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Philosophy and Climate Change

E N G AG I N G P H I L O S O P H Y
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Contents
List of Figures ix
List of Tables xi
List of Contributors xiii
Abstracts of Chapters xv
Introduction1
Mark Budolfson, Tristram McPherson, and David Plunkett
SE C T IO N I . VA LU I N G C L I M AT E C HA N G E I M PAC T S
1. A Convenient Truth? Climate Change and Quality of Life 9

Peter Railton
2. Animals and Climate Change 42
Jeff Sebo
3. Discounting under Risk: Utilitarianism vs. Prioritarianism 67
Maddalena Ferranna
4. A Philosopher’s Guide to Discounting 90
Kian Mintz-Woo
5. Does Climate Change Policy Depend Importantly on Population
Ethics? Deflationary Responses to the Challenges of Population
Ethics for Public Policy 111
Gustaf Arrhenius, Mark Budolfson, and Dean Spears
SE C T IO N I I . C O G N I T IO N , E M O T IO N S , A N D
C L I M AT E C HA N G E
6. Way to Go, Me 139

Chrisoula Andreou
7. The Wages of Fear? Toward Fearing Well About Climate Change 152
Alison McQueen
8. Climate Change and Cultural Cognition 178
Daniel Greco
vi Contents
SE C T IO N I I I . C L I M AT E C HA N G E A N D
I N D I V I D UA L E T H IC S
9. Climate Change and Individual Obligations: A Dilemma for the

Expected Utility Approach, and the Need for an Imperfect View 201
Julia Nefsky
10. The Puzzle of Inefficacy 222
Tristram McPherson
11. On Individual and Shared Obligations: In Defense of the
Activist’s Perspective252
Gunnar Björnsson
12. How Much Harm Does Each of Us Do? 281
John Broome
SE C T IO N I V. C L I M AT E C HA N G E A N D P O L I T IC S
13. How Quickly Should the World Reduce its Greenhouse

Gas Emissions? Climate Change and the Structure of
Intergenerational Justice 295
Lucas Stanczyk
14. Political Realism, Feasibility Wedges, and Opportunities for
Collective Action on Climate Change 323
Mark Budolfson
15. Pareto Improvements and Feasible Climate Solutions 346
Katie Steele
16. Climate Change, Liberalism, and the Public/Private Distinction 370
Dale Jamieson and Marcello Di Paola
Index 397
Acknowledgments
Thanks to the Climate Futures Initiative, the University Center for Human Values,
and the Department of Philosophy at Princeton University for support of this
project, including financial support for a conference on these issues at Princeton
University in May 2016. Thanks to everyone who participated in that workshop
for the helpful feedback and discussion on the papers that were presented. Special
thanks to Chuck Beitz, Marc Fleurbaey, Bert Kerstetter, Melissa Lane, Rob
Socolow, and Michael Smith. Thanks to Coby Gibson, Max Frye, Daniel Gun
Lim, Michael Morck, Joshua Petersen, Ira Richardson, Adrian Russian, Victoria
Xiao, and Alice Zhang for their work as research assistants on this project. Thanks
to Nithya Kasarla, Daniel Gun Lim, and Evan Woods for their help with the
index. And thanks to David Braddon-Mitchell for providing the photo for the
cover of this volume.
List of Figures
1.1 Average reported subjective well-being index vs. per capita GDP,
multinational sample, 2005–2008 24
1.2 Average reported subjective well-being index vs. per capita GDP, US
sample, 1972–2006 25
1.3 Average reported subjective well-being index vs. household income,
Australia, 2006 25
1.4 Average reported subjective well-being vs. income quintile, Switzerland, 1995 26
3.1 The current value of $1 received in t years depending on the social
discount rate 68
5.1 The Repugnant Conclusion 116
5.2 The Sadistic Conclusion 117
5.3 Two population axiologies recommend the same “corner solution” to
optimal decarbonization 120
5.4 Families of social evaluations that cohere with totalist axioms on the
bounded set 126
13.1a Total welfare in time in time under business as usual 304
13.1b Total welfare in time under serious cuts 304
13.1c Total welfare in time under enormous cuts 304
List of Tables
1.1 Per capita carbon footprints by nation and year (metric tons) 32
3.1 Summary of the main properties of the three approaches under analysis 77
3.2 List of the main studies that try to determine the size of the
precautionary effect 84
List of Contributors
Chrisoula Andreou, Professor of Philosophy, University of Utah.
Gustaf Arrhenius, Director of the Institute for Futures Studies and Professor of Practical
Philosophy, Stockholm University.
Gunnar Björnsson, Professor of Practical Philosophy, Stockholm University.
John Broome, Emeritus White’s Professor of Moral Philosophy, University of Oxford, and
Honorary Professor, Australian National University.
Mark Budolfson, Assistant Professor in the Center for Population-Level Bioethics, the
Department of Environmental and Occupational Health and Justice, and the Department
of Philosophy, Rutgers University.
Marcello Di Paola, Research Fellow in Philosophy, University of Palermo, and Lecturer in

Environmental Studies, Loyola University Chicago.
Maddalena Ferranna, Research Associate at the T. H. Chan School of Public Health,

Global Health and Population Department, Harvard University.
Daniel Greco, Assistant Professor of Philosophy, Yale University.
Dale Jamieson, Professor of Environmental Studies and Philosophy, Affiliated Professor of

Law, and Director of the Center for Environmental and Animal Protection, New York
University.
Tristram McPherson, Professor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University.
Alison McQueen, Associate Professor of Political Science, Stanford University.
Kian Mintz-Woo, Lecturer in Philosophy, University College Cork.
Julia Nefsky, Assistant Professor of Philosophy, University of Toronto.
David Plunkett, Associate Professor of Philosophy, Dartmouth College.
Peter Railton, Gregory S. Kavka Distinguished University Professor, Arthur F. Thurnau

Professor, and John Stephenson Perrin Professor of Philosophy, University of Michigan,
Ann Arbor.
Jeff Sebo, Clinical Associate Professor of Environmental Studies and Affiliated Professor of
Bioethics, Medical Ethics, and Philosophy, New York University.
Dean Spears, Assistant Professor of Economics, University of Texas at Austin.
Lucas Stanczyk, Assistant Professor of Philosophy, Harvard University.
Katie Steele, Associate Professor of Philosophy, Australian National University.

Abstracts of Chapters
Section I. Valuing Climate Change Impacts
1 A Convenient Truth? Climate Change and Quality of Life
By Peter Railton
Justice would appear to require that those who are the principal beneficiaries of a
history of economic and political behavior that has produced dramatic climate
change bear a correspondingly large share of the costs of getting it under control.
Yet a widespread material ideology of happiness holds that this would require
sacrificing “quality of life” in the most-developed countries—hardly a popular
program. However, an empirically-grounded understanding of the nature and
function of “subjective well-being”, and of the factors that most influence it, chal-
lenges this ideology and suggests that well-being in more-developed as well as
less-developed societies could be improved consistently with more sustainable
resource utilization. If right, this would refocus debates over climate change from
the sacrifice of “quality of life” to the enhancement and more equitable distribution
of well-being within a framework of sustainable relations with one another and
with the rest of nature.
2 Animals and Climate Change
By Jeff Sebo
This chapter argues that animals matter for climate change and that climate
change matters for animals. In particular, animal agriculture will have a signifi-
cant impact on the climate, and climate change will have a significant impact on
wild animals. As a result, we morally ought to resist animal agriculture as part of
our mitigation efforts and assist wild animals as part of our adaptation efforts.
The chapter also evaluates different strategies for accomplishing these aims, and
considers connections with debates about well-being, population ethics and
duties to future generations, and the nature and limits of moral and polit
ical theory.
xvi Abstracts of Chapters
3 Discounting under Risk: Utilitarianism vs. Prioritarianism
By Maddalena Ferranna
The debate on the economics of climate change has focused primarily on the
choice of the social discount rate, which plays a key role in determining the desir-
ability of climate policies given the long-term impacts of climate damages.
Discounted utilitarianism and the Ramsey rule dominate the debate on discount-
ing. The chapter examines the appropriateness of the utilitarian framework for
evaluating public policies. More specifically, it focuses on the risky dimension of
climate change, and on the failure of utilitarianism in expressing both concerns
for the distribution of risks across the population and concerns for the occur-
rence of catastrophic outcomes. The chapter shows how a shift to the prioritarian
paradigm is able to capture those types of concerns, and briefly sketches the main
implications for the choice of the social discount rate.
4 A Philosopher’s Guide to Discounting
By Kian Mintz-Woo
This chapter introduces several distinctions relevant to what is called the “dis-
counting problem”, since the issue is how (future) costs and benefits are dis-
counted to make them comparable in present terms. The chapter defends the
claim that there are good reasons to adopt Ramsey-style discounting in the con-
text of climate change; the Ramsey Rule is robust, flexible, and well-understood.
An important distinction involved in discounting—“descriptivism” and “pre-
scriptivism”—is discussed. It is argued that, even if we adopt prescriptivism, and
accept that this means there is a need for moral experts in parameter assignments,
there is a significant issue. The type of moral expertise required for the discount-
ing problem will not involve knowledge of moral theory—thus making moral
philosophy unhelpful in terms of making particular parameter assignments,
despite these being substantive moral judgments.
5 Does Climate Change Policy Depend Importantly on Population

Ethics? Deflationary Responses to the Challenges of Population Ethics
for Public Policy
By Gustaf Arrhenius, Mark Budolfson, and Dean Spears
Choosing a policy response to climate change seems to demand a population axi-

ology. A formal literature involving impossibility theorems has demonstrated that
Abstracts of Chapters xvii
all possible approaches to population axiology have one or more seemingly

counterintuitive implications. This leads to the worry that because axiological
theory is radically unresolved, this theoretical ignorance implies serious practical
ignorance about what climate policies to pursue. This chapter offers two
deflationary responses to this worry. First, it may be that given the actual facts of
climate change, all axiologies agree on a particular policy response. In this case,
there would be a clear dominance conclusion, and the puzzles of axiology would
be practically irrelevant (albeit still theoretically challenging). Second, despite the
impossibility results, the chapter proves the possibility of axiologies that satisfy
bounded versions of all of the desiderata from the population axiology literature,
which may be all that is needed for policy evaluation.
Section II. Cognition, Emotions, and Climate Change
6 Way to Go, Me
By Chrisoula Andreou
This chapter considers an interesting possibility related to human psychology and

explores its relevance with respect to understanding and impacting behavior in the
face of climate change understood as a “creeping environmental problem.” The
possibility is that one’s best bet in terms of predicting and understanding some-
one’s take on her individually trivial contributions to positive or negative out-
comes is not to look for clues about whether she is individualistic or
group-oriented, but instead to figure out whether an individualistic take or a
group-oriented take will facilitate her seeing herself as praiseworthy, or at least
not blameworthy: insofar as one take is better suited to facilitating self-praise, or
avoiding self-blame, with respect to the behavior at hand, it will, other things
equal, be adopted. If this is right, it has important implications with respect to
attempts at promoting environmentally friendly behavior by activating motiv
ations associated with the prospect of self-praise or self-blame.
7 The Wages of Fear? Toward Fearing Well About Climate Change
By Alison McQueen
What role, if any, should appeals to fear play in climate change communication?
Moral and practical worries about fear appeals in the climate change debate have
caused some to turn toward hope appeals. This chapter argues that fear can be a
rational and motivationally powerful response to climate change. While there are
good reasons to worry about the use of fear in politics, climate change fear appeals
xviii Abstracts of Chapters
can be protected against the standard criticisms of political fear. Hope appeals, by
contrast, seem vulnerable to serious motivational d rawbacks in the case of cli-
mate change. We should not therefore abandon fear appeals in favor of hope
appeals. Instead, we should take our bearings from Aristotle in an effort to culti-
vate fear more responsibly. Aristotle offers an appealing model of “civic fear” that
preserves the best aspects of hope, elicits rather than extinguishes our sense of
agency, and invites rather than forecloses deliberation.
8 Climate Change and Cultural Cognition
By Daniel Greco
How should we form beliefs concerning global climate change? For most of us,
directly evaluating the evidence isn’t feasible; we lack expertise. So, any rational
beliefs we form will have to be based in part on deference to those who have it.
But in this domain, questions about how to identify experts can be fraught. This
chapter discusses a partial answer to the question of how we in fact identify
experts: Dan Kahan’s cultural cognition thesis, according to which we treat
experts on factual questions of political import only insofar as they share our
moral and cultural values. The chapter then poses some normative questions
about cultural cognition: is it a species of irrationality that must be overcome if
we are to communicate scientific results effectively, or is it instead an inescapable
part of rational belief management? Ultimately, it is argued that cultural cogni-
tion is substantively unreasonable, though not formally irrational.
Section III. Climate Change and Individual Ethics
9 Climate Change and Individual Obligations: A Dilemma for the

Expected Utility Approach, and the Need for an Imperfect View
By Julia Nefsky
This chapter concerns the nature of our obligations as individuals when it comes
to our emissions-producing activities and climate change. The first half of the
chapter argues that the popular ‘expected utility’ approach to this question faces a
problematic dilemma: either it gives skeptical verdicts, saying that there are no
such obligations, or it yields implausibly strong verdicts. The second half of the
chapter diagnoses the problem. It is argued that the dilemma arises from a very
Abstracts of Chapters xix
general feature of the view, and thus is shared by other views as well. The chapter
then discusses what an account of our individual obligations needs to look like if
it is to avoid the dilemma. Finally, the discussion is extended beyond climate
change to other collective impact contexts.
10 The Puzzle of Inefficacy
By Tristram McPherson
We appear to have reasons to act in light of the relationship between our

choices and the horrors of factory farming or the escalating bad effects of climate
change, even if we are unable to mitigate those bad effects through our individual
choices. This idea can seem puzzling in two ways. First, it can seem puzzling
how to explain these reasons, given our inefficacy. Second, it can seem that
these reasons, even if they existed, would have to be vanishingly weak. This
chapter develops a solution to this puzzle that appeals to a novel explanation of
why a feature counts as a focal point in the explanation of ethical properties.
This solution is applied to show how our relationship to certain social patterns
can explain our reasons to respond to facts about factory farming and climate
change, mentioned above.
11 On Individual and Shared Obligations: In Defense

of the Activist’s Perspective
By Gunnar Björnsson
People who make substantial efforts to help resolve collective practical problems
such as that of catastrophic climate change often think that: (1) Together, we can
resolve the problem. (2) In virtue of this, we have an obligation to resolve it. (3) In
virtue of the importance of the problem and our capacity to resolve it together, we
have individual obligations to help resolve it. This “activist perspective” faces
philosophical problems: How can the groups that are to solve the problems have
obligations given that these groups are not themselves agents? How can members
of such groups have obligations to help, given that they have no individual control
over whether the problem is resolved? And how can the collective ability to solve
a problem be relevant for individual obligations and individual moral deliber
ation? This chapter develops solutions to each of these problems based on an
analysis of individual and shared obligations.
xx Abstracts of Chapters
12 How Much Harm Does Each of Us Do?
By John Broome
This chapter attempts to estimate the amount of harm an average American does
by her emissions of greenhouse gas, on the basis of recent very detailed statistical
analysis being done by a group of economists. It concentrates on the particular
harm of shortening people’s lives. The estimate is very tentative, and it varies
greatly according to how effectively the world responds to climate change. If the
response is very weak, the chapter estimates that an average American’s emissions
shorten lives by six or seven years in total. If the response is moderately strong,
the figure is about half a year.
Section IV. Climate Change and Politics
13 How Quickly Should the World Reduce its Greenhouse Gas

Emissions? Climate Change and the Structure of
Intergenerational Justice
By Lucas Stanczyk
Given the accompanying sacrifices, how quickly should the present generation
reduce its greenhouse gas emissions? The dominant framework for thinking about
this question continues to be normative welfare economics. This chapter explains
why the dominant approach should be rejected, and outlines the structure of what
the author has come to think is the correct approach. On this approach, require-
ments of intergenerational justice are understood, not as the means to, but as the
most important constraints on maximizing intertemporal welfare. The chapter
explains why the main content of these constraints can be given by the theories of
social and international justice. Finally, the chapter explains why the non-identity
problem does not undermine the recommended way of thinking about intergen-
erational justice. Even if the business-as-usual baseline in greenhouse gas emis-
sions will never harm any unborn future people, we can still say that humanity is
forever subject to a suitably high environmental conservation standard.
14 Political Realism, Feasibility Wedges, and Opportunities for

Collective Action on Climate Change
By Mark Budolfson
This chapter raises objections to the argument that a highly unjust response to the
problem of climate change is the best that we can currently hope for and is thus
Abstracts of Chapters xxi
the solution that we should actively promote even from an ethical point of view.
Such an argument has been put forward by a wide range of commentators in phil
osophy, economics, law, and international affairs including John Broome, Cass
Sunstein, Eric Posner, and David Weisbach. Among other things, this chapter
argues that the way in which this argument fails is both ethically and practically
instructive, as its failure reveals how a realist approach to climate policy is con-
sistent with a more equity-focused approach than is commonly appreciated. As a
concrete illustration, it is explained how the lessons could be incorporated into a
more ethical climate treaty architecture that shares structural features with pro-
posals from William Nordhaus, Joseph Stiglitz, and others.
15 Pareto Improvements and Feasible Climate Solutions
By Katie Steele
Proponents of International Paretianism (IP)—the principle that international

agreements should not make any state worse-off and should make some at least
better off—argue that it is the only feasible approach to reducing the harms of
climate change. They draw on some key assumptions regarding the meaning of
‘feasibility’ and the nature of the Pareto improvements associated with coordin
ated action on climate change. This chapter challenges these assumptions, in
effect weakening the case for IP and allowing for broader thinking about what
counts as a ‘feasible’ climate solution.
16 Climate Change, Liberalism, and the Public/Private Distinction
By Dale Jamieson and Marcello Di Paola
Climate change puts pressure on a distinction that is at the heart of liberal

theory: that between the public and the private. Many of the GHGs-emitting
behaviors that contribute to the disruption of the climate system—such as
using computers, taking hot showers, eating this or that, driving cars, investing
here or there, and having children—are traditionally regarded as private. Yet
today, through climate change, these apparently private behaviors can have very
public consequences, however indirect, across spatial, temporal, and genetic
boundaries. The chapter introduces the public/private distinction and discusses
the various ways in which it has figured in liberal theory. It goes on to show
how climate change threatens the viability of the distinction, both by intensifying
old tensions and by bringing new pressures to bear. It then considers some
options for relieving the pressure, none of which seems particularly promising
by liberal lights.
Introduction
Mark Budolfson, Tristram McPherson, and David Plunkett
This volume is guided by two thoughts. First, philosophers have much to contribute
to the discussion of climate change. Second, reflection on climate change can
contribute to our thinking about a range of general topics that are of independent
interest to philosophers. This volume will be of interest both to philosophers
working on climate change as well as those working in a range of other fields,
ranging from public policy to economics to law to empirical disciplines including
psychology, the science of climate adaptation, mitigation, and beyond. Part of
what we aim to establish in this volume is that philosophers are in a strong pos
ition to collaborate in the kind of interdisciplinary conversations needed to tackle
pressing challenges for the world such as climate change.
In this short introduction, we explain the guiding thoughts behind this vol
ume, and provide a broad overview of some of the key themes that connect the
chapters here. We also situate the chapters here within the broader interdisciplin
ary discussion of climate change. (A detailed abstract for each chapter precedes
this introduction.)
The first guiding thought behind this volume is that philosophers have much
to contribute to the discussion of climate change. This is because philosophers have
developed important intellectual tools and ideas that can help everyone think
more clearly and carefully about central issues raised by climate change.
For example, consider that the best scientific evidence suggests that climate
change will have profound effects on a global scale, and that what we do in the near
future can alter those effects for better or worse. In light of this, climate change
poses some of the most profound ethical challenges of our time. Regardless of
how we respond to climate change, our actions (or lack thereof) will have good
effects on some and bad effects on others. To decide how to respond collectively,
we need to think about who and what matters, about what sorts of effects on them
matter, and about what would be a just or equitable way of arranging those effects.
For example, should our aim in responding to climate change be merely to maxi
mize the total economic output of the world, as many influential economic
models assume? Or should we also value the health and well-being of all humans
equally regardless of whether those individual people are rich or poor, and thus
regardless of their contributions to global economic output? And what about future
Mark Budolfson, Tristram McPherson, and David Plunkett, Introduction In: Philosophy and Climate Change. Edited by:
Mark Budolfson, Tristram McPherson, and David Plunkett, Oxford University Press (2021). © Mark Budolfson,
Tristram McPherson, and David Plunkett. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198796282.003.0001
2 Mark Budolfson, Tristram M c Pherson, and David Plunkett
humans, who do not yet exist, and who may or may not exist at all depending on
what policies we choose? Does the health and well-being of the environment and
non-human animals matter as well even beyond its value to humans? How should
the burdens of adaptation and mitigation be distributed given the nature of the
climate change problem and its causes? The first section of essays—Valuing Climate
Change Impacts—addresses these questions of value theory about what ultimately
makes outcomes better or worse, in connection with responses to climate change
and beyond.
At the same time, even supposing we have answered the preceding questions
and thus are confident which responses to climate change are better and worse,
we must still grapple with further political questions: which of these responses are
politically infeasible, and how should feasibility affect which response we decide
to aim for with policy and political advocacy? More generally, to what extent are
classic goals of political philosophy—such as liberalism, protection of basic rights,
justifiability to each person of the structure of society, and so on—helpful in iden
tifying the best way to restructure society in response to climate change? And
might the problem of climate change itself provide a challenge to some of these
classic goals of political philosophy? The fourth section of essays—Climate
Change and Politics—addresses these questions of political philosophy.
Even if we were to settle all of the preceding questions about what we collect
ively should do about climate change both nationally and internationally, there is
a gap between those facts and what conclusions you and I should draw for our
own individual behavior. In particular, we need to better understand the connec
tion between the best collective responses to a problem such as climate change,
and what actions individual people should take. For example, is climate change
essentially a global collective action problem that requires a global carbon pricing
response in a way that makes no special action required by individuals, beyond
merely supporting and complying with such a collective-level scheme? Or instead
are individual people required to take costly actions even beyond that, given that
climate change is literally killing more and more people all the time as a result of
our collective emissions? The third section of essays—Climate Change and
Individual Ethics—addresses these questions, and provides a toolbox of important
resources for thinking well about these (and other) pressing ethical questions that
face us as individuals in contemporary society.
Another set of issues arises from the notorious mismatch between (a) the
actual beliefs and motivations of people in the world right now concerning
climate change, which are demonstrably inadequate to cope with the challenges
we face, and (b) what beliefs and motivations would be needed for us to effectively
respond to climate change—and how to get from (a) to (b). The second section
of essays—Cognition, Emotions, and Climate Change—demonstrates how philo
sophers can help us to understand and evaluate the nature of the relevant motives
and beliefs, and contribute to the effort to improve the beliefs and motivations of
Introduction 3
people in order to create the right conditions for an adequate response to climate
change to emerge.
In addition to the issues above that structure this volume, there are many other
noteworthy issues that appear throughout the volume. To take one example,
philosophers can help illuminate and critically examine the often obscure meta
physical and ethical assumptions about the future that underlie influential con
temporary policy discussions about climate change. This is an especially pressing
topic because experts often agree that the best response to climate change depends
heavily on the correct approach to specific questions about the future, namely
intertemporal discounting and population ethics. The chapters in this volume
demonstrate how philosophy can help us to make further progress toward shared
understanding, and perhaps even narrowing our uncertainty about these issues.
In addition, other issues that appear throughout the volume include:
• The ethical and political significance of uncertainty, and risk, and

decision-theoretic principles
• The significance of feasibility considerations and ideal vs. non-ideal theory
in political philosophy
• The ethical importance (or unimportance) of making a difference in one’s
actions as a single individual person
• The epistemology and normative psychology of risk, beliefs, and emotions
regarding oneself and others, including updating beliefs in light of the
assessment of external experts
The sixteen chapters collected in this volume contribute to these important

topics, and give readers important entry points into the burgeoning philosophical
literature on themes relevant to climate change. Our goal was to include philo
sophers working in different subareas of philosophy, ranging from ethics to political
philosophy to epistemology to the philosophy of science. We have also sought to
include both philosophers who have already made important contributions to
philosophical discussion of climate change, as well as those who had not written
directly on this topic prior to this volume.
The second thought that animates this volume is that thinking about climate
change can be illuminating for a range of topics of abiding interest to philosophers.
For example, philosophers aim to understand the nature of political norms,
distributive justice, how to respond to uncertainty, our obligations to non-human
animals, the relationship between collective and individual responsibility, the
ethical significance of currently non-existent future persons, and when the state is
justified in using coercion to promote its policies. The threats posed by climate
change not only make these issues more pressing; they can also shed new light on
them, giving philosophers important reasons to revisit assumptions that have
structured much of our thinking about these questions. In addition to the issues
4 Mark Budolfson, Tristram M c Pherson, and David Plunkett
directly addressed in this volume, other important philosophical questions about

climate change that are not addressed here but that promise to lead to more gen
eral philosophical insight include:1
• Individual and collective responsibility for climate change, and the relation
ship between the two, including issues regarding historical responsibility,
benefitting from injustice, and corrective justice
• Institutional responsibility, for example the responsibilities of universities to
invest in research and/or divest from fossil fuels and animal agriculture
• Responsibility for climate-based immigration and refugees
• Climate change and the application of distributive justice to the global sphere
• The potential ethical significance of intentions and/or the distinction
between doing vs. allowing harm to responsibility, or to reasons for action
• The epistemology of scientific risk assessment: empirical evidence, scientific
models, and subjective: assessing the empirical evidence for anthropogenic
climate change
• The role of scientific expertise in public discourse and political decision-making
• Civil disobedience and political action
• The ethics of communication and public persuasion
• The ethics of agriculture, including issues about the emissions footprint of
animal agriculture
• The ethics of procreation, including issues about the emissions footprint of
having children
• The ethics of species loss and wilderness loss
• The ethics and epistemology of risks related to potential technological solu
tions to climate change, including geoengineering
• The ethics of difficult tradeoffs, including between meeting the current urgent
needs of the desperately poor for cheap energy vs. the needs of future people
• Economic growth, climate change, and the correct objective/axiology for
evaluating social policy
• The importance of public justification and the legitimacy of coercion and
international institutions, especially in the face of looming catastrophe and
unsolved global collective action problems, and general ethical and political
principles that apply in emergencies and global collective action situations
• Technocracy and the importance of public justification, especially given
empirical issues that are opaque to citizens, and the time inconsistency of
the costs to citizens now vs. benefits to others (mostly non-citizens) in
the future
• Religious toleration and religion-based denial of climate change
1 Many of these topics are addressed in other work that has appeared in climate change and
philosophy.
Introduction 5
In light of the above, we believe that philosophical work on climate change—

including the work showcased in this volume—can make an important contribu
tion to the broader interdisciplinary conversation about this pressing topic. We
hope the volume also spurs others (both from within philosophy as well as from
other fields) to enter these conversations, and collaborate together for the good of
society and future generations. In our view, understanding climate change, and
discussing how to address it, should be at the very center of public conversation
for the foreseeable future. We think that philosophy can make an enormous
contribution to that conversation, but will do so only if both philosophers and
non-philosophers understand what philosophy can contribute. We hope that this
volume contributes to that understanding.
SECTION I
VALU ING C L IMAT E C HA NG E

IMPACT S
1
A Convenient Truth?
Climate Change and Quality of Life
Peter Railton
1. Introduction
One of the chief obstacles in the developed world to undertaking the measures
needed to contend with global climate change is the widespread belief that these
measures would inevitably come at the expense of the standard of living now
enjoyed by a significant portion of the population in these countries. This in turn
raises concerns about justice and fairness. Could it be just or fair to take steps that
would impose upon future generations in the US and elsewhere a lower standard
of living than our own? Such worries are especially acute since, arguably, those
currently enjoying a high standard of living in the developed world are the ones
who have inherited most of the benefit from the long history of exploitation of the
environment. Moreover, economic growth in developing countries over recent
decades has been credited with raising millions from poverty (Deaton 2013), and
this trend could be dramatically affected by slowed growth in developed and
developing countries. Yet if developed and developing countries continue to
enlarge their burden on the environment at current rates, the problem of global
climate change is likely only to worsen, with pervasive long-run negative effects
on well-being worldwide—effects that can be expected to be borne most heavily
by the world’s least advantaged populations. It seems we are in a double-bind, and
while technological innovations or economic changes might occur that would
permit continuing current rates of economic growth indefinitely, to plan on this
would be taking a tremendous risk with the lives and well-being of others,
including other species.1
Additionally, there is risk to the social and political environment to consider.
Limited economic growth could also mean that politics and economics come to
approximate a zero-sum game, intensifying social rivalry. In such competition,
those already possessing greater material resources are likely to be able to use their
influence to consolidate their position, entrenching inequality and undermining
1 In this chapter our primary focus will be upon human well-being, not because that should be our
sole concern, but because it is certainly concern enough to raise these issues acutely.
Peter Railton, A Convenient Truth? Climate Change and Quality of Life In: Philosophy and Climate Change. Edited by:
Mark Budolfson, Tristram McPherson, and David Plunkett, Oxford University Press (2021). © Peter Railton.
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198796282.003.0002
10 Peter Railton
democratic processes. Indeed, we have already seen increasing inequality and

rising illiberal and non-democratic political tendencies in well-developed coun-
tries where large sectors of the workforce have experienced an erosion of their
relative economic standing. How to mobilize sufficient support for more sustainable
policies with respect to the natural environment even as a deteriorating social and
political environment seems to be undermining public institutions and the sense
of shared purpose?
But what if this apparent double-bind involves a mistaken view of the relation
of well-being to “standard of living”? And if this mistaken view has in turn misled
us in how we frame the worry that future generations will “live less well than we do”?
While part of the argument of this chapter will be that an analysis of people’s
actual standard of living must go beyond the orthodox criterion of real per capita
gross domestic product (GDP), this criterion is the most widely studied indicator
of “standard of living” across countries and across time, and so will be our
starting point.2 And I will mostly focus on “well-being” in the sense of “subjective
well-being” typical of contemporary social science: how individuals report experi-
encing their daily lives, express overall happiness or satisfaction with that life,
and evaluate their lives against their ideas of what makes a life better or worse.
As philosophers, we might have more elaborate or demanding conceptions of
well-being, but subjective well-being, too, is the most heavily studied indicator
across countries and time. Moreover, the experiential and self-evaluative elements
it involves are likely to be part of any plausible theory about what it is to be living
well, and to figure heavily in shaping people’s social attitudes and political behavior.
So the literature on standard of living and subjective well-being will afford us
some empirical traction in thinking about how the changes needed in order to
contend with global climate change might actually affect standard of living or
well-being in a fuller and more normative sense, or how this might interact with
questions about fairness or justice. However, we cannot simply take the subjective
well-being literature at face value—to understand its potential significance for the
questions we are examining here we will need to look for underlying explanations
of the phenomena this literature records.
For example, I will be arguing that understanding the sources and components
of subjective well-being can help us understand some of the seemingly puzzling
behavior of measurements of subjective well-being. And this will enable us to see
more sustainable alternatives to current patterns of economic growth, especially
if our aim is to achieve greater and more equal subjective well-being worldwide.
While we cannot ignore the fact that very substantial material development will be
needed to bring more of the world’s population to a level of material sufficiency
and security, we must also take into account that the way this growth is achieved
2 GDP includes personal consumption (68% in the US in 2019, Q1), private investment (17.5%),
net exports (−3%), and government spending (17.5%) (Federal Reserve 2020).
A Convenient Truth? 11
can have effects on subjective well-being that, taken together, are of greater
importance than the absolute level of real per capita GDP. Societies in the devel-
oped and developing world that give greater emphasis to these other factors—
which include levels of social support, public health, civil and personal freedom,
and effectiveness and responsiveness of governance—already provide evidence
that our children could live better than we do, even at a lower level of real per
capita GDP than the contemporary US. Decades of study indicate that increasing
levels of real per capita GDP can be generated in already-prosperous countries, at
tremendous cost to the environment, without noticeable gains in average reported
subjective well-being. By contrast, high levels of social support, public health, civil
and personal freedom, and effectiveness of governance, which need not impose
comparable burdens upon the environment, are reliably associated with increased
subjective well-being across a wide range of levels of real per capita GDP. Indeed,
the social, political, and economic structures that tend to generate the greatest
increases in per capita income and wealth may also tend to undermine levels of
social support, public health, civil and personal freedom, and effectiveness and
responsiveness of governance.
We must of course be realistic as we think about mobilizing responses to global
climate change. But it seems to me unrealistic to think that continuation of existing
patterns of economic growth will best serve the realization of human well-being.
Current economic structures and practices will be hard to change in the direction
of greater sustainability, but not because moving them toward greater sustainabil-
ity would necessarily conflict with effective pursuit of widespread human
happiness—that, I will argue, is happiness ideology, not happiness science. It is the
same ideology that transformed the jointly-realizable “American Dream” as first
articulated by historian James Truslow Adams—a “dream of a land in which life
should be better and richer and fuller for every man, with opportunity for each
according to his ability or achievement” (Adams 1931)—into the very thing he
was warning against: a competitive, individualistic dream of happiness in life as
gaining in wealth and social position. It is possible to imagine a more realistic
picture of human happiness, as we will see below, but not a picture more conveni-
ent for channeling people’s legitimate desire for a better life for themselves and
their children into a drive for material consumption and for consumption-fueled
economic growth, a drive that may well be a risk factor with respect to attaining
human happiness—even for those most consumed by this drive.3
Global climate change has been said to be an “inconvenient truth”, since it
conflicts with maintaining cherished ways of living and won’t go away by being
3 Kasser (2003) and Nickerson et al. (2003) have found evidence that having a high level of per-
sonal concern with materialistic values is associated with lower levels of subjective well-being, though
this association is, as one might expect, mediated somewhat by income level. And Van Boven (2005)
and others have found that experiential and shared goods tend to be more rewarding, at the moment
and in retrospect, than material goods.
12 Peter Railton
ignored.4 I will be arguing that, if we are genuinely concerned with human

well-being and adopt a more plausible theory of its nature and sources, existing
ways of living need not be so cherished. That is a “convenient truth”, both from
the moral standpoint of commitment to well-being and justice and from the
practical standpoint of mobilizing support to contend with potentially devastating
climate change. Since I have no recipe for translating this truth into actual social
practice, I may justly be accused of being too optimistic on the strength of it.
With Kant, though, I believe that a bias for hope, even in the face of a seemingly
dark future, is one characteristic lapse of sober human reason that we should not
attempt to correct.
2. The Nature and Measure of Subjective Well-Being
To make the case for this “convenient truth”5 we will have to devote much of this
chapter’s length to looking into research on subjective well-being, so we had better
say more to adumbrate that notion. When speaking strictly, psychologists will
emphasize that, as an empirical construct, subjective well-being is a collection of
answers to standard arrays of questions, not a theory of well-being or happiness.
These answers are self-reports, not judgments by trained researchers, and thus
they rely upon how people understand the questions they are asked and the
answers they choose among.
The standard questions divide into two broad categories, those concerning the
hedonic tone of one’s life and those concerning one’s satisfaction with one’s life
overall. While the answers given in these two categories correlate with each other,
they also behave differently in a number of important ways, as we’ll see. And
some researchers have argued that it is misleading to treat these two elements as
forming together a unified construct.
The first, hedonic category has generally taken one of two forms. In the
longest-running surveys, for example the World Values Survey (Inglehart et al.
2014), individuals are asked about their happiness, e.g., “Taking all things
together, would you say you are (i) Very happy, (ii) Rather happy, (iii) Not very
happy, or (iv) Not at all happy?” This kind of response range is sometimes called a
Likert Scale. More recent surveys may divide the range into five, or seven, or ten
steps. The other, also more recent, form of question within the hedonic category
asks individuals to report, not their happiness overall, but the frequency of their
current or recent experience of a range of more specific or episodic emotions or
moods, such as joy, laughter, sadness, stress, anger, or worry. For example, in the
4 These are, of course, only two of the many ways in which global climate change is an “inconveni
ent truth”.
5 Potentially convenient, more accurately—it will matter how this truth is appreciated and used.
massive Gallup World Poll subjects are asked to focus on the previous day, from
morning until night, and answer whether they experienced “a lot” of anger, or
depression, or enjoyment, etc. (Gallup World Poll). Other variants deploy a scale
for these answers, ranging from “Not at all” to “All the time” for specified emotions
or moods over the specified period of time.
Questions in the second main category, often called “life satisfaction”, ask indi
viduals to evaluate, or indicate a degree of satisfaction with, their lives overall.
Here subjects are typically given a Cantril Ladder for reporting their answers,
where the top rung is something like “Best possible life” or “Best possible life for
me” and the bottom rung is “Worst possible life” or “Worst possible life for me”.
Respondents are invited to indicate “where they stand” on the ladder. Since such
self-ranking constitutes a judgment rather than a feeling of satisfaction as such,
this component is sometimes called “cognitive life satisfaction”.
To obtain subjective well-being, the values for the “hedonic” answers and the
“life satisfaction” answers are combined into an overall score or “index”, usually
giving each category equal weight. In addition to using large-scale surveys, meas-
ures of subjective well-being are also obtained in laboratory settings, face-to-face
interviews, physiological measures, and “experience sampling”, in which infor
mants are contacted at random times during their daily lives and asked to report
what they are currently doing and to answer some form of the usual questions
(Eid and Diener 2004).
Since the answers given are self-reports of individuals following their own
interpretation of the questions, one might expect significant, arbitrary variability
in the results of these surveys. And they do in fact show some variability. But
what is more striking is how much consistency is shown in the results of these
surveys, even cross-culturally, and how much the variability that is found is sys-
tematic rather than arbitrary—e.g., linked in predictable ways to context, mood,
etc., which then can be controlled for (for discussion, see Eid and Diener 2004).
And when psychometric techniques are deployed on the data generated by sampling
subjective well-being, or latent variable models are developed to explain these data,
the results vary for different measures and models, but a number show reasonable
statistical behavior and such features as normalcy in distribution, discriminant
power, and internal consistency (see Lucas et al. 1996; Eid 2008; Diener et al. 2013).
Subjective well-being has come to be of interest as an indicator in part because it can
add predictive power to psychological and economic models based upon other,
more “objective” measures (Frey and Stutzer 2002). For example, knowing someone’s
score on subjective well-being can improve accuracy in predicting health outcomes,
performance in school or at work, success or failure in relationships, and more
(Luhmann et al. 2010). Despite its seeming “softness” or arbitrariness, then, meas-
urements of subjective well-being appear to be correlated with something genuine,
and as a result an active industry has grown up around measuring and utilizing
subjective well-being in research, clinical practice, public policy, and commerce.
14 Peter Railton
Philosophers have tended to be skeptical about subjective well-being, especially

given its reliance upon self-report surveys and the tendency of the press and some
psychologists to ignore the warnings and frame their presentation of data on sub
jective well-being in terms of happiness or well-being, full stop. However, it seems
to me that philosophical accounts of personal well-being cannot afford to be so
far alienated from the perspective of actual individuals as to treat as irrelevant
what people themselves will say when asked to reflect on how well their lives are
going, or how they feel day-in and day-out.
And attention to the literature on subjective well-being may help philosophers
keep some aspects of normative theorizing in proportion. For example, it is not
uncommon for philosophers to treat “full realization of characteristic human
potential” as central to well-being. Yet in most countries average reported sub
jective well-being tends to rise in later decades of life—after having fallen during
the middle years of life—even as older individuals are undergoing changes that
reduce a number of their abilities. Could this simply be “adaptive preference”, in
which people settle for getting increasingly less from life as their capacities dimin-
ish? It is, of course, rational to adjust one’s goals in light of changes in resources or
potentials (Rothermund and Brandstadter 2003), but this need not result in a
diminished life and would not explain why, by contrast, average reported subject
ive well-being falls dramatically in the later decades of life in some countries.
For example, a comparison of prosperous Anglophone countries with former
Soviet bloc countries (Deaton 2007) found that, in both groups, average individ-
ual reported satisfaction with health declined in the final decades of life, indicat-
ing that health preferences do not simply adapt to “like what one gets”. By contrast,
average individual reported satisfaction with life in one’s later years either rose or
stayed constant in the wealthy Anglophone countries, while it declined markedly
in the former Soviet bloc countries that had experienced a collapse of the systems
for socially-subsidized health care and support of the aged.
It therefore is not inherent in the human condition that diminished health and
capacities lessen one’s experienced quality of life—societies and social relations have
the power to affect this significantly. Disabled individuals and disability advocates
have argued strongly that it is too easy to assume that well-being requires full
development of typical human capacities, or that those who experience disability
must somehow be settling for less rewarding lives. Not only does this misrepresent
the lived experience of many disabled individuals, it may be another manifestation of
the material ideology of happiness, ignoring evidence that material resources need
not dominate in one’s quality of life (cf., for example, Solomon 2012).
3. Subjective Well-Being and Its Correlates
Standardized measures of subjective well-being began to be used systematically in

World War II, trying to understand how well individuals bear up in, or after,
combat situations. Once the war was over, the measures began to be used to
observe trends in the population more broadly.
What was found? Focusing first on the highly-developed and highly-studied
societies of North America and Western Europe, the great bulk of the population
reported subjective well-being crowded into the top half of the scales, with an
average of 2.3 on a three-point scale or 3.8 on a five-point scale not uncommon.
So the average reported subjective well-being in these societies isn’t “neutral”
(mid-way on the scale, say), but distinctly positive. Moreover, distribution around
this average was statistically “normal”, with most scores clustered within a band
around the median value, and frequency falling off fairly uniformly on either side
of the central mass of scores. And by the time the curve reaches the bottom of its
range (the top being truncated somewhat by the “ceiling” of the maximal value),
the tail has become very thin. Moreover, if we look at individuals’ reported scores
over time, there is a tendency to stay within a range centered on a fairly constant
modal value, spending some time above, and some time below, but in a fashion
that is fairly balanced to either side. Individual differences in this average value
have often been attributed to genetic or personality factors.
Strikingly, within a country over significant stretches of time, the average value
for reported subjective well-being also tended to remain fairly stable, despite
changes in other social variables, including real per capita GDP. For example, for
the US, real per capita GDP tripled between 1947 and 2004. Yet during this same
period, average reported subjective well-being remained fairly constant, even fall-
ing slightly (World Database of Happiness; Clark et al. 2008). One might fish for
explanations in the peculiar political and cultural trajectory of the US, except that
a similar phenomenon has occurred in the large Western European countries,
where the real GDP per capita has also risen significantly since the 1960s, while
average reported satisfaction with life as a whole has, with fairly limited variation,
remained essentially constant (Eurobarometer; Clark et al. 2008).
A potential implication for the most-developed countries of the US and European
data is striking. A doubling or even tripling of real GDP per capita did not seem
to have a significant effect on the average reported level of subjective well-being,
so that the creation of a staggering additional amount of material wealth—and
consumption of an equally staggering amount of material resources, with
attendant environment effects—might not have made a significant difference
to the experienced quality of life.on the whole.6 As we look more closely into
6 Of course, many other factors were at work in these societies during the same period—for example,
income inequality in the US and Europe was initially fairly low by historical standards from the 1940s
to the 1980s, and rose markedly afterwards (Piketty and Saez 2013). Still, the striking pattern of rising
real per capita GDP with relatively flat average reported subjective well-being held during both the
periods of lower inequality and those of higher inequality.
Throughout, unless otherwise noted, I will follow the standard usage in the social science literature of
speaking of “statistical effects”, such as regression coefficients, as “effects” tout court. This, I grant, is
tendentious and potentially misleading, since “effect” is also a causal term, and less is known about
16 Peter Railton
the sources and dynamics of subjective well-being, this fundamental fact should
not be lost sight of.
In response, someone might argue this pattern shows only that people’s reported
subjective well-being is not a sensitive indicator of real changes in their condi-
tions of life. Perhaps people’s reported subjective well-being is driven by relatively
constant factors of individual psychology, for example, and so tells us little about
how people’s objective quality of life is changing over time?
However, we will be reviewing a considerable body of evidence that suggests
that individuals’ reported subjective well-being is often quite sensitive to changes
in features of their existence that we would normally think of as important to
quality of life, including variation in economic conditions. For example, the “out-
put gap” is the difference within an economy between available productive cap
acity and actual output, expressed as a percentage of GDP. Mapping the output
gap over time serves as one indicator of changes in overall economic activity.
Over the three-decade period 1972–2006 in the US, fluctuations in the output gap
on the order of a 1–2 percent increase or decrease were reflected, with a brief time
lag, in similar changes in expressed subjective well-being, varying on either side
of a fairly constant mean (General Social Survey). Output gap is not a widely fol-
lowed statistic, so this effect is unlikely to have arisen simply from responses to
news reports. Instead, the changes taking place in actual lives reflected in this
statistic—e.g., unemployment vs. reemployment, reduced vs. increased ability to
cover basic household expenses, etc.—appear to have been reflected in turn in
average reported subjective well-being. The question is less, “Is subjective well-being
an informative social measure?”, than “Which aspects of life is subjective
well-being sensitive to, and why?”
Here is a first hint: both individual and social reported subjective well-being
generally seem to fluctuate around a mean, being especially responsive to
changes in condition—to trajectories in key indicators. Thus average reported
subjective well-being fell when the Global Financial Crisis hit in 2008, though it
rose subsequently as the economy improved (Helliwell et al. 2019). In Russia in
the aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union, average reported subjective
well-being fell sharply and deeply, only returning toward its former level as
conditions slowly began to normalize (Ingelhart et al. 2013). In Venezuela for
the period 2010-2016, during which it experienced a series of major social and
economic disruptions, average reported life-satisfaction fell from over 7 to just
above 4 (on a 10-point scale, Rojas 2018). And for individuals, average reported
subjective well-being, as we’ll see, also seems significantly tied to changes in
life-condition.
causal effects upon, or of, subjective well-being. So claims about “effects” must be understood as qualified
in this way.
4. Affect as Information and Guidance
That subjective well-being would in this way be especially responsive to change

can be linked to quite general features of affect in the human psychology. ‘Affect’
is a generic term in psychology, used to encompass both episodic emotions and
moods. Affect enters into both components of subjective well-being, though in
different ways. The experiential component of subjective well-being is a direct
self-report of felt “happiness” or of recent positive vs. negative felt emotions (e.g.,
joy, sadness, anger, worry, interest, etc.); the life-satisfaction component typically
combines an evaluative dimension (e.g., where one takes oneself to stand relative
to the “best possible” or “worst possible” lives for oneself) with a more affective
dimension (e.g., “Taking all things together, how satisfied are you with your life?”),
and evidence suggests that people often use recent or prospective felt affect as one
component in determining how well their lives are going.
What do we know about the nature and function of the affective system, then,
that might help us understand the behavior of subjective well-being as an indica-
tor? In contemporary psychology, a conception of the affective system has
emerged in which its principal functions are to inform the individual and help
guide subsequent behavior (Schwartz and Clore 2003). As Phoebe Ellsworth, a
cognitive social psychologist, and Randolf Nesse, an evolutionary psychologist
and clinical psychiatrist, write:
Emotions are modes of functioning, shaped by natural selection, that coordinate

physiological, cognitive, motivational, behavioral, and subjective responses in
patterns that increase the ability to meet the adaptive challenges of situations that
have recurred over evolutionary time.
(Nesse and Ellsworth 2009: 129, original italics)
Fear, for example, is a response to evidence of threat, danger, or loss of standing,

and it works to rapidly mobilize in a coordinated way a wide range of physical
and mental responses appropriate to contending with threating circumstances—
reorienting attention, increasing vigilance, priming memory and inference, and
intensifying motivation and bodily action-readiness. In the brain, the affective
system comes into play very early in perceptual processing (for some dimensions
of emotion, within 100 milliseconds of the onset of a sensory stimulus). Fear thus
can be engaged and begin to operate prior to any self-conscious judgment about
risk—one can be uneasy about a situation without knowing why, and this emo-
tional state can prime subsequent thought and begin to affect behavior (Diano
et al. 2017). The affective system is also a primary nexus for reward and learning,
using on-going feedback from experience to update our expectations and thereby
shape our choices and actions. Consistent with this central informing and guid-
ing role, the affective system recruits acquired information widely and projects to
18 Peter Railton
virtually every region of the brain (Pessoa 2008). Equally important for informing
and guiding, the affective system plays a critical role in mapping the physical
environment, representing others’ states of mind, and simulating and evaluating
alternative courses of action (for more extended discussion, see Duncan and
Barrett 2007; Seligman et al. 2013).
While fear is a paradigmatic emotion, we should not think of the evolution and
working of the affective system solely in terms of episodic arousal states. Although
some have defended the idea of evolutionarily-selected “basic emotions” with
particular behavioral manifestations, it is increasingly common to see the affect
ive system as a general-purpose capacity for the appraisal of situations and
prospects, and the adjustment of mental responses and behaviors (Duncan and
Barrett 2007; Moors et al. 2013). It has become clear that affect is continuously
operative, not only in such acute states as fear, joy, anger, or surprise, but equally
in such states as satisfaction, trust, interest, and affection.
It is not surprising, given this continuous informing and guiding function, that
people are generally ready with answers when happiness researchers approach
them with questions about how their life is going, or what positive or negative
feelings they have had recently. For example, the anterior insula, a central compo-
nent of the affective system, projects to brain regions involved in conscious
experience, and appears to carry out a real-time synthesis of information col-
lected from internal and external sensation, bodily requirements, goals, and
memory to provide a unified experiential sense of how well one is doing from
moment to moment in meeting one’s needs or realizing one’s aims (Craig 2009).
The affective elements of subjective well-being thus can be seen as part of an
evolved system for informing individuals in real time about how well they are
doing in many dimensions of life, whether significant or minor, short term or
long, or personal, familial, economic, or social. What might we predict about sub
jective well-being, given this picture of its affective elements?
5. Affect and Subjective Well-Being
Consider another system evolved to inform and guide: perception. Upon entering
a room with a ticking clock or buzzing light fixture, the noise will distract at first,
but if the unvarying sound continues, its impact on perceptual experience tends
to attenuate to inaudibility, and only a deliberate shift of attention, or a variation
in the noise, will reinstate the sound in perceptual experience (Elliott et al. 2011).
This attenuation of experiential impact has been characterized as perceptual
“habituation” or “adaptation”,7 which is thought to free the perceptual system to
attend to other, more informative features of one’s situations.
7 These terms are used somewhat interchangeably, and there is no clearly recognized distinction
or definitive account of underlying mechanisms. It seems to me important not to confuse
One of the earliest findings in the subjective well-being literature was that various
important life events, which initially have a strong positive or negative effect on
individual reported subjective well-being—marriage, the loss of a spouse, win-
ning a lottery, or serious disability, for example—often have an attenuated effect
on reported subjective well-being over time, as an individual tends to return a
personal “set point” (Brickman et al. 1978; Diener et al. 2006; Oswald and
Powdthavee 2008). This process is often spoken of as “hedonic adaptation” or
“habituation”, but we should ask whether habituation is in fact the right model.8
Even in the case of perception, “habituation” can be a bit of a misnomer. The
perceptual system appears to draw upon the mind’s predictive modeling of its
environment, so that sensory attention can be allocated preferentially to the most
informative inputs. This predictive modeling of the environment is complex, and
can lead to the shaping and production of conscious experience, e.g., strengthen-
ing the signal for spoken words against background noise, generating constant
color for objects despite changes in illumination, filling in the “blind spot”, and
coloring the full visual field even though color is only directly perceived in a small
region of the retina. That is, instead of simple, passive “habituation”, the system is
intelligent, active, and sensitive to information value on a continuing basis (for
discussion, see Teufel and Fletcher 2020). Should the continuous buzzing of a
fluorescent light fixture abruptly stop, we may immediately respond to the change,
suggesting that the aural environment was not simply being “tuned out”, but
rather was being continuously monitored for information that does not fit predic-
tion. For example, the small, involuntary eye-movements being made approxi-
mately five times a second to take in the visual environment—saccades—are
regulated by a learning-based system that shifts gaze in the direction of the most
informative incoming signals, and at a rate proportional to information value
(Morris et al. 2016). So what we might call “intelligent perception” of the environ-
ment is a continuous process involving the coordinated action of many elements:
statistical and causal modeling of the environment, sensitivity to one’s own
internal state or goals, and detection of discrepancies with expectation, all of
which go into shaping momentary conscious awareness.
Should we expect the affective system—which receives information directly from
sensation, internal states, and goals, models the physical and social environment,
and spontaneously allocates or shapes such processes as attention, cognition,
conscious experience, motivation, and action—to be any less actively intelligent
adaptation—e.g., the adaptation of the concentration of hemoglobin in one’s bloodstream to moving

to higher altitudes—with habit—e.g., relatively stereotyped and inflexible behaviors arising when
reward from a response to a stimulus is unchanging..
8 “Set point” theory has been subject to increasing criticism. As we saw in the case of age, and will
see in a wider array of circumstances, below, there can be medium or long-term changes in an indi-
vidual’s level of subjective well-being. One important source of evidence is the study of “life trajector
ies” using longer-term data sets (see Heady and Muffels 2017).
20 Peter Railton
in monitoring the environment we inhabit? Consider a study of the nucleus

accumbens, a part of the affective system which plays a critical role in reward and
behavior regulation in animals and humans, and is highly conserved evolutionar-
ily. Reynolds and Berridge (2008) found that, as the background level of risk in a
mouse’s environment changes, the portion of the nucleus accumbens shell that is
responsive to risk also varies, permitting finer-grained discrimination of levels of
risk. The allocation of the shell to positive, assuring stimuli returns to normal
when background risk decreases and greater sensitivity is needed across the full
range. This constitutes re-calibration in response to risk, to render the system
more attentive to gradations of risk when potential danger is predominant. Such
re-calibration for the purpose of maximizing sensitivity to the most important
new information is not “habituation” or return to a “set point”—it can, for example,
result in chronically heightened vigilance, risk-sensitization, and action-readiness
when high risk levels are persistent. Reynolds and Berridge refer to this as “re-tuning
the affective keyboard” in response to changes in the environment.
One way to see how this might be reflected in subjective well-being is to think
of the pattern of various important life events. Marriage, for example, is accom
panied by an anticipatory gain in subjective well-being, a peak of excitement
around the time of the wedding, and then a return to a level essentially the same
as it was prior to the build-up to marriage. For many, life is not so very different
after marriage, and one must not re-calibrate permanently upward lest one lose
sensitivity to the variations one must be attentive to in other areas of one’s life. But
the presence of a spouse is rarely “tuned out” or ignored, and threats to, or changes
in, one’s marital condition, including most dramatically separation, divorce, or
the death of a spouse, retain the capacity to deeply affect subjective well-being
(Diener et al. 2006). By contrast, life is seldom “essentially the same” when one
has children—children need continuing attention and care in ways that change
regularly over time and pose significant adaptive challenges for parents, in which a
sense of having mastery over, or even control of, one’s life situation is likely to be
lower. Having a child thus is somewhat correlated with higher levels of momentary
negative affect and lower levels of overall satisfaction, but strongly correlated with
persistently higher levels of subjective stress, especially among women--even if
overall mood tends to return closer to previous levels (Kahneman and Deaton 2010).
Such re-calibration also is not “adaptive preference” in the usual sense. After
childbirth, one does not simply “like what one gets” when unable to sleep through
the night or calm a baby’s distress, or contend with a distraught and difficult teen-
ager. What one “likes getting” has probably changed—one’s preferences are now
likely to include, and give considerable weight to, the well-being and interests of
the child, usually to an extent one could not have anticipated—but these changes
can make it more difficult, rather than less, to “get what one likes”. One isn’t “set-
tling for less” from life as a way of making things easier and less stressful—one is
likely trying to achieve more, with higher levels of effort and stress.
The need to struggle in order to manage is not, however, incompatible with

finding rewards, enjoyment, and satisfaction in life. If the struggle is a continuing,
required condition, then the affective system must calibrate so that needing to
struggle on behalf of oneself or one’s family is not in itself taken as a sign of
failure, or as evidence that one is not meeting reasonable personal or social
expectations—and successful struggling is rewarded. Adaptive expectation and
evaluation thus must be distinguished from adaptive preferences—less struggle for
oneself and one’s family can remain preferred. But one’s expectations need to be
calibrated to the actual prospects of one’s environment if one is to retain adequate
sensitivity to the actual, incremental gains and losses needed to guide daily action
and planning intelligently.
Consider in this light the fact that, in surveys during the 2010s (Gallup World
Poll; World Bank 2005–2011), the percentage of the population of Thailand and
Bangladesh expressing that they are satisfied with their “standard of living” (74%
and 78%, respectively) was only somewhat lower than in the US (83%), even
though the per capita GDP of Thailand and Bangladesh was a small fraction of
that in the US (approximately one-sixth and one-twentieth, respectively). Does
this mean that people in Thailand and Bangladesh have adapted their preferences
so that they no longer see their condition as lacking? No—in Thailand 60% and in
Bangladesh 76% described themselves as “struggling”, and only 37% and 13%,
respectively, described themselves as “thriving”. By contrast, in the US at the time,
38% described themselves as “struggling” and 58% described themselves as
“thriving”. In less-developed countries, where the only reasonable personal and
social expectation for many in the population is that one will need to struggle in
order to make ends meet, and where “achieving a high income” would be an
uninformative standard for when one has succeeded in making ends meet, the
daily accomplishment making ends meet through struggle should be felt as the
success it is, and reward and motivation should continue to encourage this, not
discourage it as continuing failure.
Compare this to the reported experience of those individuals living in
highly-developed countries who are unemployed (though not retired). A study of
correlations between demographic factors and reported subjective well-being
in Switzerland (Leu et al. 1997) found that, of a wide array of possible social condi-
tions, unemployment had the most severe negative effect. For example, while
being widowed without a new partner was associated with a reported average
subjective well-being of 8.16 (on a 10-point scale; the average for Swiss citizens at
the time was 8.30), being unemployed was associated with a reported average of
6.56 (see also Frey and Stutzer 2002). That a deeply negative departure from the
social average can be found among the unemployed is not idiosyncratic to
Switzerland, and has been across a range of highly-developed countries.
Why, even when countries like Switzerland provide a system of social support for
the unemployed, would there be such a precipitous fall in subjective well-being?
22 Peter Railton
One explanation is that, in these countries, active employment is a strong social

norm, and failure to succeed at being employed is a failure to meet social
expectations as well as a personal difficulty in managing. Frey and Stutzer
(2002) found, for example, that unemployed workers in Switzerland suffer
social exclusion, stigmatization, anxiety, and depression—with these negative
effects particularly pronounced for those unemployed for a long period. A
study in the US found that worry, sadness, and stress increased linearly with
length of unemployment, while happiness, enjoyment, and even laughter fell
(Kahneman and Deaton 2010). When struggling-to-manage-materially is the
norm, managing- materially-through-struggle is success. But when active
employment is the norm, unemployment, even if one is not struggling materially,
is failure. Lucas et al. (2004) found in a 15-year longitudinal study of Germany
that individuals who have lived through an extended period of unemployment
do not simply return to their pre-unemployment level of reported subjective
well-being once they return to work, and tend to react more strongly to
unemployment if it occurs again—signs of psychological sensitization rather
than habituation (Janicki-Deverts et al. 2008).
Contrast this with the effectiveness of social support in securing a relatively high
level of reported subjective well-being in another “persistent” condition—aging
and age-related declines in health and ability. Aging and conditions typically arising
from aging, while they can challenge one’s capacity to manage, are not departures
from normative expectations—these are, instead, conditions we all expect to encoun-
ter in the natural course of events. When adequate social support is provided, then
even though ill health takes some toll on subjective well-being, the overall well-being
of the older population can be comparable to that of the total population—whereas,
as we saw, the absence of such support is correlated with an older population suffer-
ing a decline in reported subjective well-being year-by-year (Deaton 2007).
What we find, then, are not forms of simple “habituation” or “liking what one
gets”, but affective responses that re-calibrate to circumstances to enable individ
uals to stay sensitive to what constitutes, in their circumstances, success or failure—
whether in material terms or in terms of meeting personal or social norms.
And social expectations and norms play an especially important role. Across the
globe, marginalized and stigmatized groups are found to have lower levels of
average reported subjective well-being and higher levels of stress, with associated
poorer health outcomes (Bollini et al 2009; Pascoe and Smart Richman, 2009;
Paradies et al. 2015; Sattler and Lemke 2019). This is cruel, but it is also rooted in
function: being less-than-readily-accepted in the larger society requires one to
have persistently higher vigilance in one’s social interactions with that society. By
contrast, the residual long-term impact upon average reported subjective well-being
from some negative life events that are part of a socially-typical life—for example,
losing a spouse—may be quite small.
Another random document with
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— Pyhään maahan, luvattuun maahan, — kertasi Olavi ystävänsä
sanoja, mutta ääni ilmaisi niin paljon siellä sisässä piilevää tuskaa.
X.
Vanja ei ollut käynyt Annin luona kokonaiseen viikkoon, eikä tyttö

käsittänyt syytä hänen poissa oloonsa.
Joskus kuvittelee hän Vanjushkan makaavan sairaana kasarmilla.

Hän itse tahtoisi olla vierellä, auttaa ja hoivata, hän hänet hoitaisi
paremmin kuin kukaan.
— Kuinka hän siellä kaipaakaan omaa Annushkaansa! — — Voi,

tulisinhan luoksesi, tulisin tokikin, jos tietäisin, missä olet. — Laittaisit
sanan, panisit pienen kirjelipun! — puheli hän ajatuksissaan
kaivatulleen.
"Joko Vanja on mennyt? — On niillä nyt lupa palata

kotomaahansa" — oli
Sanni tässä hiljan tavattaessa sanonut.
— Olisiko kenties? — ei, mahdotonta! eihän hän sillä lailla lähde.

— Hän tulee, tulee varmasti, kun joutuu — ja tyttö päätti olla
rauhallinen ja vielä odottaa.
Mutta kun ilta joutui, tuli taaskin niin paha ja levoton olla. Hän puki
päälleen ja lähti asemalle.
Oli iltajunan lähtöaika.
Joitakin upseereja ja sotilaita näkyi lähtöpuuhissa. Heillä oli

runsaasti saattajia, soittokunta ja joukko kyynelsilmäisiä tyttöjä.
Asemasillalla seisoi mustatukkainen, solakkavartinen sotilas

vilkkain elein keskustellen tummahapsisen tytön kanssa, joka itki
lohduttomasti.
Hän lähestyi heitä hiukan, mutta pysähtyi äkkiä kuin salaman

lyömänä. —
Uneksikohan hän? Saattoiko tämä olla mahdollista!
Tyttö vaikeroi nyyhkyttäen:
— Voi. Vanja. — Älä jätä! Ota mukaasi, vaikka minne veisit.

Vanhusteni luo en tohdi mennä, enkä tiedä minne joudun. Tahtoisin
kuolla luonasi, sillä elää sinun mentyäsi en voi. — Etkö sääli minua
nyt, olithan ennen niin hyvä ja hellä.
Anni olisi tahtonut rientää pois, juosta tiehensä tätä kuulemasta,

mutta hän oli kuin paikalleen kivettynyt.
Mies teki kärsimättömän liikkeen, puhui hiljaa ja nopeasti. Hänen

sanojaan ei Anni kuullut, mutta näki, miten hän katseli sivuilleen kuin
peläten heidän tulevan huomion esineeksi, mutta nainen näytti
unohtaneen kaiken muun, koko ympäristönsä, ja hänen kuvaamaton
tuskansa herätti Annissa syvää myötätuntoa.
— Oh, älä itke, tuhma tyttö! Minkä minä sille mahdan, että niin on,
kuin on? Et sinä ole ainoa, jonka niin on käynyt, teitä on paljon!
Hän kääntyi hänestä pois, huoraasi samassa Annin, ilostui ja tuli
käsi ojossa tervehtimään. Mutta Anni ei liikahtanut, eikä ottanut
vastaan ojennettua kättä.
— Matruusin morsian — sanoi Vanja viitaten äsken

puhuttelemaansa naista. — Se lähti eilen, tyttö kovin itkee, koetin
lohduttaa.
— Sinä, Anni, olet hyvä tyttö, parempi kuin muut. Sinä et itke,
vaikka
Vanjushka lähtee. Mitä siinä on suremista. — Sinulla oli hauskaa,
minulla oli hauskaa. Minä menen kotimaahani, sinä jäät kotimaahasi.
Molempien on hyvä, niinhän, Anni.
Hän koetti ottaa tytön käden omaansa, mutta tämä säikähti hänen
kosketustaan ja inhoten veti kätensä taakseen.
Juna teki lähtöä. Ihmiset kiiruhtivat vaunuihin ja junailian pillistä

puhaltui pitkä, kimakka vihellys.
— Hyvästi Anni ja kiitos — olit minulle rakkaampi kuin kukaan

muu.
Torvista kajahti tuttu "Moskovan marssi", vaunut kolahtelivat,

pyörät liikahtivat ja juna oli liikkeellä.
Tummahapsinen tyttö päästi sydäntäsärkevän huudon ja nosti

molemmat kätensä vaunua kohti, jonka sillalla seisoi Ivana
Ivanovitsh huulillaan hiukan ivallinen hymy.
Mutta ihmiset säikähtivät hätähuutoa luullen jonkun joutuneen

pyörien alle.
Juna oli häipynyt näkyvistä ja viimeinen huminakin laannut
kuulumasta. Anni ei huomannut miten soitto taukosi ja asemasilta
tyhjeni. Hän nojasi pylvääseen ja katseli mustaan etäisyyteen, jonne
juna oli kadonnut näkyvistä, ja hänen silmissään oli outo kiilto.
— Saatte poistua täältä, ovet suljetaan ja valot sammutetaan —

kuuli hän jonkun sanovan, ja hetkistä myöhemmin kuljeksi hän pitkin
autioita katuja aikoen asuntoonsa.
Hän käveli katuja ristiin rastiin, kulki yhtä ylös, toista alas,
saamatta lopuksi selvää, missä oli. Hän seisahti ja koetti miettiä ja
tunnustella paikkaa, mutta aivoissa ei tuntunut olevan yhtä ainoata
selvää ajatusta. Otsaa poltti ja suuta kuivasi. Hän otti katuvierustalta
lunta, jolla hieroi polttavaa otsaansa ja kostutti kuivaa suutaan.
— Nytkö se sitten tulee, jota olen pelännyt? Hyvä Jumala! Pitääkö

minun menettää järkeni? Kunhan vaan löytäisin asuntooni!
XI.
Kun Anni heräsi huoneessaan, oli jo valoisa päivä. Mutta hän ei

tahtonut palata todellisuuteen, vaan käänsi selkänsä akkunaan päin,
nukkui taaskin — ja kun hän jonkun ajan perästä avasi silmänsä, oli
jo iltahämärä.
Seuraavana aamuna luuli hän jo jaksavansa työhön, mutta

katseltuaan kadulle huomasi hän, että olikin pyhäpäivä.
Annin oli siis pysyttävä kotona ja pakostakin selviteltävä

ajatustensa sekava vyyhti.
Hän vetäisi sormuksen sormestaan ja naurahti katkerasti. — Siellä

sisällä oli kaiverrettuna Vanjan nimikirjaimet ja aika.
Muistui niin elävästi mieleen ilta, jolloin hän oli sen sormeensa
ottanut, miten Vanjushka itkien hänen eteensä polvistuneena oli
häntä omakseen pyydellyt ja kuinka hän tuon vakavan lupauksen
antoi — lupauksen, joka hänen mielestään oli sitova ja pyhä.
— Eikä toinen muuta kuin ilveili! — Samat temput tehtiin kenties

aivan samoina päivinä toiselle, samat kyyneleet vuodatettiin sille
toiselle, ehkäpä vielä kolmannellekin — ja minä uskoin!
— Ryssähän se oli, mikäs muu, olisihan se pitänyt tietää!
"Et sinä ole ainoa, jonka niin on käynyt; teitä on paljon".
— Onko se sillä sen helpompaa?
Entä tästälähin? — Pitääkö minun nyt jatkaa tästä eteenpäin,

mennä aamulla tehtaaseen, palata illalla, karttaa ihmisten katseita ja
kantaa ainaista häpeää.
Ei vaikka…
Siitä täytyy tulla loppu, vaikka millä tavalla. Semmoista elämää en

saata elää, se ei ole elämisen arvoista.
Eihän kukaan kaipaa, jos poistun, tuskin omaisetkaan itkevät, kun

kuolleeksi kuulevat; häpeää heille vaan minusta on.
Synkät ajatukset tulivat kuin mustat turman linnut tuhoa

ennustaen, mutta hän melkein hekkumoi niiden kaameudessa.
— Sen täytyy tapahtua! — sen täytyy — sanoi hän puoliääneen

itselleen. Se rauhoitti ja tyynnytti hiukan. Mutta hänen sydämensä oli
musta kuin yö. — Ei muuta lohdutusta kuin kaiken loppu ja
pysähdys, ikuinen, syvä hiljaisuus.
— Ja sitte? — Niin, sitä ei saattanut ajatella. Onko siellä mitään?

—
Toiset sanovat on, toiset ei, — mistä minä tiedän.
— Joka tapauksessa minun täytyy. Inhoan itseäni.
Ja epätoivo ja ahdistus valtasivat hänen sielunsa kuin suuri

tuhotulva. Hän tunsi sen tulevan, kuuli korvissaan sen uhkaavan
kohinan, eikä löytänyt pelastuksen tietä. Hätä ja kauhistus kasvoivat
ja hän kätki päänsä pielukseen kuin piiloutuakseen surmaa
uhkaavalta hirviöltä.
— Onko kuolema näin kauhea? — —
*****
Ovelle koputettiin, ensin hiljaa, sitten kovemmin ja, kun vastausta

ei kuulunut, lennähti se auki ja sisään astui pitkä, vaaleaverinen
nuorukainen, yllään tummanharmaa sinellintapainen sarkatakki,
kaulassa pehmeä villahuivi ja jaloissa sirotekoiset saappaat.
Mies oli huoneen haltijattarelle vanha tuttu.
Ryhti oli hänellä uljas ja liikkeet ripeät. Niihin oli tullut joustavuutta
ja notkeutta. Kasvot olivat laihtuneet, mutta piirteet miehistyneet.
Vain silmissä näkyi tuo entinen, melkein lapsellisen avomielinen,
hyväntahtoinen ilme, joka oli hänelle ominainen.
Anni purskahti itkuun ja riensi kaivatun veljensä syliin.

XII.
Kauvan hän itki; ja kyynelten virratessa hänen tuskansa lievenivät.

Hän ymmärsi, että veli oli tullut auttajana, pelastajana, että hän ei
jätä häntä yksin tähän suureen, ahdistavaan pimeyteen.
Jouko silitti hellästi sisarensa kellertävää tukkaa ja antoi hänen

häiritsemättä purkaa sydämensä tuskan, jonka olemassa olon hän
aavisti, vaan jonka syytä ei tuntenut.
Siinä he sitte istuivat, iltahämyssä, vuoteen reunalla, käsikädessä,

aivan kuin lapsina ennen, jolloin Annia pimeässä peloitti.
— En olisi sinua tuntenut vaikka vastaani olisit tullut, niin olet

laihtunut ja muuttunut.
— Samoin sinä.
— Mutta minä olen reipas ja voimakas ja niin iloinen nyt, tänne

kotipuolelle päästyäni. Tahtoisin nähdä miltä näytät, kun hymyilet,
lienet sen taidon jo unohtanut. Mutta anna minulle jotain syötävää,
jos sattuu olemaan.
Läikähti se aina toisinaan tytön mieleen: entä jos hän saa sen
tietää? — Minun pitää se vielä kerran tunnustaa — niin kerran, mutta
ei vielä, muuten hän jättää minut, ja silloin en jaksa.
— Kerrohan nyt matkastasi jotakin — hän sanoi haihduttaakseen

äskeisiä ajatuksiaan.
— Paljon sitä onkin kerrottavaa, mutta ne säästämme toiseen

kertaan. Ei nyt ole aikaa tarinoimiseen, meitä odottavat täällä tärkeät
tehtävät, kuten tietänet. Vähän on minulla aikaa olla kanssasi, mutta
pistäydyn kumminkin niin usein kuin voin.
— Sampalta kuulin vähäsen niistä asioista, hän kävi täällä

hiljattain, sanoi sinun piakkoin kotia palaavan.
— Vai kävi Samppa. Teillä ovat siis entiset ystävälliset välinne, ja

minä kun pelkäsin joskus, kun kuulin kerrottavan Suomen naisten
häpeästä, että jos sinäkin niihin ryssiin sekaannut, ajattelin, että
kunpa se ainut sisareni sentään säilyisi.
Anni sytytteli tulta uuniin ja oli selin veljeensä, mutta hänen

kätensä vapisivat ja tulitikku toisensa perästä sammui, mutta hän
pakoitti äänensä tyyneeksi ja sanoi:
— Eikö sinulla ollut ikävä kotiin, etkö koskaan katunut sinne

lähtöäsi?
En olisi lähtenytkään, ellen olisi ollut vakuutettu siitä, että meidän

täytyi, että se oli minunkin velvollisuuteni. Tuntui kyllä vaikealta jättää
isä yksin vanhoilla päivillään töitten ääreen, joissa meille kahdellekin
oli ennen ollut kylliksi, mutta kumminkin minä tunsin, että olin
menetellyt sittenkin oikein.
Ei siellä muuten ollut aikaakaan ikävöimiseen. Eikä siellä miestä
hemmoteltu. Kuri oli ankara ja työ rasittavaa, mutta me pidimme aina
reipasta mieltä. Oli meillä laulun pätkä, jota hyräiltiin, kun koti liiaksi
mieleen muistui.
"Suuret herrat Pietarissa näkee pahaa unta, ett' Venäjä on

rajamaa ja Suomi valtakunta."
Se muistutti päämäärää, jota olimme lähteneet tavoittamaan,

jonka saavuttamiseksi kannatti jotain kestää. — Eikö niin, Anni?
Tyttö oli noussut. Hänen silmänsä loistivat ja äsken kalpeilla

poskilla heloitti puna. Hän loi veljeensä katseen, jossa paloi
ihmeellinen, hurja innostus.
— Kannattipa kyllä! — Minäkin tahdon tehdä jotakin, — minun

täytyy.
Kuule, älä kiellä! Anna minulle tehtävä!
Hänen muotonsa sekä sanojensa kiihkeys ensin ihmetytti Joukoa.

Mistä se tuli näin yht’äkkiä — mutta hän muisti omaa ensimmäistä
innostustaan, jolloin hän ikäänkuin sisästäpäin kuuli sen hiljaisen
kutsun, joka hänen sielussaan sytytti sellaisen palon, että ei mikään
maailman mahti olisi häntä estänyt nousemasta suksille määrättynä
yönä. — Ehkäpä se Annikin tunsi nyt samoin.
— Hyvä on — sanoi hän, tarvitaan sinuakin, osaat keittää ja

ommella.
Työtä tulee kylliksi naisillekin.
— En minä sellaista tarkoittanut. Tahdon olla kuumimpana

hetkenä siellä missä sinäkin, kenties voit käyttää minua johonkin —
minä, näetkös, en ollenkaan pelkää kuolla.
Ihmetyksellä ja ihastuksella katseli jääkäri sorjaa sisartaan. —

Eikö sinusta olisi sentään sääli jättää elämää noin nuorena?
— Ei ollenkaan, jos pikkuisenkaan voin hyödyttää asiaa, jonka

tähden muutkin henkensä uskaltavat, muut, joilla kenties on
elämässä enemmän iloja kuin minulla. — Oli hyvä kun tulit. - Täällä
minä juuri istuin ja mietin sitä alennusta ja häpeää mihin me täällä
olemme viime vuosien aikana joutuneet. — Nyt käsitän selvästi, että
meidän täytyy se poistaa, ennenkuin kaikki on hukassa.
— Sinä siis uskot että se jaksetaan.
— Ell'ei jakseta, niin kuollaan sitte.
— Mutta minä vakuutan sinulle, että se tapahtuu, vaikka se

vaatiikin uhrinsa.
— Uhrinsa se vaatii tämäkin, sanoo tyttö synkästi huoahtaen.
— Mutta me emme nyt kysele sitä, mikä on mennyt ja mitä on

vielä menevä. Me karkoitamme ryssät sinne, mistä ovat tulleetkin ja
varoitamme ankarasti heitä vasta astumasta tämän maan rajojen
sisäpuolelle.
— Ja niille, jotka elävät jälkeemme, koittavat onnellisemmat päivät

kuin meille.
— Kenties meillekin.
Anni kääntyi pois. Ei hänellä, koskaan enää ollut onnea

odotettavissa. Se mikä oli ollut, ei enää olemattomaksi voinut
muuttua. Mielellään hän nostaisi kuoleman arvan, kunhan ei
tarvinnut tyhjänpäiten ketään hyödyttämättä elämästä luopua,
paetakseen entisyyden häpeää.
— Otathan minut mukaasi — sanoi hän taas katsoen niin

pyytävästi
Joukoon.
— Ihanko sinä tappeluun tarkoitat?
— Niin.
— Mutta kuinka sinä, tyttö, sinne, eihän se ole leikkiä,

ymmärrätkö?
— On semmoista ennenkin tapahtunut, että naiset miehen

puvussa ovat mukana taistelussa. Sinun täytyy opettaa minua
vähäsen.
— Mitä luulisit vanhusten sanovan minulle, jos kaatuisit. Siitä

syyttäisivät he minua, en tahdo kuolemaasi vastuulleni.
— Sano heille, että ellet sinä olisi ottanut, olisin mennyt sinne
kumminkin ja tullut ammutuksi. Sano heille terveiset, että minä sinne
tahdoin päästä, ja että teen minkä tahdon, sen he kyllä muistavat.
— Sinä siis pysyt siinä.
— Olen sen päättänyt.
— Onpa siinä vaan tyttöä — ajatteli veli, mutta Anni arvasi hänen
ajatuksensa ja huokasi: — Kunpa saisin olla suora ja kertoa kaiken,
mutta ei, ei vielä!
— Entä nuo sinun palmikkosi?
— Poikki juuresta. Antaa niiden mennä!
— Pane talteen, saa joskus muistella mitä varten ne leikattiin.
— Voit tallettaa ne, jos tahdot. Muuta perintöä ei minulla olekkaan

jättää veljelleni.
— Puhut, kuin kuuluisit johonkin kuoleman pataljoonaan.
— Niin minä kuulunkin, ajatteli tyttö.
— Minä muistelin tässä, — alotti Jouko hetken vaitiolon jälkeen —

miten me lapsina viskelimme kiviä aitan luukusta sisälle. Sinä heitit
hyvin, kätesi oli tarkka ja heittosi osui. - Ajattelin, että jos me nyt
heittäisimme toisenlaisia kiviä kasarmin ikkunoista sisälle.
Ampumaan on sinun vaikeampi oppia näin äkkiä, eikä ole tilaisuutta
minkäänlaiseen harjoitteluun. Tutustutan sinut käsikranaatin
käyttöön, ja sitte saat näyttää mihin kykenet. Toimitan kyllä sinut
suojaan, ett’et vahingoitu, jos alat kauhistua outoa musiikkia.
— Sittepähän näet, pakenenko.
— Älä uhmaile, totiseksi se vetää ensi kerralla, mutta siihenkin

tottuu ja lopuksi viehättyy niin, että ihanalle kuulostaa surman soitto,
ei välitä, vaikka aina kuuntelisi. Elämä tasoittaa kaikki, niin että
äärimmäisessä tuskassakin on jonkunlaista nautintoa ja
kauheimmassakin tilanteessa saattaa joskus olla suurikin viehätys.
Niin puheli mietteissään nuori sotilas ja sisar ajatuksissaan jatkoi:

—
Ja suurin riemu tuo tullessaan suurimman tuskan.
XIII.
Anni pitää tavallisia iltaharjoituksiaan tyhjän käsikranaatin varrella

lukitun oven takana, tehden määrätyt liikkeet ja laskien veljen
opettamat saksankieliset laskusanat.
Ovelle koputettiin.
Anni kätki oudon lelunsa nopeasti vuoteeseensa patjan alle.
Tulija olikin Jouko ja Anni näki jo hänen kasvoistaan, että jotakin

oli nyt tulossa.
— Ole valmiina ensi yönä, niin että merkin saatuasi olet heti
kadulla.
Ei minulla ole silloin aikaa minuuttiakaan varrota. — Ymmärräthän?
— Kyllä, — vihjauksen saatuani olen heti vierelläsi.
— Vielä yksi asia. — En ole sinulle silloin lähempi kuin muillekaan.

Et saa lausua ainuttakaan sanaa, et kysyä, etkä epäillä, vaan teet
täsmällisesti mitä käsken ja tottelet ehdottomasti.
— Kyllä, herra upseeri! — sanoi Anni kunniaa tehden.

— Veitikka! — Pojaksi sinun olisi pitänyt syntyä, koska omaat
tuommoisen sota-innon. — Mutta, eipä tiedä sitä vielä kehua, ehkä
se sittenkin laimenee, kun tosi tulee.
— Sittepä nähdään.
Anni näytti iloiselta ja virkeältä. Jouko huomasi hänen viime

aikoina päivä päivältä toipuneen, aivan kuin lähenevien tapausten
tieto olisi puhaltanut häneen uutta elämää.
Kiireellä antoi hän sisarelleen vielä viimeiset ohjeet, jätti hänelle

hankkimansa puvun ja valkean nauhan, joka tämän tuli kiinnittää
vasemman käsivartensa ympäri. — Sitte lähti hän tulisella kiireellä
muihin toimiinsa.
Anni katsoi kelloon. Vielä oli aikaa useita tunteja puoleenyöhön

mennessä, joten hyvin ehtii myöhemmälläkin tehdä pienet
valmistelut. Nyt olivat lapset hyvästeltävät.
*****
Taas nousi hän tuttuja rappusia kolmanteen kerrokseen, kerraten

mielessään tapahtumat, jotka sillä välin olivat aiheuttaneet hänen
elämässään niin suuret muutokset. — Voi, kunpa olisi, niinkuin oli
puoli vuotta takaperin!
Palvelia aukaisi keittiön oven.
— Joko lapset nukkuvat?
— Taimi nukkuu, toiset vielä valvovat vuoteissaan.
— Anna minun niitä pikimältään nähdä.

Iso oli lapsilla ilo, kun Anni taas istui heidän pikku vuoteittensa
välissä.
— Sinun on tultava meille takaisin, emme tahdo Elliä, tahdomme

sinut, joka olet meidän oma — sanoi Osmo.
— Tulekkin jo huomenna, heti aamulla ja tuo korisikin tuohon

nurkkaan, missä se oli, en minä enää nouse sen kannelle, että ei
säry, — puheli hänen kättään hyväillen Maija.
Ja se se oli heille ainoa, Nanni takaisin kotiin, siinä oli kaikki, mitä
heidän mieliinsä mahtui, ja he katsoivat häneen unenraukeilla
silmillään ja pyytelemistään pyytelivät, kunnes hän heitä
rauhoittaakseen lupasi tulla takaisin.
Ovet olivat auki ja ruokailuhuoneesta kuului rouva Vuorelan ja

jonkun toisen naishenkilön keskustelu.
— Vai niin, että häntä nyt odotetaan kotia palaavaksi. Minä

melkein saattaisin vaikka kadehtia sinua. Sellainen poika!
Anni ei olisi tahtonut kuunnella, mutta aihe, josta he puhelivat, oli

tällä hetkellä vastustamattoman mielenkiintoinen.
— Mutta et varmaankaan silloin olisi kadehtinut, kun hän täältä

lähti. — En koskaan silloin tavannut ihmistä, joka olisi siinä
uhrautumisessa nähnyt mitään hyvää. — Sinne meni, sanottiin —
eikö silläkään nyt ollut parempaa tehtävää? Siinä olet yksin saanut
ponnistella, suuren perheen elättäjänä, ja nyt kun vanhimmasta
vähäsen jo avun toivoa, niin sinne meni, opintonsa keskeytti ja sille
tielleen varmaan jää, Kuka sen tietää, palaako koskaan — sanottiin.
Tämä sentään oli vielä suopeampaa puhetta, siinä vivahti vähäsen
osanottoakin, mutta entä kun sanottiin: — Että sinunkin pojastasi piti
tulla isänmaan petturi ja kavaltaja! — Etpä usko, miten se sentään
minun sydäntäni leikkasi.
— Voi sentään, tietäähän sen.
— Ja ajatteles niitä tunteita sinä talviaamuna, jolloin me yhdessä

ajoimme niihin hiihtokilpailuihin I:n saarelle.
— Mitenkäs se taas olikaan? Nehän vetivät ryssiä nenästä.
— Niin, siellä pantiin toimeen hiihtokilpailut, kuten tavallista. Kylän

väki oli kerääntynyt tilaisuuteen, johon osanottajia oli tullut sekä
kaupungista, että maaseudulta. Ryssätkin olivat saapuneet paikalle,
kai omaksi huvikseen, jollei ehkä varmemmaksi vakuudeksi, että ei
mitään "laitonta" tapahtuisi. — Olin mukana jäällä, enkä unohda sitä
syvää vakavuutta, joka asui suksilla seisovien nuorukaisten
kasvoilla, näytti kuin jokainen heistä olisi täydelleen käsittänyt, miten
suuri ja pyhä oli se tehtävä, jota varten he olivat pitkälle matkalle
varustautuneet. — Reino loi minuun vielä kerran rohkaisevan
katseen, ja minä näin nyt hänessä varttuneen miehen, tuossa
poikasessa, jota olin vielä puoleksi lapsena pitänyt.
Merkki annettiin, sukset pakkaslumessa ulvahtivat ja hurjaa

vauhtia syöksyivät pojat eteenpäin lumen paksuna ryöppynä
kiirisiskellessä heidän kintereillään. — Sinne painuivat, kohti
kaukaista länttä, yhä edeten ja pieneten katsojain silmissä. Ryssät
nostivat jo kiikarinsa ihmetellen sitä nopeaa etenemistä.
Matka oli määrätty tavallista pitemmäksi, en muista moneksiko

kilometriksi. — Me seisoimme rannalla odotellen palaavia, ja
kyläläiset salaa jo toisilleen myhäilivät. Minua puistatti vilu, olin kuin
puoleksi kuumeessa. Sopertelin hiljaa rukousta, toistin mielessäni
lakkaamatta ajatusta: He menivät nostaakseen, vapauttaakseen
tämän kansan orjuudesta ja alennuksen tilasta — mutta nämä sanat,
joista ennen olin lämmennyt, tuntuivat nyt voimattomille tänä
vaikeana eronhetkenä. Minua jäyti kylmä, joka tuntui tunkeutuvan
sieluuni saakka; minun täytyi pistäytyä lämmittelemään lähimpään
mökkiin. Lopputapahtumista sitte kuulin, kerrottiin, miten pitkien
aikojen perästä tuli takaisin ensimmäinen, toinen ja vihdoin kolmas ja
neljäskin, miten rannalla olijat yhä odottelivat myöhäiseen
iltahämärään ja miten ryssät lopuksi yskän ymmärsivät, vaikkakin
liian myöhään. Saaristolaiset laskettelivat sukkeluuksia ja
naureskelivat ryssäin vahingolle, mutta raskain mielin palasin minä
kaupunkiin tyhjälle tuntuvaan kotiini. En. kumminkaan kertaakaan
katunut, että hän meni, vaikka ero olikin ylen raskas.
*****
Lapset nukkuivat jo sikeästi. Pikku Maijan käsi lepäsi vieläkin

Annin kädessä, jota hänen vieno hengityksensä hyväili.
Keskustelu sisällä alkoi uudelleen.
— Nyt on sensijaan ilosi moninkertainen.
— Olisihan se, kunhan nyt vaan sen päivän näkisi.
— Saatko edes valkoista leipää leivotuksi kaukaiselle vieraallesi?
— Kyselin tässä juuri vehnäjauhoja, ja minut neuvottiin kulashin

luo, — mutta arvaatko mitä ne maksavat, — kokonaista seitsemän
markkaa kilo!
— Hirveätä! — Kuulehan, ajattelin tässä juuri, kun minulla on pieni
pussillinen piiloon pantuna sitte kesästä. Saat siitä osan nyt sinäkin.
— Älä toki! Sinullahan on pikkulapsia.
— Niille jää sitte vielä. — Ei meidän sankareita liian

suuremmoisesti vastaan oteta, ei heille liikoja uhrata. Vähitellen
heistä yksi ja toinen kotiseudulleen ilmestyy, salaa, ympäristön
tietämättä, samalla tapaa kuten sieltä ennen hävisivätkin ja ikävöivät
omaiset puristavat kyynelsilmin tulijan kättä ja tulojuhlat vietetään
lukittujen ovien takana, jossa vainolaisen silmä ei näe. —
Huoneesta kuului nyyhkytystä, mutta rouva Vuorela jatkoi.
— Minusta tuntuu niin kummalliselle tänä iltana, on aivankuin

juhlanaatto, on kuin jotain suurta tänä yönä tapahtuisi.
*****
Anni hypähti ylös. — Se on totta! — sanoi hän ajatuksissaan. —

Tänä iltana on tosiaankin juhlanaatto!
Hän hyväili pikku Taimen pyöreätä poskea, silitti silkinhienoja

valkokutreja ja suuteli kevyesti valkeata otsaa.
Pienokainen käännähti, hymyili unissaan ja soperteli.
— Nannin — moma — Tuttu.
Kyyneleet vierivät Annin silmistä kostuttaen pienen, valkean

pieluksen.

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Philosophy and Climate Change Mark

Thinking Through Climate Change: A Philosophy of Energy

Climate Future: Averting and Adapting to Climate Change

Holocene Climate Change and Environment Navnith Kumaran

Urban Climate Change and Heat Islands Riccardo Paolini

Climate Justice: Integrating Economics and Philosophy

Climate Change Adaptation for Transportation Systems:

Mobilizing Hope: Climate Change and Global Poverty

Climate Change and Extreme Events 1st Edition Ali Fares

Philosophy and Climate Change

1. A Convenient Truth? Climate Change and Quality of Life 9

6. Way to Go, Me 139

9. Climate Change and Individual Obligations: A Dilemma for the

13. How Quickly Should the World Reduce its Greenhouse

Chrisoula Andreou, Professor of Philosophy, University of Utah.

Gunnar Björnsson, Professor of Practical Philosophy, Stockholm University.

Marcello Di Paola, Research Fellow in Philosophy, University of Palermo, and Lecturer in

Maddalena Ferranna, Research Associate at the T. H. Chan School of Public Health,

Daniel Greco, Assistant Professor of Philosophy, Yale University.

Dale Jamieson, Professor of Environmental Studies and Philosophy, Affiliated Professor of

Tristram McPherson, Professor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University.

Alison McQueen, Associate Professor of Political Science, Stanford University.

Kian Mintz-Woo, Lecturer in Philosophy, University College Cork.

Julia Nefsky, Assistant Professor of Philosophy, University of Toronto.

David Plunkett, Associate Professor of Philosophy, Dartmouth College.

Peter Railton, Gregory S. Kavka Distinguished University Professor, Arthur F. Thurnau

Dean Spears, Assistant Professor of Economics, University of Texas at Austin.

Lucas Stanczyk, Assistant Professor of Philosophy, Harvard University.

Katie Steele, Associate Professor of Philosophy, Australian National University.

Section I. Valuing Climate Change Impacts

1 A Convenient Truth? Climate Change and Quality of Life

2 Animals and Climate Change

xvi Abstracts of Chapters

3 Discounting under Risk: Utilitarianism vs. Prioritarianism

4 A Philosopher’s Guide to Discounting

5 Does Climate Change Policy Depend Importantly on Population

By Gustaf Arrhenius, Mark Budolfson, and Dean Spears

Choosing a policy response to climate change seems to demand a population axi-

Abstracts of Chapters xvii

all possible approaches to population axiology have one or more seemingly

Section II. Cognition, Emotions, and Climate Change

This chapter considers an interesting possibility related to human psychology and

7 The Wages of Fear? Toward Fearing Well About Climate Change

xviii Abstracts of Chapters

8 Climate Change and Cultural Cognition

Section III. Climate Change and Individual Ethics

9 Climate Change and Individual Obligations: A Dilemma for the

Abstracts of Chapters xix

10 The Puzzle of Inefficacy

We appear to have reasons to act in light of the relationship between our

11 On Individual and Shared Obligations: In Defense

12 How Much Harm Does Each of Us Do?

Section IV. Climate Change and Politics

13 How Quickly Should the World Reduce its Greenhouse Gas

14 Political Realism, Feasibility Wedges, and Opportunities for

Abstracts of Chapters xxi

15 Pareto Improvements and Feasible Climate Solutions

Proponents of International Paretianism (IP)—the principle that international

16 Climate Change, Liberalism, and the Public/Private Distinction

By Dale Jamieson and Marcello Di Paola

Climate change puts pressure on a distinction that is at the heart of liberal

2 Mark Budolfson, Tristram M c Pherson, and David Plunkett

• The ethical and political significance of uncertainty, and risk, and

1. A Convenient Truth? Climate Change and Quality of Life 9

6. Way to Go, Me 139

2. The Nature and Measure of Subjective Well-Being

Philosophers have tended to be skeptical about subjective well-being, especially

3. Subjective Well-Being and Its Correlates

Standardized measures of subjective well-being began to be used systematically in

That subjective well-being would in this way be especially responsive to change

5. Affect and Subjective Well-Being