scholarly journals Climate Uncertainty, Real Possibilities and the Precautionary Principle

Erkenntnis ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeroen Hopster
Keyword(s):  
Precautionary Principle ◽  
Cost Benefit Analysis ◽  
Cost Benefit ◽  
Benefit Analysis ◽  
First Order ◽  
The Precautionary Principle ◽  
Climate Uncertainty ◽  
Precautionary Measures ◽  
Epistemic Standing ◽  
Harmful Event

AbstractA challenge faced by defenders of the precautionary principle is to clarify when the evidence that a harmful event might occur suffices to regard this prospect as a real possibility. Plausible versions of the principle must articulate some epistemic threshold, or de minimis requirement, which specifies when precautionary measures are justified. Critics have argued that formulating such a threshold is problematic in the context of the precautionary principle. First, this is because the precautionary principle appears to be ambiguous about the distinction between risk and uncertainty: should the principle merely be invoked when evidential probabilities are absent, or also when probabilities have low epistemic credentials? Secondly, defenders of the precautionary principle face an aggregation puzzle: in judging whether or not the de minimis requirement has been met, how should first-order evidential probabilities and their second-order epistemic standing be aggregated? This article argues that the ambiguity can be resolved, and the epistemological puzzle can be solved. Focusing on decisions in the context of climate uncertainty, I advance a version of the precautionary principle that serves as a plausible decision rule, to be adopted in situations where its main alternative—cost–benefit analysis—does not deliver.

scholarly journals Climate Uncertainty, Real Possibilities and the Precautionary Principle

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeroen Hopster
Keyword(s):  
Precautionary Principle ◽  
Cost Benefit Analysis ◽  
Cost Benefit ◽  
Benefit Analysis ◽  
First Order ◽  
The Precautionary Principle ◽  
Climate Uncertainty ◽  
Precautionary Measures ◽  
Epistemic Standing ◽  
Harmful Event

A challenge faced by defenders of the precautionary principle is to clarify when the evidence that a harmful event might occur suffices to regard this prospect as a real possibility. Plausible versions of the principle must articulate some epistemic threshold, or de minimis requirement, which specifies when precautionary measures are justified. Critics have argued that formulating such a threshold is problematic in the context of the precautionary principle. First, this is because the precautionary principle appears to be ambiguous about the distinction between risk and uncertainty: should the principle merely be invoked when evidential probabilities are absent, or also when probabilities have low epistemic credentials? Secondly, defenders of the precautionary principle face an aggregation puzzle: in judging whether or not the de minimis requirement has been met, how should first-order evidential probabilities and their second-order epistemic standing be aggregated? This article argues that the ambiguity can be resolved, and the epistemological puzzle can be solved. Focusing on decisions in the context of climate uncertainty, I advance a version of the precautionary principle that serves as a plausible decision rule, to be adopted in situations where its main alternative – cost-benefit analysis – does not deliver.

How to evaluate the catastrophic risks and the possible responses to them

Catastrophe ◽  
2004 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard A. Posner
Keyword(s):  
Risk Aversion ◽  
Precautionary Principle ◽  
Cost Benefit Analysis ◽  
Cost Benefit ◽  
Benefit Analysis ◽  
Costs And Benefits ◽  
The Precautionary Principle ◽  
Catastrophic Risks ◽  
Alternative Responses ◽  
Expected Benefits

To deal in a systematic way with the catastrophic risks identified in chapter 1 requires first assessing them and then devising and implementing sensible responses. Assessment involves first of all collecting the technical data necessary to gauge, so far as that may be possible, the probability of particular risks, the purely physical consequences if the risks materialize (questions of value are for later), and the feasibility of various measures for reducing either the risks or the magnitude of the consequences by various amounts. The next step in the assessment stage is to embed the data in a cost-benefit analysis of the alternative responses to the risk. I am not proposing that cost-benefit analysis, at least as it is understood by economists, should be the decision procedure for responding to the catastrophic risks. But it is an indispensable step in rational decision making in this as in other areas of government regulation. Effective responses to most catastrophic risks are likely to be extremely costly, and it would be mad to adopt such responses without an effort to estimate the costs and benefits. No government is going to deploy a system of surveillance and attack for preventing asteroid collisions without a sense of what the system is likely to cost and what the expected benefits (roughly, the costs of asteroid collisions that the system would prevent multiplied by the probabilities of such collisions) are likely to be relative to the costs and benefits both of alternative systems and of doing nothing. The “precautionary principle” (“better safe than sorry”) popular in Europe and among Greens generally is not a satisfactory alternative to cost-benefit analysis, if only because of its sponginess—if it is an alternative at all. In its more tempered versions, the principle is indistinguishable from cost-benefit analysis with risk aversion assumed. Risk aversion, as we know, entails that extra weight be given the downside of uncertain prospects. In effect it magnifies certain costs, but it does not thereby overthrow cost-benefit analysis, as some advocates of the precautionary principle may believe.

The Misuse of the Precautionary Principle in Justifying Australia’s Ban on the Sale of Nicotine Vaping Products

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kylie Morphett ◽  
Wayne Hall ◽  
Coral Gartner
Keyword(s):  
Precautionary Principle ◽  
Cost Benefit Analysis ◽  
Cost Benefit ◽  
Consumer Products ◽  
Benefit Analysis ◽  
The Precautionary Principle ◽  
Policy Debates ◽  
Regulatory Approach ◽  
History Of ◽  
English Speaking

Abstract In Australia, the precautionary principle has been used to justify an effective sales ban on nicotine vaping products (NVPs) by requiring all NVPs to be approved as medicines. Australia’s policy is out of step with other English-speaking countries, which allow the sale of NVPs as consumer products. We provide a brief history of the precautionary principle, discuss guidelines on how it should be used, and examine key documents from Australian policy debates to describe how the precautionary principle has been misapplied in justifying Australian NVP policy. We argue that the precautionary principle has been inappropriately applied to NVP regulation in Australia in that it has: failed to consider the regulation of similar products, imposed regulations that are disproportionate to the level of risk, failed to assess the costs of its regulatory approach, and failed to undertake a cost/benefit analysis of a range of available regulatory options. Australian policy illustrates the risks of regulating nicotine products in isolation rather than considering NVPs as falling on a continuum of harmful nicotine products. Implications The precautionary principle has been misapplied to NVP regulation in Australia. We recommend that the precautionary principle be used in a way that regulates nicotine products in proportion to their risks.

Precaution, Proportionality, and Cost/Benefit Analysis: False Analogies

2013 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 281-286 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susan Rose–Ackerman
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
European Union ◽  
Precautionary Principle ◽  
Cost Benefit Analysis ◽  
Cost Benefit ◽  
The United States ◽  
Benefit Analysis ◽  
European Union Law ◽  
The Us ◽  
Proportionality Principle

The Politics of Precaution by David Vogel, and the edited volume, The Reality of Precaution each compare the United States with Europe over a range of regulatory areas. Vogel claims that the US and Europe changed places in recent years with Europe becoming more precautionary than the US. The edited volume covers a wider range of topics and finds that the results are mixed. The evidence of diversity in the edited volume appears convincing, but this essay argues that both volumes too narrowly focus on the precautionary principle. Rather it argues for a broader context that confronts precaution both with the proportionality principle, which is a mainstay of European Union law, and with the limitations of cost/benefit analysis and Impact Assessment. It unpacks the normative underpinnings of these concepts to suggest a broader frame for policy analysis.

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