Trust Them? The Epistemic Quality of Climate Economics

Abstract

This chapter evaluates the scientific and epistemic quality of integrated assessment models (IAMs) and related economic studies in light of Deweyan-Putnamian pragmatism. This is mainly done by analysing the treatment of three different types of uncertainty (in a broad sense), explained in Sect. 9.1. Section 9.2 discusses technical and methodological uncertainties in IAM-based economic studies. Next, the fundamental methodology underlying IAM-based economic studies is critically discussed from an epistemological perspective, and some refinements are proposed from a Deweyan perspective (Sect. 9.3). The conclusion (Sect. 9.4) regarding the overall reliability of IAM-based results is neither that IAM-based studies provide us with absolutely true knowledge, nor that we, from an epistemological perspective, should completely disregard such economic results in policy-making. Instead, a more enlightened use of uncertainty-laden economic models including IAMs is the goal, based on a revision of economic methodology in light of Deweyan-Putnamian pragmatism. A critical reflection on the predominant viewpoints in economic methodology is indispensable because it is in a worrisome state; economists often cannot compellingly explain what their results mean from a philosophical-epistemological perspective. Pragmatism (Sect. 6.2 ) might help overcome the disorientation of current economic methodology in several regards, without returning to the dogmatism of positivist methodology.