Climate Change and the Joys of Punishment with David Deutsch and Friedrich Nietzsche

Abstract

As counterintuitive as it might sound, ‘sustainability’ and the commitment to ‘problem avoidance’ rather than ‘problem solving’ are, at least according to David Deutsch, very dangerous ideas. And in this regard, our near-universally pursued policy direction in response to the problem of global warming – that of trying to limit carbon emissions by means of limiting economic activity – is also very dangerous because it represents, at its core, a commitment to both those ideas. The best explanation for why we are making this mistake is the ‘debtor-creditor’ and ‘pleasure-driven’ conception of punishment, as it is explained by Friedrich Nietzsche.