The ball of responsibilities and the necessary mitigation of altruism to promote sustainable choices

In this article, I examine the relationship between environmental responsibility and moral responsibility, and argue that the former is more demanding than the latter. As a result, sustainable behaviour often takes on an altruistic character. This is problematic because we then remain trapped in the tragedy of the commons. To overcome this difficulty, I propose to mitigate the altruistic character of sustainable behaviour by providing soft incentives and by imposing obligations. The implementation of such solutions and policies requires the involvement of decision-makers.