Abstract
In a recent paper in this journal (forthcoming), Carter and Peterson raise two distinctly epistemological puzzles that arise for anyone aspiring to defend the precautionary principle. The first puzzle trades on an application of epistemic contextualism to the precautionary principle; the second puzzle concerns the compatibility of the precautionary principle with the de minimis rule. In this note, I argue that neither puzzle should worry defenders of the precautionary principle. The first puzzle can be shown to be an instance of the familiar but conceptually harmless challenge of adjudicating between relevant interests to reach assessments of threats when applying the precautionary principle. The second puzzle can be shown to rely on a subtle but crucial misrepresentation of the relevant probabilities at play when applying the precautionary principle.
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Notes
It may be objected that the whole idea of the precautionary principle is to mark a departure from standard decision procedures, such as cost-benefit analysis or standard risk-analysis, in not having to take into account and adjudicate between the interests of opposing stake-holders, and instead provide a more direct decision procedure in acting to protect the environment and human health. While I am sympathetic to this understanding of the precautionary principle, I will not pursue it further here, but only note that if this understanding is correct, and application of the precautionary principle does not involve adjudication of interests, a central presupposition of C&P’s puzzle from contextualism is false, thus dissolving the puzzle. I thank an anonymous reviewer for bringing this to my attention.
For a recent discussion of how to aggregate first- and second-order probabilities, see e.g. Hansson (2008).
I am grateful to an anonymous reviewer for raising this issue.
For an additional recent discussion of the precautionary principle supporting the reading of this principle as essentially involving a reversed burden of proof, see Ahteensuu (2013).
An alternative interpretation of the quoted passage from the British Government White Paper, which would make it consistent with the core idea of a shifted burden of proof and thereby also consistent with the above quoted formulations of the precautionary principle, would understand the requirement of ‘good grounds […] that irreversible effects may occur’ as a sort of initial test prior to applying the precautionary principle, and thereby the shifted burden of proof. For example, we may have good grounds for judging that some activity entails the possibility (‘may occur’) of some irreversible effect, without yet having determined the probability of this, in which case the precautionary principle would apply to demand that those responsible for the activity establish that the harmful effects are sufficiently improbable for the activity to be allowed.
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Steglich-Petersen, A. The Epistemology of the Precautionary Principle: Two Puzzles Resolved. Erkenn 80, 1013–1021 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10670-014-9694-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10670-014-9694-x