PhilSci Archive

Theory Roulette: Choosing that Climate Change is not a Tragedy of the Commons (Preprint)

Ortmann, Jakob and Veit, Walter (2021) Theory Roulette: Choosing that Climate Change is not a Tragedy of the Commons (Preprint). [Preprint]

WarningThere is a more recent version of this item available.
[img]
Preview
Text
Theory-Roulette-Preprint.pdf

Download (398kB) | Preview

Abstract

Climate change (CC) has become a paradigm case for externalities in general and for the Tragedy of the Commons (ToC) model by Hardin in particular. This is worrying as we have reasons to suspect that models like ToC are performative, such that they might become self-fulfilling prophecies. In this paper, we aim to enhance a strategy proposed by Matthew Kopec to cope with the self-fulfilling nature of ToC. First, we show how Kopec’s strategy about emphasising that ToC relies on strictly speaking false assumptions is unlikely to be a successful strategy. To construct a more promising strategy we argue that the argument of underdetermination implies that the employment of a specific model is an active choice that is guided by pragmatic criteria. Furthermore, picturing underdetermination in the case of CC as a form of Russian Roulette provides a rationale to choose between these underdetermined models.


Export/Citation: EndNote | BibTeX | Dublin Core | ASCII/Text Citation (Chicago) | HTML Citation | OpenURL
Social Networking:
Share |

Item Type: Preprint
Creators:
CreatorsEmailORCID
Ortmann, Jakob
Veit, Walterwrwveit@gmail.com0000-0001-7701-8995
Keywords: Tragedy of the Commons, Climate Change, Philosophy of Science, Game Theory, Ethics of Climate Change
Subjects: Specific Sciences > Complex Systems
Specific Sciences > Climate Science and Meteorology
Specific Sciences > Economics
General Issues > Game Theory
General Issues > Models and Idealization
General Issues > Rhetoric of Science
General Issues > Science and Policy
Depositing User: Dr. Walter Veit
Date Deposited: 16 May 2021 19:54
Last Modified: 16 May 2021 19:54
Item ID: 19038
Subjects: Specific Sciences > Complex Systems
Specific Sciences > Climate Science and Meteorology
Specific Sciences > Economics
General Issues > Game Theory
General Issues > Models and Idealization
General Issues > Rhetoric of Science
General Issues > Science and Policy
Date: 2021
URI: https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/19038

Available Versions of this Item

Monthly Views for the past 3 years

Monthly Downloads for the past 3 years

Plum Analytics

Actions (login required)

View Item View Item