IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/jecmet/v33y2026i2p134-153.html

Commitment, Kantian economics and normative uncertainty: rethinking rational choice and individual responsibility in the wake of climate change

Author

Listed:
  • Mathieu Guigourez

Abstract

Individual actions – and individual responsibility – regarding climate-related issues are often overlooked because they have a negligible impact at the global scale. Yet, despite having little to no impact, some people commit themselves to reducing their carbon footprint; that is, they are willingly choosing to adapt their consumption despite having no tangible impact on the issue they are tackling. Our aim is to question the permeability of economic rationality with moral (individual) responsibility at stake in climate-related issues. We provide an account of a possible bridge between deontological obligations and utility-maximisation in three different frameworks, namely Senian commitment, Kantian economics and choice under unresolved valuations conflicts. This analysis of different frameworks incorporating deontological motives in Rational Choice Theory analytically grounds individual commitments without relying on political enforcement or monetary incentives.

Suggested Citation

  • Mathieu Guigourez, 2026. "Commitment, Kantian economics and normative uncertainty: rethinking rational choice and individual responsibility in the wake of climate change," Journal of Economic Methodology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 33(2), pages 134-153, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:jecmet:v:33:y:2026:i:2:p:134-153
    DOI: 10.1080/1350178X.2025.2555821
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/1350178X.2025.2555821
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/1350178X.2025.2555821?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:jecmet:v:33:y:2026:i:2:p:134-153. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/RJEC20 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.