Laws of Fear

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Beyond the Precautionary Principle
Series: The Seeley Lectures (No. 6)
Cass R. Sunstein
University of Chicago

PRECAUTIONS AND RATIONALITY

My point of departure is the Precautionary Principle, which is a focal point for thinking about health, safety, and the environment throughout Europe. In fact the Precautionary Principle is receiving increasing worldwide attention, having become the basis for countless international debates about how to think about risk, health, and the environment. The principle has even entered into debates about how to handle terrorism, about “preemptive war,” and about the relationship between liberty and security. In defending the 2003 war in Iraq, President George W. Bush invoked a kind of Precautionary Principle, arguing that action was justified in the face of uncertainty. “If we wait for threats to fully materialize, we will have waited too long.”4 He also said, “I believe it is essential that when we see a threat, we deal with those threats before they become imminent. It’s too late if they become imminent.”5 What is especially noteworthy is that this way of thinking is essentially the same as that of environmentalists concerned about global warming, genetic modification of food, and pesticides. For these problems, it is commonly argued that regulation, rather than inaction, is the appropriate course in the face of doubt.

The Precautionary Principle takes many forms. But in all of them, the animating idea is that regulators should take steps to protect against potential harms, even if causal chains are unclear and even if we do not know that those harms will come to fruition. The Precautionary Principle is worthy of sustained attention for two reasons. First, it provides the foundation for intensely pragmatic debates about danger, fear, and security. Second, the Precautionary Principle raises a host of theoretically fascinating questions about individual and social decision making under conditions of risk and uncertainty. For the latter reason, the principle is closely connected to current controversies about fear and rationality – about whether individuals and societies do, or should, follow conventional accounts of rational behavior.

My initial argument is that in its strongest forms, the Precautionary Principle is literally incoherent, and for one reason: There are risks on all sides of social situations. It is therefore paralyzing; it forbids the very steps that it requires. Because risks are on all sides, the Precautionary Principle forbids action, inaction, and everything in between. Consider the question of what societies should do about genetic engineering, nuclear power, and terrorism. Aggressive steps, designed to control the underlying risks, seem to be compelled by the Precautionary Principle. But those very steps run afoul of the same principle, because each of them creates new risks of its own. It follows that many people who are described as risk averse are, in reality, no such thing. They are averse to particular risks, not to risks in general. Someone who is averse to the risks of flying might well be unconcerned with the risks of driving; someone who seeks to avoid the risks associated with medication probably disregards the risks associated with letting nature take its course; those who fear the risks associated with pesticides are likely to be indifferent to the risks associated with organic foods.

more: http://www.cambridge.org/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=0521615127&ss=exc