This is a non-exhaustive list of writings on or related to the idea of moral offsetting: the idea that good actions can offset bad actions in a way analogous to carbon offsetting. For example, a meat eater might try to offset his consumption of meat by donating to an animal welfare charity.
Published philosophical work
- Foerster (2019), ‘Moral Offsetting’
- written by me
- Driver (2014), ‘Moral Bookkeeping, Consequentialism, and Carbon Offsets’
- MacAskill (2015), Doing Good Better
- discusses moral offsetting at pp. 142-3
- Ord (2015), ‘Moral Trade’
- mentions moral offsetting at p. 123 under the label of ‘intrapersonal moral trade’
- Chan and Crummett (2019), ‘Moral Indulgences: When Offsetting is Wrong’
- uses the idea of moral offsetting to respond to the problem of evil
Blog posts
- Alexander (2015), ‘Ethics Offsets’
- Alexander (2015), ‘Vegetarianism for Meat Eaters’
- Alexander (2017), ‘Contra Askell on Moral Offsets’
- Askell (2016), ‘Can we offset immorality?' (archive link)
- Chappell (2018), ‘Three kinds of offsetting’
- Foerster (2019), ‘Carbon offsetting ≠ moral offsetting’
- Kaufman (2015), ‘How bad is dairy?'
- Levy (2015), ‘Moral Offsetting’
- Wells (2014), ‘Is Moral Offsetting™ Right For You?'
Other
- cheatneutral.com (now-defunct; archive link)
- parodied carbon offsets by pretending to sell offsets for cheating on your partner
- Kinsley (2007), ‘Credit for Bad Behavior’
- compares carbon offsets to offsets for abusing your children
- Monbiot (2006), ‘Selling Indulgences’
- compares carbon offsets to the sale of indulgences
- Zabel (2016), ‘Ethical offsetting is antithetical to EA [effective altruism]'