seems to deny that environmental concerns are appropriately political, being instead
embodied in metaphysical doctrines.69 Given the importance of global environmental problems, this
attitude seems too complacent, even cavalier. If the Rawlsian insists that such concerns are beyond the
normal scope of political philosophy, she would seem to abdicate an important responsibility of such
philosophy in an appropriately constituted realistic utopia.
Let me conclude with a more general remark. Early on in the paper we observed that climate change is
likely to be the kind of problem that stretches Rawls claim about extension because it invokes three of
the matters that he specifically identifies as extensions: international justice, intergenerational justice, and
the value of nature. Though Rawls is generally bullish about the prospects for extension, it is worth
noting that he is sometimes more ambivalent. For example, early in A Theory of Justice, he says:
We must recognize the limited scope of justice as fairness and of the general type of view that it
exemplifies. How far its conclusions must be revised once these other matters are understood cannot be
decided in advance.70
From an epistemological point of view, such fallibilism often seems admirable. Nevertheless, it is far
from clear that we should be satisfied with it here. The lesson of the global test seems to be that, in the
face of certain global threats, we should not be comfortable with a stance that may promote complacency
and evasiveness. These are usually philosophical vices; but from the perspective of a recently-evolved
species stranded on a small planet amidst an otherwise inhospitable universe, they may yet be fatal.

The exception is the downstream approach described by Bell 2006. I discuss this briefly in an earlier footnote,
and in more detail in the longer version of this paper.
69
Rawls 1973, 512.
70
Rawls 1973, 17.
68

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