Making Sense of the Precautionary Principle (and Its Critics)

1. Making Sense of the Precautionary Principle (and Its Critics) Stephen M. Gardiner University of Washington, Seattle & Princeton University

2. Two Opposing Attitudes • Enthusiasts: (usually pro-environment, and especially European) the PP is a foundational principle of environmental protection • Naysayers: (usually pro-business, and especially Americans) the PP is hopelessly vague, stupidly myopic, and ultimately irrational

3. The Story of the Great Divide • Clash of World Views • Rooted in a Deep Value Conflict • Undermines Global Environmental Politics • The Future looks Bleak

4. Today’s Paper Topic: Is there a Great Theoretical Divide, resting on a Deep clash of World Views and Values? Thesis: No. The Dispute about the PP itself is Shallow.

5. Part I The Great Divide

6. Naysayers (1) Theoretical Objections to the Precautionary Principle: • Extremely Conservative • Myopic • Vacuous • Theoretically Naïve

7. Naysayers (2) Practical Objections to the Precautionary Principle: • Extremely Conservative  false faith in science • Myopic  costly, ineffective & biased against future prosperity • Vacuous  open to corruption and abuse • Theoretically Naïve  obscures the choices that need to be made

8. Enthusiasts (1) Theoretical Objections to Cost-Benefit Analysis: • Extremely Conservative • Myopic • Vacuous • Theoretically Naïve

9. Enthusiasts (2) Practical Objections to CBA: • Extremely Conservative  false faith in science • Myopic  costly, ineffective & biased against the future • Vacuous  open to corruption and abuse • Theoretically Naïve  obscures the choices that need to be made

10. Part II Basic Characteristics of the Precautionary Principle

11. Wingspread Statement “When an activity raises threats of harm to human health or the environment, precautionary measures should be taken even if some cause and effect relationships are not fully established scientifically.”

12. Three Components • Threat of Harm • Uncertainty of Impact and Causality • Precautionary Response

13. What counts as a threat of harm? Is any potential harm, no matter how small, sufficient to trigger the precautionary principle?

14. How does uncertainty figure into this? Is any level of uncertainty sufficient to trigger the principle, or only a high level? Is there any level of uncertainty which would be so great that the principle would be unreasonable?

15. What counts as a precautionary measure? Crossing one’s fingers? Warning people of the threat? Taking measures to reduce impact of the effects? Taking measures to prevent the effects? Taking measures to eliminate the cause of the effects?

16. Part III A Core Precautionary Principle

17. The Maximin Principle Suppose that in a given situation you have two actions, A and B, available to you. If you choose A, then there are two possible outcomes: either (A1) you will receive $100, or (A2) you will be shot. If you choose B, there are also two possible outcomes: either (B1) you will receive $50, or (B2) you will receive a slap on the wrist.

18. Maximin Approach: Choose B Because: (A2) [getting shot] is the worst outcome on option A and (B2) [getting a slap on the wrist] is the worst option on plan B; and (A2) is worse than (B2).

19. Basic Objection “Suppose you live in New York City and are offered two jobs at the same time. One is a tedious and badly paid job in New York City itself, while the other is a very interesting and well-paid job in Chicago. But the catch is that, if you wanted the Chicago job, you would have to take a plane from New York to Chicago (e.g., because this job would have to be taken up the very next day). Therefore there is a very small but positive probability that you might be killed in a plane accident.” Harsanyi 1975

20. “If you took the maximin principle seriously then you could not ever cross the street (after all, you might be hit by a car); you could never drive over a bridge (after all, it might collapse); you could never get married (after all, it might end in a disaster), etc. If anybody really acted this way he would soon end up in a mental institution.” Harsanyi 1975

21. Four Conditions for Applying a Maximin Principle • Consider only scientifically realistic outcomes

22. *Health Warning*

23. Myopic? • The CPP is not exclusive, but inclusive: it includes consideration of all kinds of outcomes, including continuing with the status quo.  The four conditions help to explain why actual advocates of the precautionary principle may appear to be applying it in an exclusive way.

24. Extremely Conservative? “Without any scientific grounds, but on the basis of the so-called precautionary principle - that is, if we can’t prove absolutely that it’s harmless, let’s ban it - the EU has prevented GM foods from Entering its markets” CPP Replies: • Evidence: Scientific Realism  Response: Safe Exits

25. Vacuous? • The Need for Interpretation • Not Unusual • Clear Cases, including the paradigm environmental ones • Explaining the Disputes

26. Climate Change • Scientific Respectability: Past the Threshold • Absence of Probabilities: Inherent Complexity of the Climate System • Unacceptable Outcomes: Reason to believe the costs may be high and possibly catastrophic • Care Little for Gains: Costs are High in Absolute Terms, but Manageable within the Global System

27. Disputes About Climate Change • Uncertainty: sceptics against probabilities • Care Little for Gains: global poverty argument • Unacceptable Outcomes: IPCC overreach; CO2 fertilization; shift to solar by 2060

28. Part IV The Core Precautionary Principle & The Great Theoretical Divide

29. Conflict with Expected Utility Theory?  EUT theory might be incorrect.  Much more importantly, it is not clear that EUT should resist the fourcriteria. This is because the controversy about maximin takes place at a level which need not threaten wider theory.

30. “Of course, Rawls is right when he argues that in some situations the maximin principle will lead to reasonable decisions.” “But closer inspection will show that this will happen only in those situations where the maximin principle is essentially equivalent to the expected-utility maximization principle (in the sense that the policies suggested by the former will yield expected utility levels as high, or almost as high, as the policies suggested by the latter would yield).”

31. A Picture of the Debate • There are paradigm cases of disaster avoidance. • There is a strong presumption that the avoidance of disaster in these cases is rational. • Serious theories of rational choice are motivated to accommodate this strong presumption • The real dispute between rival theories will likely occur outside of the domain constituted by these paradigm cases.

32. An Important Possibility • The purpose of the CPP is to mark out the paradigm cases • CPP and EUT might not be competitor theories • Nevertheless, CPP might impose a burden of proof on wider theories

33. CBA and Rationality “To be rational means to make decisions according to the cost-benefit criterion - that is, to take an action if and only if its benefits exceed its costs.” “… some form of implicit or explicit cost-benefit calculation lies behind almost every human action, object, and behavior.” “Economics teaches us how to identify the costs and benefits that really matter.”

34. Two Objections Not a matter of meaning Conflation: Good Reasons vs. Cost-Benefit

35. CBA and Utilitarianism • Direct vs. Indirect Utilitarianism • CBA is Direct • Most Utilitarians favor Indirect • Enthusiasts of the PP say that CBA has failed and that the CPP will do better • Utility and Non-utilitarians

36. CBA and the Paradigm Cases “Cost-benefit analysis, when faced with uncertainties as big as these, would simply be self-deception. And in any case, it could not be a successful exercise, because the issue of our responsibility to future generations is too poorly understood, and too little accommodated in the current economic theory.” (Broome 1992, p. 19)

37. Conclusions • There is no Great Theoretical Divide about the Precautionary Principle as such • Proponents of CBA may have good reason to accept the CPP • Some of their objections may even unwittingly invoke it • But if they do reject it, they must come up with something else - and something that responds to the charge of self-deception