I think there aren’t many joint root causes since so many of them are less about facts of the world and depend implicitly on your normative ethics. (As a trivial example, there’s a sense in which the root cause of poverty, climate change and species extinctions is human population if you have an average utilitarian stance, but for many other aggregative views, trying to fix this will be abhorrent).
Some that I can think of:
1. A world primarily ruled by humans, instead of (as you say) “more ethical, reflective and/or rational” beings.
1a. evolution
1b. humans evolving from small-group omnivores instead of large-group herbivores
2. Coordination problems
3. Insufficient material resources
4. Something else?
I also disagree with the idea that “capitalism”(just to pick one example) is the joint root cause for most of the world’s ills.
A. This is obviously wrong compared to something like evolution.
B. Global poverty predates capitalism and so does wild animal suffering, pandemic risk, asteroid risk, etc. (Also other problems commonly talked about like racism, sexism, biodiversity loss)
C. No obvious reason why non-capitalist individual states (in an anarchic world order) would not still have major coordination problems around man-made existential risks and other issues.
D. Indeed, we have empirical experience of the bickering and rising tensions between Communist states in the mid-late 1900s.
I also disagree with the idea that “capitalism”(just to pick one example) is the joint root cause for most of the world’s ills.
A. This is obviously wrong compared to something like evolution.
B. Global poverty predates capitalism and so does wild animal suffering, pandemic risk, asteroid risk, etc. (Also other problems commonly talked about like racism, sexism, biodiversity loss)
C. No obvious reason why non-capitalist individual states (in an anarchic world order) would not still have major coordination problems around man-made existential risks and other issues.
D. Indeed, we have empirical experience of the bickering and rising tensions between Communist states in the mid-late 1900s.
A leftist might not claim capitalism is the only joint root cause. But to respond to each:
A. Can’t change the past, so not useful.
B. This isn’t a counterfactual claim about what would happen if we replaced capitalism with some specific different system. Capitalism allows these issues, while another system might not, so in counterfactual terms, capitalism can still be a cause. (But socialist countries were often racist and homophobic. So socialism doesn’t solve the issue, but again, many of today’s (Western?) leftists aren’t only concerned with capitalism, but also oppression and hierarchy generally, and may have different specific systems in mind.) I don’t know to what extent leftists think of causes in such counterfactual terms instead of historical terms, though.
C. Leftists might think certain systems would be better than capitalist ones on these issues, and have reasons for those beliefs. For what it’s worth, systems also shape people’s attitudes or attitudes would covary with the system, so if greed is a major cause of these issues and it’s suppressed under a specific non-capitalist system, this might partially address these issues. Also, some leftists want to reform the global world order, too. Socialist world government? Leftists disagree on how much should be top-down vs decentralized, though.
D. Not the systems they have in mind anymore. I think a lot of (most?) (Western?) leftists have moved onto some kind of social democracy (technically still capitalist), democratic socialism or anarchism.
I think there aren’t many joint root causes since so many of them are less about facts of the world and depend implicitly on your normative ethics. (As a trivial example, there’s a sense in which the root cause of poverty, climate change and species extinctions is human population if you have an average utilitarian stance, but for many other aggregative views, trying to fix this will be abhorrent).
Some that I can think of:
1. A world primarily ruled by humans, instead of (as you say) “more ethical, reflective and/or rational” beings.
1a. evolution
1b. humans evolving from small-group omnivores instead of large-group herbivores
2. Coordination problems
3. Insufficient material resources
4. Something else?
I also disagree with the idea that “capitalism”(just to pick one example) is the joint root cause for most of the world’s ills.
A. This is obviously wrong compared to something like evolution.
B. Global poverty predates capitalism and so does wild animal suffering, pandemic risk, asteroid risk, etc. (Also other problems commonly talked about like racism, sexism, biodiversity loss)
C. No obvious reason why non-capitalist individual states (in an anarchic world order) would not still have major coordination problems around man-made existential risks and other issues.
D. Indeed, we have empirical experience of the bickering and rising tensions between Communist states in the mid-late 1900s.
A leftist might not claim capitalism is the only joint root cause. But to respond to each:
A. Can’t change the past, so not useful.
B. This isn’t a counterfactual claim about what would happen if we replaced capitalism with some specific different system. Capitalism allows these issues, while another system might not, so in counterfactual terms, capitalism can still be a cause. (But socialist countries were often racist and homophobic. So socialism doesn’t solve the issue, but again, many of today’s (Western?) leftists aren’t only concerned with capitalism, but also oppression and hierarchy generally, and may have different specific systems in mind.) I don’t know to what extent leftists think of causes in such counterfactual terms instead of historical terms, though.
C. Leftists might think certain systems would be better than capitalist ones on these issues, and have reasons for those beliefs. For what it’s worth, systems also shape people’s attitudes or attitudes would covary with the system, so if greed is a major cause of these issues and it’s suppressed under a specific non-capitalist system, this might partially address these issues. Also, some leftists want to reform the global world order, too. Socialist world government? Leftists disagree on how much should be top-down vs decentralized, though.
D. Not the systems they have in mind anymore. I think a lot of (most?) (Western?) leftists have moved onto some kind of social democracy (technically still capitalist), democratic socialism or anarchism.