It is commonly believed that people become selfish and turn to looting, price gouging, and other immoral behaviour in emergencies. This has been the basis for an argument justifying extraordinary measures in emergencies. It states that if emergencies are not curtailed, breakdown of moral norms threaten (‘the moral black hole’). Using the example of natural disasters, we argue that the validity of this argument in non-antagonistic situations, i.e. situations other than war and armed conflict, is highly questionable. Available evidence suggests (...) that people in such emergencies typically do not display panic reactions or exaggerated selfishness, and that phenomena such as looting and price gouging are rare. Furthermore, a version of the moral-black-hole argument based on the mere possibility of a moral black hole occurring runs into problems similar to those of Pascal’s Wager. We conclude that we should be wary against applying the moral-black-hole argument to non-antagonistic cases. (shrink)

The Precautionary Principle is a guide to coping with scientific uncertainties in the assessment and management of risks. In recent years, it has moved to the forefront of debates in policy and applied ethics, becoming a key normative tool in policy discussions in such diverse areas as medical and scientific research, health and safety regulation, environmental regulation, product development, international trade, and even judicial review. The principle has attracted critics who claim that it is fundamentally incoherent, too vague to guide (...) policy, and makes demands that are logically and scientifically impossible. In this paper we will answer these criticisms by formulating guidelines for its application that ensure its coherence as a useful normative guide in applied and policy ethics debates. We will also provide analyses of cases that demonstrate how our version of the principle functions in practice. (shrink)

Na literatura recente sobre os desafios gerados pelas novas tecnologias, certos autores defendem o Princípio da Precaução como um princípio de racionalidade central em deliberações sobre práticas associadas àquelas tecnologias. Há dois sentidos possíveis para ‘precaução’: um formal, outro substantivo. Tais autores parecem interpretar o PP no último sentido, a fim de eliminar absolutamente os riscos possíveis das novas tecnologias à humanidade. Contra esta interpretação, argumentaremos que precaução não é o tipo de consideração que figure adequadamente em uma teoria da (...) deliberação para ações humanas e sugeriremos que o PP parece, na verdade, para tais autores, envolver um compromisso moral. Mas, neste caso, ele não é menos controverso do que outros princípios morais. (shrink)

The book contains the first part of an investigation aimed at finding out why it is morally wrong to cause species to go extinct. That it is morally wrong seems to be a very basic and widely held intuition. It seems reasonable that a moral theory worth taking seriously ought to be able to account for that intuition. The most common attempt to answer our question is to refer to the instrumental value of the species for human beings – the (...) anthropocentric instrumental approach as I have chosen to call it. This is the answer that is discussed in this book. We have found many ways in which different species have instrumental value for human beings – both individually and as a part of ecosystems and of biodiversity in general. We could not guarantee however that this includes all species. In some cases, it also turned out that the instrumental value of the species in fact favours exploitation maybe even as far to the extinction of the species. We also noticed that there is no guarantee that the instrumental value of the species can always outweigh the competing values that we would gain by different encroachments that contribute to the extinction of the species. We found however that there are some special circumstances that help push the scale in the direction of preservation. I am thinking of some particular types of value such as choice value and transformation value – values that in general seem to favour preservation of species. This principle shows us that it would be rational from an anthropocentric instrumental vantage point to rule in favour of preservation in many of the cases where we are uncertain about the value of the species, about the best way of utilising the value, or about the connection between the species and other species or biodiversity in general. I am finally thinking of the moral principle that we have duties to consider the future interests of generations to come. We found that with a few exceptions it is justified to adopt such a principle. This in combination with the principles of precaution ought in general to urge us not to cause the extinction of species unless we have very trustworthy evidence that they will not turn out to be more valuable alive to future generations in comparison to what we can get from driving them to extinction. In relation to the discussion about the value of other species for human beings, it is worth noticing that all the arguments we have found in favour of preservation would be even stronger – and therefore account even better for the intuition that it is at least prima facie wrong to cause extinction – if we also accepted that other entities than human beings can have moral standing. Finally, we noticed that our moral intuitions strongly indicate that even in the cases where the instrumental value of other species for human beings talks in favour of preservation, there is still something lacking. Something we have to account for in order to totally account for our moral intuition against extinction. The conclusion will have to be that anthropocentric instrumentalism is in favour of preservation in many cases – probably in more cases than is generally acknowledged – but that it is not enough to give a complete account of the intuition that it is prima facie morally wrong to contribute to the extinction of species. We therefore have to continue our search for such an account. (shrink)