1. Climate change, despair, and moral injury

Given collective inefficacy for mitigating climate change, there have been growing challenges against hopeful narratives for solutions (Huber Reference Huber2023). One worry is that we obscure environmental threats and demotivate collective action when we (falsely) hinge hope on stories that individual actions will be sufficiently effective or that large emitters will take responsibility without collective pressure. As Dout and Obst note, “climate despair—a resignation to the belief that any climate justice is impossible—is an understandable reaction” in a context where billions have been affected by climate emergencies since 2000—the year I was born (Reference Dout and Obst2023, 316, 322).

In analytic philosophy, hope was standardly defined as a desire-belief combination for the probability of an objective obtaining (Downie Reference Downie1963; Day Reference Day1969). Many now agree this misses an additional component that explains hope’s motivational quality (Martin Reference Martin2013; Calhoun Reference Calhoun2018). So we hope for an objective when we (i) desire that it obtains, (ii) believe this outcome has some uncertain probability of obtaining, and (iii) are, in some sense, motivated to act for it. Broadly construed, hope is an energizing attitude empowering us to view the future as open to relevant efforts, and that there “remains room to make a difference” (Urban Walker Reference Urban Walker2006, 27, 54–55). However, it is compatible with fear, disappointment, and anger at current or future conditions.Footnote ¹ It can be optimistic or pessimistic, depending on how probable or improbable we believe desired outcomes are. Just like pessimism risks beliefs that probable outcomes cannot come about, optimism can dint hope for the improbable: Cheerfully assuming others will fix the climate crisis can undermine motivations to act.Footnote ²

Despair distinctively lacks hope’s motivational quality. It is mutually exclusive to hope, consisting in its loss or absence—we cannot simultaneously hope and despair over an objective. Despairing agents relate to the possibility of achieving desired objectives in a way that interferes with their capacity to act in hope (Dout and Obst Reference Dout and Obst2023, 321). Viewing circumstances as closed, or closed enough, can prevent us from acting as if they were open to our relevant efforts. One might question if this dichotomy overlooks ways to motivate acting-in-hope without hope: acting as if circumstances were open, with no sense that they are. I assume this would amount to cases where one views themselves as having “nothing to lose,” motivated by faith, bitterness, or revenge.Footnote ³ Bracketing this point, I assume that we can hope and despair for closely related objectives and move between them quickly, especially when sustaining hope amounts to frustration and distress.

Dout and Obst consider an agent who deeply desires outcomes of climate justice but despairs over this (316). She has lost belief that circumstances are open to her relevant efforts and cannot sustain motivation to act for what she would otherwise hope for. She holds that thinking about climate change is psychologically burdensome when climate injustice appears inevitable, that this burden is too demanding to take on (316). She issues what Dout and Obst call a “demandingness-from-despair” (DfD) objection: Any action that brings about these burdens is too demanding to be morally required (316). Demandingness objections tend to be raised in relation to objectives one could otherwise pursue. To illustrate the objection, they reference a colleague who states, “I don’t worry about my personal emissions because thinking about them is just too depressing” (316). This implies that thinking about climate change is too demanding, because it interferes with pursuing other objectives.

There are psychological burdens associated with this topic. Both acute impacts (anxiety, depression, and trauma) and chronic impacts (hopelessness and fatalism) are potential effects of climate change (318). As I see it, these burdens are united by the concept of moral injury: A kind of suffering that interferes with basic moral ideals or values—diminishing one’s sense of reality and ability to act with care (Weintrobe Reference Weintrobe2021, 241). “Moral injury” initially described PTSD in soldiers (Shay Reference Shay1994). It is now a near-ubiquitous category for feelings like shame, guilt, and powerlessness that come about when one perpetuates, fails to prevent, bears witness to, or learns about normalized acts of injustice that violate deeply held moral values—giving rise to symptoms like rage, withdrawal, or despair (Alford Reference Alford2016, 7–13; Griffin Reference Griffin2019, 350). This is experienced as a betrayal of what one knows “deep down” to be right, leading to a loss of psychological stability because someone is subject to something normalized that makes no sense (Gilligan Reference Gilligan2014, 91–93). “Normalization” refers to an authoritative “disavowal” of what otherwise disturbs us by making it appear ordinary, acceptable, or inevitable (Weintrobe Reference Weintrobe2021, 138, 196). Moral injury interferes with our capacity for self-care—causing us to dissociate from our inner voice alerting us to this betrayal and internalize a false authority that tells us we have it all wrong: “It must be my deep desires and values, instead, that are senseless” (90–91). When we are experts at dissociating from ourselves, we also become adept at turning care away from others.

When we follow Carol Gilligan’s (Reference Gilligan2014) view that the structurally unjust dynamics of society subject all members to moral injury, it is clear that thinking about climate change forefronts the experience of moral injury (Wiinikka-Lydon Reference Wiinikka-Lydon2019, 168–69). As Hilary Whitehouse argues, “Few things could be more irrational than to destroy the entire fabric of planetary life for shareholder profit and private enrichment” (Reference Whitehouse, Sims, Banks, Engel, Hodge, Makuwira, Nakamura, Rigg, Salamanca and Yeophantong2022, 223). As a privileged individual, I find it infeasible to opt out from contributing to this normalized and senseless destruction for capital. It is painful to consider how this betrays my desire for environmental flourishing.

2. Responding to failures of moral agency and self-care

With these resources on hand, let’s turn back to the DfD objection. The agent who presents this is already in climate despair. However, like dark climate humor, it is also an attempted protective mechanism against the affective consequences of despair, like pain or depression. If thinking about climate change risks serious damage, resistant mechanisms are required. The DfD objection seems to accomplish this. Yet it not only prevents actions for desired objectives but also undermines moral agency. If one concludes that her desires are impossible, then she may view them as lacking moral relevance. As Dout and Obst note: “If one believes injustice to be fixed and immutable, then accepting injustice is not only morally permissible but the only rational thing to do” (Reference Dout and Obst2023, 321). It can appear that way when injustice is normalized, and moral agency is undermined.

Moral agency is concerned with whether the intentions, beliefs, and goals constituting one’s sense of agency give rise to morally relevant actions. It includes the ability to act in accordance with knowledge of what is morally right to do and what social norms exist in one’s context (Sondermann et al. Reference Sondermann, Ulbert, Finkenbusch, Ulbert, Finkenbusch, Sondermann and Debiel2018, 3). Responsibility presupposes that one has competency to do this; when she does not, she is not viewed as responsible for her actions (Davis Reference Davis1998, 52).

What if an agent does not view herself as possessing these competencies because unjust norms betray her knowledge of what is morally right to do? She might relinquish moral obligations she otherwise holds, because relevant assertions of agency feel excessively demanding, but also painfully meaningless. I see the DfD objector as framing climate action this way: undermining her moral agency in anticipation that its assertion will lead to the pains of despair. This expounds on her moral injury by undermining her capacity to aim at what she knows to be morally right (Gilligan Reference Gilligan2014, 103). This objection anticipates symptoms of moral injury but cannot address it because it turns caring attention away.

Dout and Obst argue that the DfD objector “cares deeply about the climate,” conflating it with deep desire (Reference Dout and Obst2023, 331). Yet care requires more than desiring, no matter how strongly. It includes engagement with the world in pursuit of one’s desires. Broadly construed, theories and ethics of care highlight the importance of paying attention, being present, and responding responsibly.Footnote ⁴ Care is a practice that aims toward, among other things, repairing aspects of our world that undermine our capacities to live well (Fisher and Tronto Reference Fisher, Tronto, Emily and Margaret1990, 40). This includes moral repair: the activity of recovering “a shared sense of value and responsibility” (Urban Walker Reference Urban Walker2006, 28). So, care cannot be sustained well in isolation from political and social contexts it is applied within. Reparative self-care, too, is not apolitical or self-indulgent (Lorde Reference Lorde1988, 131). It is a preservation of self: a social and political act of life-affirmation against manifestations of despair (Lorde Reference Lorde1988, 124–31). In a context of structural injustice, repair will often consist in resistance to moral injuries that threaten the loss of our humanity (Gilligan Reference Gilligan2011, 12). This is a threat to attending to our shared need for a more just and liberatory world.

As Gilligan argues, morally injurious structures cause dissociation (Reference Gilligan2014, 95). The DfD objector recognizes the costs of paying attention to injustice. Yet this comes with the serious consequences of not paying attention at all. It requires dissociation from moral injury by discarding relevant objectives from one’s awareness, and risks damaging the self through moral injury, and others. For, by preventing thoughts about climate change, an agent cannot consider how it affects others. Dissociation from moral values not only compounds on moral injury to oneself but impacts others, especially those most affected by climate change. Regarding moral injury, as C. Fred Alford argues, “[i]t would be careless, in the literal sense of being uncaring, not to recognize its presence among us all” (Reference Alford2016, 17).

Perhaps you are thinking that few people would give up a moral project they desire to guard against despair’s pains. I see this as one of the most pressing challenges for privileged individuals benefitting from injustice. When complacency is a live option, privileged despair becomes particularly tempting (Stockdale Reference Stockdale2021, 188). The temptation to refer to the DfD objection is prevalent when complacency is furthermore encouraged by moral injury. It uses despairing forecasts as a reason for inaction—a luxury few can afford (Solnit Reference Solnit2023).

With similar focus on privilege, Dout and Obst present two ways to respond without dismissing demandingness altogether (Reference Dout and Obst2023, 320). The first is to show that meeting climate justice demands are not too demanding because doing so does not threaten other important projects (320). Second, they argue that “to live a life insensitive to the ongoing climate crisis is itself morally wrong” (320). They suggest privileged despair tends to manifest moral corruption: a tendency to “obscure the morally salient features of one’s situation to avoid or downplay what one morally must do” (328). Their second point implies that reactive attitudes like blame are warranted, especially given their argument that there are differential obligations for oppressed people to act in hope that would “reduce blame’s appropriateness” (327).

I agree that the behaviour defended by the DfD objection is morally wrong. But our responses will be different if we address it as a manifestation of moral corruption as opposed to moral injury. Moral corruption is a facilitation of strategies like selective attention or complacency that are “self-deceptive” (Gardiner Reference Gardiner2006, 407–8). Privileged despair likewise facilitates these strategies. However, I think responding to this objection is less a case for blame than it is for recognizing injury and seeking moral repair. While privileged climate despair may be a manifestation of moral corruption, it is also a response to moral injury that affects all who despair when action seems pointless. It is something we do, but it also happens to us. Like apocalyptic humour, it is an attempt to cope with the absurdity of feeling that life-affirming desires are meaningless in the context of injustice. The DfD objection is a misguided attempt to defend against despair’s pains with despair, a failed attempt to self-care with tools that disempower caring capacities.

I cannot recall when I first felt the injuries of climate change, but its pains can be recognizable. For example, struggling to breathe due to panic and asthma-inducing air quality that accompanies what is now-called “wildfire season.” The pains can also be covert. It never felt right to toss something that could be recycled. It never felt good to deny life-affirming desires with jokes about climate apocalypse. Yet the wrongness felt necessarily accompanied by a benefit of respite that deceptively told me a pain was being “treated.” It was zero-sum thinking in a game with no wins. It took time to recognize that this thinking hurt me too. It is difficult work to keep recognizing this, and I could not do it without my loved ones. The burden lightens when I attend to the fact that giving into moral injury has done a poor job of helping me resist it. It has interfered with my capacity to practice life-affirming care beyond mere defense against despair’s pains. Referring to the wrongness of dissociating from one’s values only gets us so far without a vision of moral repair to resist it.

3. Resisting moral injury

I assume that moral obligations include a shared responsibility to promote moral agency for ourselves and others in the face of structural injustice. I see these as differential responsibilities based on one’s context, privilege, and ability. I take this to include moral repair, which often involves resisting moral injury, with a greater responsibility falling on those with more privilege and capacity to do so. One task for moral repair entails seeking resources to properly attend to shared symptoms of moral injury. I see epistemic humility as a virtue that makes good strides toward this.

I agree with Dout and Obst that humility invites us to act for justice and recognize the benefits of continued struggle in this (Reference Dout and Obst2023, 325–26). Cultivating epistemic humility is not only the right thing to do, but also a task of reparative self-care that empowers resistance to dissociation from shared moral projects. While we might warrant blame for leaning into despair, control over this is limited. We also deserve care for being harmed by it. Both blame and attempts at moral repair can recognize the agent’s role in dissociating, but moral repair emphasizes the relational scaffolding that helps an agent take responsibility for a wrong they are not alone in experiencing, and that is difficult to attend to.

Attention has an important relational component, in the literal sense of attending, when understood as an active practice of engaging with reality. Attending to symptoms of moral injury includes care: aiming towards repair, listening to ourselves and others, and critically evaluating shared norms. Of course, directing attention to injustice is difficult. I wonder how many hours I spend scrolling through horrific reels of the genocide and ecocide in Gaza, of climate disaster, and of world leaders competing to deny human rights. This generates feelings of powerlessness, and the temptation to despair.Footnote ⁵ Sometimes we will need to temporarily turn attention away to avoid endlessly painful doom scrolling. Awareness of injustice necessitates recognition of moral injury’s pains—making it tempting to normalize injustice, turn attention away, and never look back (Murdoch 1970/Reference Murdoch2014, 69–88). Resisting this self-deception requires continuous effort and relational scaffolding to restore visions for moral repair.

Awareness lacking epistemic humility cannot sustain attentiveness to injustice. It becomes unfettered, myopic, and interferes with acknowledging that we are not alone in the experience of moral injury or the struggle to repair it. There is a false certainty in the belief that the world is unjust beyond repair. I never felt more aware that it might be too late for climate justice than when I despaired. I never felt like more of an expert on my relationship with the world than when I justified inaction with the prediction that we were both ending, anyways. Upon reflection, I realize that I was dissociating from difference-making possibilities. I was no expert on the world. I was an expert on discarding reasons to hope from my awareness.

Epistemic humility requires reflecting on our limitations, considering other perspectives, and accepting vulnerability to uncertainty—it illuminates that moral desires cannot be accomplished or interfered with alone. We rely on others to help and not harm us, and they rely on us too. We can only begin to attend to possibility if we resist putting on our despairing-expert hats to view circumstances as fixed. It might seem like epistemic humility undermines faith in one’s own epistemic competences but it grounds attentiveness to competency levels for aligning desires with action (Dormandy Reference Dormandy, Alfano, Lynch and Tanesini2020, 295–96). Proper attentiveness involves recognizing when we require epistemic assistance—which we will almost always need. The struggle to hope in despair-inducing conditions illuminates the care we should give to others and ourselves when it seems futile to press on and the extent to which we need to depend on others, and they need us. It is easy to wallow in skepticism about making any difference. It is an act of life-affirming self-care to direct some of that skepticism toward our purported competencies to make “expert” despairing predictions.

When we are complicit in injustices that make no sense, moral repair triggers sense-making duties to care for ourselves and others. This requires attentiveness to how we are complicit and awareness of injustice, but also humility and acknowledgment that we cannot resist alone. Gilligan notes that when we dissociate from deeply held values, what is “held out of awareness, is not lost” (Reference Gilligan2014, 96). Epistemic humility helps us to reassociate with our values, and also in the literal sense of associating with others. Gilligan tells us that association brings “what is out of awareness back into consciousness,” and empowers discovery of what “we know, and yet didn’t know that we knew” (96). This does not eliminate burdens, but it lightens them by showing how much is missed when we turn attention away from what we didn’t yet know that we knew, deep down, to be right.

The tasks of moral repair show us that living life insensitive to climate change is more demanding on our spirits than one where we maintain moral commitments by seeking to achieve them with others and avoiding a false certainty that there is no point to acting. Moral repair is highly, but not excessively demanding, relative to despair. Attentiveness and epistemic humility cannot defeat temptations to despair. Yet they open the door to reparative self-care, recognizing vulnerability to moral injury, sharing these burdens to recultivate moral agency, and regaining hope against despair. I have been wrong when I turned attention away from climate obligations because thinking about them was too depressing. But this does not tell the full story: I also wanted to care about climate change and found myself struggling with what this meant. Sometimes, I still do. I know, deep down, that others similarly struggle and have ways of caring that I am not yet aware of. This gives me reason to hope that moral and environmental repair can be jointly undertaken.