Global Warming and Competing Visions of Human Agency
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The debate surrounding global warming is primarily a struggle over competing visions of human agency. Are humans responsible for global warming or not? Some say “yes,” others say “no.” If you keep up with the debate over global warming, combatants have largely staked out positions around the ‘scientific evidence.’ There is much faith placed in ‘scientific evidence’ as the ultimate site of arbitration. The argument seems to be that an ethical decision is not called for because the ‘scientific evidence’ will give us the answer about which way to go. For instance, Al Gore and many other proponents of the global warming thesis rally around the ‘scientific evidence’ in An Inconvenient Truth. For folks like Gore and Brian McLaren, another important proponent of the global warming thesis, the ‘scientific evidence’ is clear about what is going on—the world is getting warmer because of man and so it is man’s responsibility to do something about it. On the other side of the debate, however, are opponents of the global warming thesis. They have the ’scientific evidence’ on their side too. For instance, Kelly Boggs, writing for LifeWay, offers an example of this position. She laments that so many corporations and people are falling for the “politically correct hysteria over man-made global warming.” As she puts it, “[d]espite the fact that many scientists offer evidence that counters the theory of man-made global warming, many stubbornly believe it’s true.” In other words, the world may or may not be getting warmer; either way, it is not man’s responsibility. In both instances, proponents and opponents of the global warming thesis argue that ‘scientific evidence’ is on their side of the debate and that this evidence basically makes the moral choice for them. Stacked up, both Gore and Boggs would say the ‘scientific evidence’ is clear about which way to go. The problem is that they interpret the ’scientific evidence’ very differently and so there policies are pointed in two very different directions. Ultimately, I argue, the ‘scientific evidence’ that both opponents and proponents appeal to is best seen as a rhetorical commonplace used to prop up their competing positions. As I see it, the real debate is not about ‘scientific evidence.’ Rather, Gore and Boggs symbolize two visions of human agency. On Gore’s view, man is an agent that can cause the problem and find a solution to the problem. On Bogg’s view, man is neither an agent that can cause the problem nor an agent that can fix it. So, I don’t think that the issue of global warming or the problem of how humans should respond will be resolved by appeals to the ‘scientific evidence.’ The ‘scientific evidence’ is a rhetorical means to a larger end—namely, two competing visions of human agency. |
Comments
Re: Global Warming and Competing Visions of Human Agency
It just seems to me that ultimately, unmediated scientific evidence is
not the arbiter—scientific evidence is part of the rhetorical fodder.
That is beyond dispute - as long as you include the word ‘unmediated’. But in the ‘real’ world we happily, and for the most part unthinkingly, act on the basis of what we take to be evidence - scientific or otherwise. Of course, the evidence is thoroughly wrapped up in perception and rhetoric and what have you. But that does not invalidate it as evidence - it just makes it harder to know what’s trustworthy. You can only object to scientific realism on theoretical grounds. In practice, we are all scientific realists.
Re: Global Warming and Competing Visions of Human Agency
Is it really beyond dispute?
“Most working scientists hold fast to the concept of ‘realism’—a viewpoint according to which an external reality exists independent of observation. But quantum physics has shattered some of our cornerstone beliefs.”
For the rest of the abstract see here:
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v446/n7138/abs/nature05677.html
Re: Global Warming and Competing Visions of Human Agency
Jacob, in an attempt to use narrative science rather than grand meta-physical abstractions, consider the following story:
One day a man was sitting in a cold room. He opened the curtains and the sun shone in. A few hours later it was warm. He noticed a pattern that on the days when he opened the blinds and it was sunny, the room warmed up, and on the days in which he didn’t open the blinds or it wasn’t sunny it didn’t warm as much.
Then one day it got too hot inside. He was about to adjust his blinds so that direct sunlight was reflected out of the room. But then an air-conditioner salesman knocked on the door.
He told him that it was a crazy idea to imagine that he could change the temperature in his room without investing in lots of expensive new technology. He used a lot of complicated words like "quantum mechanics". He said it was the sun heating up the room, not the blinds, so why change the blinds!
The man didn’t understand those complicated words, thanked the air-conditioner salesman for his time, and mopped his brow because it was now getting quite hot. He adjusted the blinds to stop the sun shining in.
Lets hope he did it in time.
This is not about whether our culture or the words we use or our size can affect some aspects of how we understand the world. This is about whether we can live under water or not. Neither rhetoric nor quantum mechanics will give you gills.
All creatures are realists, living by acting on relationships between situations and later events. Any creatures that cease to be realists die. I guess that is one cause/effect relationship that I hope my kids don’t have to see in consequence of people ignoring the evidence that is in front of us now.
Re: Global Warming and Competing Visions of Human Agency
An interesting parable, Richard. I am wondering if we might not have a definitional problem here as between empiricism and realism. The definition of realism as used in science and philosophy is actually counterintuitive. We are not talking about local here and now so much as the unobservable, there and now which we hold to be reality.
Having watched Jacob work, I am not optimistic that if he decides to take up your parable, it will survivr close scrutiny.
I am thinking Heidegger has something to say about the everydayness of existence that might speak to the issue you raised and cause and effect.
It would be nice if things could be so simple that the mere description of how we, as human beings, experience and react to the material world on a day-to-day basis was enough to be satisfying. Problem is, this is only a small portion of what we as human beings experience as “life,” and leaves open the question regarding the unobservable, say—God for instance.
Re: Global Warming and Competing Visions of Human Agency
I’m not sure I understand how this means that it ceases to be a scientific problem. How do we decide between these ‘two competing visions of human agency’ without consulting scientific evidence? Suppose I wake up one morning and find that a window downstairs has been broken. How do I determine whether it was caused by the kids I heard shouting in the street around midnight or by the storm that blew up a couple of hours later? I have to find some scientific evidence - perhaps a brick on the living room carpet, or CCTV footage.
My wife and I might disagree over the cause and use scientific arguments ‘rhetorically’ to prop up our competing positions. But ultimately the question of cause or responsibility - and the various other questions that derive from that such as ‘will the insurers pay for it?’ or ‘how do we stop it happening again?’ - cannot be resolved on a philosophical level. It remains fundamentally a question of what actually happened.
There have been countless scientific debates over the years that at some point or other have looked like mere polemics, when supposed scientific evidence appears to have been subordinated to rhetoric, but in the end the matter has been settled empirically.