Moral Obligation to be Green

A friend of mine recently wrote a blog post addressing the recent energy wars between major living units on campus called "Do You Have a Moral Responsibility to Go Green." During Energy Wars major living units compete to reduce the amount of electricity they use in three weeks and the housing unit that reduces the most energy wins bragging rights and a money prize they can use to contribute to a "greener campus." This resulted in some competitors reducing much of their energy use and become educated and aware of the effects of electricity use around the world. The winner is praised and the campus as a whole receives reputation on being a Green campus. However, after the competition is over most people return back to their usual habits of leaving the lights on and leaving outlets plugged. The problem with this is that we all live on this earth, and we all have ecological effect on the earth. Still, there seems as though there was no actual moral obligation or responsibility to self regulate energy use at all aside from winning the competition.

Although the result was that many people learned more about being aware of their effects on our world, looking at this from a praising aspect, was their anything that deserved moral praise? Some may argue that it is a moral obligation to be sustainable because everyone has to live on earth. Being sustainable and conscious would be the equivalent to cleaning your own room. I think people are well aware of their moral obligation to be sustainable, but they choose to not participate because they learn that the problem is too great for them to have any contributing factors in turning the situation around.

According to David Norton, those who simply participated has only barely completed the bare minimum of their moral duty. Although the participates have learned a lot from the publicity during the three weeks of Energy Wars, they do not deserve significant praise for their actions. The participates simply did something they understood to be correct but is not morally challenging in any way. Norton would ask more from the participants and argue that it is a moral obligation to continue to stay green and that they are not worthy of praise. Saying that the participates deserve some sort of moral praise would a minimalist thought therefore Norton would most likely expect more from them.
So, should we praise those who participated in energy wars?



Norton, David L. "Moral Minimalism and the Development of Moral Character." Midwest Studies in Philosophy 13.1 (1988): 180-95.

Witwer, Noelle. "Do You Have a Moral Responsibility to “Go Green”?" The Prindle Post. The Prindle Institute, 6 Mar. 2015. Web. 18 Mar. 2015. <http://www.prindlepost.org/2015/03/moral-responsibility-go-green/>.