In debates about animal sentience, the precautionary principle is often invoked. The idea is that when the evidence of sentience is inconclusive, we should “give the animal the benefit of the doubt” or “err on the side of caution” in formulating animal protection legislation. Yet there remains confusion as to whether it is appropriate to apply the precautionary principle in this context, and, if so, what “applying the precautionary principle” means in practice regarding the burden of proof (...) for animal sentience. Here I construct a version of the precautionary principle tailored to the question of animal sentience together with a practical framework for implementing it. I explain and defend the key features of this framework, argue that it is well-aligned with current practice in animal welfare science, and consider and reject a number of influential counterarguments to the use of precautionary reasoning in this area. (shrink)

The precautionary principle in public decision making concerns situations where following an assessment of the available scientific information, there are reasonable grounds for concern for the possibility of adverse effects on the environment or human health, but scientific uncertainty persists. In such cases provisional risk management measures may be adopted, without having to wait until the reality and seriousness of those adverse effects become fully apparent. This is the definition of the precautionary principle as operationalized under EU law. (...) The precautionary principle is a deliberative principle. Its application involves deliberation on a range of normative dimensions which need to be taken into account while making the principle operational in the public policy context. Under EU law, any risk management measures to be adopted while implementing the precautionary principle, have to be proportionate to ensure the chosen high level of protection in the European Community. This articlewill illustrate the established practice concerning the release of genetically modified organisms into the environment and how the principle is implemented under hard law. The article also provides an outlook on what this may imply for the relative new case of nanotechnology and the use of precautionary principle within the context of soft law (use of codes of conduct). (shrink)

The precautionary principle (PP) aims to anticipate and minimize potentially serious or irreversible risks under conditions of scientific uncertainty. Thus it preserves the potential for future developments. It has been incorporated into many international treaties and pieces of national legislation for environmental protection and sustainable development. In this article, we outline an interpretation of the PP as a framework of orientation for a sustainable information society. Since the risks induced by future information and communication technologies (ICT) are social risks (...) for the most part, we propose to extend the PP from mainly environmental to social subjects of protection. From an ethical point of view, the PP and sustainability share the principle of intergenerational justice, which can be used as an argument to preserve free space for the decisions of future generations. Applied to technical innovation and to ICT issues in particular, the extended PP can serve as a framework of orientation to avoid socio-economically irreversible developments. We conclude that the PP is a useful approach for: (i) policy makers to reconcile information society and sustainability policies and (ii) ICT companies to formulate sustainability strategies. (shrink)

When faced with an urgent and credible threat of grave harm, we should take proportionate precautions. This maxim captures the core commitments of the “precautionary principle”. But what is it for a precaution to be “proportionate”? I construct an account of proportionality (the “ARCANE” account) that consists of five fundamental conditions (absolute rights compatibility, reasonable compensation, consistency, adequacy and non- excessiveness) and a tie-breaker (efficiency). I apply this account to two examples from the COVID-19 pandemic (border closures and school (...) closures), arguing that my account captures the key questions on which it is both feasible and important to integrate expert input with democratic input. I close by considering how we might try to manage the risk of future pandemics in a proportionate way. (shrink)

In a recent paper in this journal, 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. (shrink)

As a policy instrument that is deeply rooted in technology assessment, the precautionary principle examines the effects of a given object on humans and the environment. In practice the principle is rarely used to analyze the effects of our safety measures on the object itself or the way it is produced. Yet it is exactly in the effect on the blood procurement system that blood safety regulations based on the precautionary principle have to be particularly careful, as the (...) vast majority of blood products in the Global North are obtained through donations. (shrink)

A brief examination of the self-negating quality of the precautionary principle within the context of environmental ethics, and its consequent failure, as an ethical guide, to justify large-scale regulation of atmospheric cabon dioxide emissions.

Human neural organoid research is advancing rapidly. As Greely notes in the target article, this progress presents an “onrushing ethical dilemma.” We can’t rule out the possibility that suff...

In this paper we present two distinctly epistemological puzzles that arise for one who aspires to defend some plausible version of the precautionary principle. The first puzzle involves an application of contextualism in epistemology; and the second puzzle concerns the task of defending a plausible version of the precautionary principle that would not be invalidated by de minimis.

In a recent paper in this journal, we proposed two novel puzzles associated with the precautionary principle. Both are puzzles that materialise, we argue, once we investigate the principle through an epistemological lens, and each constitutes a philosophical hurdle for any proponent of a plausible version of the precautionary principle. Steglich-Petersen claims, also in this journal, that he has resolved our puzzles. In this short note, we explain why we remain skeptical.

In their recent article, Koplin, Gyngell and Savulescu (2019) assess the viability of the precautionary principle as a decision-making tool to determine whether and under what circumstances germline gene editing should proceed. While their survey of different forms of the precautionary principle is illuminating, the most novel contribution is a new account of the precautionary principle, what they dub the Sufficientarian Precautionary Principle (SPP). SPP is meant to avoid several problems with existing accounts, while comporting with (...) at least some of the intuitive force behind the general idea of the precautionary principle. However, as it is only one subsection of a larger paper, SPP is not fully worked out. In this brief response, I will flesh out some problems with SPP as a decision-making tool – particularly that there is a lack of adequate normative justification for adopting it. While this does not constitute a decisive refutation of the approach, SPP needs considerable refinement and clarification before it can be considered viable for use in decision-making. (shrink)

The Precautionary Principle (PP) is an influential principle of risk management. It has been widely introduced into environmental legislation, and it plays an important role in most international environmental agreements. Yet, there is little consensus on precisely how to understand and formulate the principle. In this paper I prove some impossibility results for two plausible formulations of the PP as a decision-rule. These results illustrate the difficulty in making the PP consistent with the acceptance of any trade-offs between catastrophic (...) risks and more ordinary goods. (shrink)

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. (shrink)

The Precautionary Principle is both celebrated and criticized. It has become an important principle for decision making, but it is also subject to criticism. One problem that is often pointed out with the principle is that is not clear what it actually says and how to use it. I have taken on this problem by performing an analysis of some of the most influential formulations of the principle in an attempt to identify the core ideas behind it, with the (...) purpose of producing a formulation of the principle that is clear and practically applicable. It was found that what is called the Precautionary Principle is not a principle that tells us what do to achieve extra precaution or how to handle situations when extra precaution is called for. Instead, it was found to be a list of circumstances that each justify extra precaution. An analysis of some of the most common and influential formulations of the Precautionary Principle identified four such circumstances: (1) When we deal with important values that tend to be systematically downplayed by traditional decision methods – such as human health and the environment. (2) When we suspect that the decision might lead to irreversible and severe consequences and the values at stake are also irreplaceable, (3) When timing is at least as important as being right. (4) When it is more important to avoid false negatives than false positives. This interpretation of the Precautionary Principle does not say anything about what kind of actions to take when extra precaution is called for, but it does provide a clear and practically useful list of circumstances that call for extra precaution and that is not subject to the most common objections to the Precautionary Principle. (shrink)

This Article aims to demonstrate that the WTO jurisprudence on science-related trade disputes has become imbued with a specific vision of science that has prevented any possible application of the precautionary principle. This situation is due both to the WTO’s specific dispute settlement procedures and to the substantive nature of precautionary measures. Indeed, such measures’ foundation on “insufficient scientific evidence” dramatically undermines the probative value of science in WTO adjudication and creates a seeming contradiction: The system requires defendants (...) to provide legal evidence of the absence of sufficient scientific evidence. The reasoning of the Panel on the EC–Biotech case was riddled with this apparent paradox. For the first time, the US–Continued Suspension case has opened a gateway to address this fundamental issue. (shrink)

Birch’s criterion for the precautionary principle imposes a high evidential standard that many cases will fail to meet. Reliable, relevant anecdotal evidence suggestive of animal sentience should also fall within the scope of the precautionary principle. This would minimize potential suffering (as happened in the case of cephalopods) while further evidence is gathered.

I will argue that physicians have an ethical obligation to justify their conscientious objection and the most reliable interpretation of the Polish legal framework claims that conscientious objection is permissible only when the justification shows the genuineness of the judgment of conscience that is not based on false beliefs and arises from a moral norm that has a high rank. I will demonstrate that the dogma accepted in the Polish doctrine that the reasons that lie behind conscientious objection in medicine (...) cannot be evaluated or controlled by anyone is based either on a mistaken interpretation of the Constitution or on the unreliable concept of conscience. I will refer to the legal regulations concerning military refusals that require from objectors to reveal and justify their views. Finally, I will demonstrate why conscientious objection under uncertainty does not deserve acceptance, because it is based on a specific version of the precautionary principle. (shrink)

The last couple of decades have witnessed a renewed interest in the notion of inductive risk among philosophers of science. However, while it is possible to find a number of suggestions about the mitigation of inductive risk in the literature, so far these suggestions have been mostly relegated to vague marginal remarks. This paper aims to lay the groundwork for a more systematic discussion of the mitigation of inductive risk. In particular, I consider two approaches to the mitigation of inductive (...) risk—the individualistic approach, which maintains that individual scientists are primarily responsible for the mitigation of inductive risk, and the socialized approach, according to which the responsibility for the mitigation of inductive risk should be more broadly distributed across the scientific community or, even more broadly, across society. I review some of the argument for and against the two approaches and introduce two new problems for the individualistic approach, which I call the problem of precautionary cascades and the problem of exogenous inductive risk, and I argue that a socialized approach might alleviate each of these problems. (shrink)

Covid-19 is a serious illness. Deaths are rising steadily, and health systems are under strain. While most countries are following international health recommendations to wear face masks during the covid-19 pandemic the situation has been complicated in Sweden. Officials in Halmstad municipality, Sweden, forced a teacher to remove their mask and prohibited the use of masks and all forms of medical face masks in their schools. The municipality said there was no scientific evidence that wearing masks offered protection, citing the (...) Swedish Public Health Agency. At the time, agency guidance stated that there were "great risks" that masks would be used incorrectly. This guidance has since been removed. To someone unfamiliar with the Swedish response to the covid-19 pandemic, this mask ban might sound appalling. Especially since growing evidence indicates that face masks possibly do help reduce the spread of covid-19, especially in situations where maintaining distance is impossible. This essay is asking the ethical question if policy makers should apply the precautionary principle and encourage people to wear face masks on the grounds that lives potentially could be save. (shrink)

In his new book, Knowledge: The Philosophical Quest in History, Steve Fuller returns to core themes of his program of social epistemology that he first outlined in his 1988 book, Social Epistemology. He develops a new, unorthodox theology and philosophy building upon his testimony in Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District in defense of intelligent design, leading to a call for maximal human experimentation. Beginning from the theological premise rooted in the Abrahamic religious tradition that we are created in the (...) image of God, Fuller argues that the spark of the divine within us distinguishes us from animals. I argue that Fuller’s recent work takes us away from key insights of his original work. In contrast, I advocate for a program of social epistemology rooted in evolutionary science rather than intelligent design, emphasize a precautionary and ecological approach rather than a proactionary approach that favors risky human experimentation, and attend to our material and sociological embeddedness rather than a transhumanist repudiation of the body. (shrink)

Most current techniques to deal with invasive species are ineffective or have highly damaging side effects. To this end suppression-drives based on clustered regularly inter-spaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR/Cas9) have been touted as a potential silver bullet for the problem, allowing for a highly focused, humane and cost-effective means of removing a target species from an environment. Suppression-drives come with serious risks, however, such that the precautionary principle seems to warrant us not deploying this technology. The focus of this (...) paper is on one such risk – the danger of a suppression-drive escaping containment and wiping out the target species globally. Here, I argue that in most cases this risk is significant enough to warrant not using a gene-drive. In some cases, however, we can bypass the precautionary principle by using an approach that hinges on what I term the ‘Worst-Case Clause’. This clause, in turn, provides us with a litmus test that can be fruitfully used to determine what species are viable targets for suppression-drives in the wild. Using this metric in concert with other considerations, I suggest that only three species are currently possible viable targets – the European rabbit, ship rat and Caribbean Tree Frog. (shrink)

The article examines the so-called slippery slope argument (SSA) against the legalization of active voluntary euthanasia (AVE). According to the SSA, by legalizing AVE, the least morally controversial type of euthanasia, we will take the first step onto a slippery slope and inevitably end up in the moral abyss of widespread abuse and violations of the rights of the weakest and most vulnerable patients. In the first part of the paper, empirical evidence to the contrary is presented and analyzed: None (...) of the forecasted regrettable trends can be elicited from the body of existing statistical data. Accordingly, we have no good reason to believe either that we already are, or are sooner or later going to be, sliding into a moral abyss. A related question is then considered: Would it not be wiser and safer to stick to the status quo and preserve the existing legal ban on AVE even if the risk of its abuse is uncertain and may well turn out to be relatively low? It is argued that such an appeal to precautionary reasoning fails to justify an outright legal ban on AVE for at least two reasons: (i) it grossly underestimates the hidden moral costs of current legal arrangements (competent terminal patients suffer both disrespect for their autonomous will and deprivation of the good of a timely death) and (ii) the ban is both too inefficient and disproportionate to qualify as a reasonable measure of precaution. (shrink)

The article examines the so-called slippery slope argument (SSA) against the legalization of active voluntary euthanasia (AVE). According to the SSA, by legalizing AVE, the least morally controversial type of euthanasia, we will take the first step onto a slippery slope and inevitably end up in the moral abyss of widespread abuse and violations of the rights of the weakest and most vulnerable patients. In the first part of the paper, empirical evidence to the contrary is presented and analyzed: None (...) of the forecast regrettable trends can be elicited from the body of existing statistical data. Accordingly, we have no good reason to believe either that we already are, or are sooner or later going to be, sliding into a moral abyss. A related question is then considered: Would it not be wiser and safer to stick to the status quo and preserve the existing legal ban on AVE even if the risk of its abuse is uncertain and may well turn out to be relatively low? It is argued that such an appeal to precautionary reasoning fails to justify an outright legal ban on AVE for at least two reasons: (i) it grossly underestimates the hidden moral costs of current legal arrangements (competent terminal patients suffer both disrespect for their autonomous will and deprivation of the good of a timely death) and (ii) the ban is both too inefficient and disproportionate to qualify as a reasonable measure of precaution. (shrink)

In this paper, I discuss from a philosophical viewpoint the so-called radiation problem that resulted from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station accident after the Great East Japan Earthquake in 2011. The starting point lies in the conceptual distinction between “damage due to radiation” and “damage caused by avoiding radiation.” We can recognize the direct “damage due to radiation” in Fukushima as not serious based on the empirical data so that I focus upon the problem of the “damage caused by (...) avoiding radiation,” particularly the damage due to evacuation actions. Actually, evacuation actions caused more refugees to die of suicide and diseases than supposed. Obviously, there is a practical problem on whether the forceful and emergent evacuationwas needed. In addition, I will point out that some people psychologically had negative feelings about the radiation problem altogether, for example, absurdity, discomfort, anxiety, or distrust, where some of them tend to twistedly solve those by giving moral censure to people and the product in affected areas. This brought about serious harm to people in Fukushima. I will interpret some people’s careless adoption of precautionary principle and their misunderstanding of the legal standard in radiation protection as being latent in this tragedy. (shrink)

Drawing on the SAGE minutes and other documents, I consider the wider lessons for norms of scientific advising that can be learned from the UK’s initial response to coronavirus in the period January-March 2020, when an initial strategy that planned to avoid total suppression of transmission was abruptly replaced by an aggressive suppression strategy. I introduce a distinction between “normatively light advice”, in which no specific policy option is recommended, and “normatively heavy advice” that does make an explicit recommendation. I (...) argue that, although scientific advisers should avoid normatively heavy advice in normal times in order to facilitate democratic accountability, this norm can be permissibly overridden in situations of grave emergency. SAGE’s major mistake in early 2020 was not that of endorsing a particular strategy, nor that of being insufficiently precautionary, but that of relying too heavily on a specific set of “reasonable worst-case” planning assumptions. I formulate some proposals that assign a more circumscribed role to “worst-case” thinking in emergency planning. In an epilogue, I consider what the implications of my proposals would have been for the UK’s response to the “second wave” of late 2020. (shrink)

A self-fulfilling prophecy (SFP) in neuroprognostication occurs when a patient in coma is predicted to have a poor outcome, and life-sustaining treatment is withdrawn on the basis of that prediction, thus directly bringing about a poor outcome (viz. death) for that patient. In contrast to the predominant emphasis in the bioethics literature, we look beyond the moral issues raised by the possibility that an erroneous prediction might lead to the death of a patient who otherwise would have lived. Instead, we (...) focus on the problematic epistemic consequences of neuroprognostic SFPs in settings where research and practice intersect. When this sort of SFP occurs, the problem is that physicians and researchers are never in a position to notice whether their original prognosis was correct or incorrect, since the patient dies anyway. Thus, SFPs keep us from discerning false positives from true positives, inhibiting proper assessment of novel prognostic tests. This epistemic problem of SFPs thus impedes learning, but ethical obligations of patient care make it difficult to avoid SFPs. We then show how the impediment to catching false positive indicators of poor outcome distorts research on novel techniques for neuroprognostication, allowing biases to persist in prognostic tests. We finally highlight a particular risk that a precautionary bias towards early withdrawal of life-sustaining treatment may be amplified. We conclude with guidelines about how researchers can mitigate the epistemic problems of SFPs, to achieve more responsible innovation of neuroprognostication for patients in coma. (shrink)

Gary Comstock considers whether it is ethically justified to pursue genetically modified (GM) crops and foods. He first considers intrinsic objections to GM crops that allege that the process of making GMOs is objectionable in itself. He argues that there is no justifiable basis for the objections — i.e. GM crops are not intrinsically ethically problematic. He then considers extrinsic objections to GM crops, including objections based on the precautionary principle, which focus on the potential harms that may result (...) from the adoption of GM organisms. He argues that these concerns have some merit. However, they do not justify giving up GM crops altogether. Instead, they require that GM crops be developed carefully and with appropriate oversight. Comstock then presents the positive case for GM crops that he endorses. It is based on three considerations: (i) the right of people to choose to adopt GM technology; (ii) the balance of likely benefits over harms to consumers and the environment from GM technology; and (iii) the wisdom of encouraging discovery, innovation, and careful regulation of GM technology. (shrink)

The chief themes of this discussion are as follows. First, we need a theory of the grounds of moral status that could guide practical considerations regarding how to treat the wide range of potentially conscious entities with which we are acquainted – injured humans, cerebral organoids, chimeras, artificially intelligent machines, and non-human animals. I offer an account of phenomenal value that focuses on the structure and sophistication of phenomenally conscious states at a time and over time in the mental lives (...) of conscious subjects. Second, we need to map a theory of moral status onto practical considerations. I prefer the precautionary framework proposed by many, and fruitfully precisified recently by Birch. I have suggested that in addition to further discussion surrounding the evidential bar for attributing consciousness to different types of entities, more discussion is needed regarding how value and moral status may vary across different entity-types, and regarding the sources of value in an entity’s mental life. (shrink)

Conservationists have two types of arguments for why we should conserve ecosystems: instrumental and intrinsic value arguments. Instrumental arguments contend that we ought to conserve ecosystems because of the benefits that humans, or other morally relevant individuals, derive from ecosystems. Conservationists are often loath to rely too heavily on the instrumental argument because it could potentially force them to admit that some ecosystems are not at all useful to humans, or that if they are, they are not more useful than (...) alternative configurations of those ecosystems. Consequently, conservationists often resort to an intrinsic value argument, contending that ecosystems are objectively valuable as ends in themselves, rather than merely as means to an end. If ecosystems have intrinsic value, then they have moral standing, which means that we must consider their needs and interests in any decisions we make about them. This paper concerns the significance of this move for... (shrink)

This article focuses on the ethical implications of so-called ‘collateral damage’. It develops a moral typology of collateral harm to innocents, which occurs as a side effect of military or quasi-military action. Distinguishing between accidental and incidental collateral damage, it introduces four categories of such damage: negligent, oblivious, knowing and reckless collateral damage. Objecting mainstream versions of the doctrine of double effect, the article argues that in order for any collateral damage to be morally permissible, violent agents must comply with (...) high standards of care. In order for incidental harm to be permissible, an agent must take pains to avoid such harm even at higher cost to him- or herself. It is argued that accidentally but negligently caused collateral damage may be just as difficult to excuse as incidental harm. Only if high precautionary standards of care are met, can unintended harm to innocents – incidental or accidental – be permissible. In practice, such a strong commitment to avoiding harm to civilians may well lead us to question more generally and rethink more radically how violent conflicts ought to be fought, how military violence ought to be used and whether there are better ways of achieving those aims that we think are legitimate than those we are currently using. (shrink)

This paper addresses what we consider to be the most pressing challenge for the emerging science of consciousness: the measurement problem of consciousness. That is, by what methods can we determine the presence of and properties of consciousness? Most methods are currently developed through evaluation of the presence of consciousness in humans and here we argue that there are particular problems in application of these methods to nonhuman cases—what we call the indicator validity problem and the extrapolation problem. The first (...) is a problem with the application of indicators developed using the differences between conscious and unconscious processing in humans to the identification of other conscious vs. nonconscious organisms or systems. The second is a problem in extrapolating any indicators developed in humans or other organisms to artificial systems. However, while pressing ethical concerns add urgency to the attribution of consciousness and its attendant moral status to nonhuman animals and intelligent machines, we cannot wait for certainty and we advocate the use of a precautionary principle to avoid causing unintentional harm. We also intend that the considerations and limitations discussed in this paper can be used to further analyze and refine the methods of consciousness science with the hope that one day we may be able to solve the measurement problem of consciousness. (shrink)

This paper discusses ethical issues surrounding Integrated Assessment Models (IAMs) of the economic effects of climate change, and how climate economists acting as policy advisors ought to represent the uncertain possibility of catastrophe. Some climate economists, especially Martin Weitzman, have argued for a precautionary approach where avoiding catastrophe should structure climate economists’ welfare analysis. This paper details ethical arguments that justify this approach, showing how Weitzman’s “fat tail” probabilities of climate catastrophe pose ethical problems for widely used IAMs. The (...) main claim is that economists who ignore or downplay catastrophic risks in their representations of uncertainty likely fall afoul of ethical constraints on scientists acting as policy advisors. Such scientists have duties to honestly articulate uncertainties and manage (some) inductive risks, or the risks of being wrong in different ways. (shrink)

This article considers the proportionality requirement of the self-defense justification. It first lays bare the assumptions and the logic—and often illogic—underlying very strict accounts of the proportionality requirement. It argues that accounts that try to rule out lethal self-defense against threats to property or against threats of minor assault by an appeal to the supreme value of life have counter-intuitive implications and are untenable. Furthermore, it provides arguments demonstrating that there is not necessarily a right not to be killed in (...) defense against theft or minor assaults. While there is a general moral right of self-defense and a general right to life, the scope of these rights depends on certain social facts that—even within a liberal framework—can differ from one society to another. Moreover, the proportionality of self-defense does not depend on the rights of the aggressor alone, but also on a precautionary rule, shaped by the balance of interests of the society in question and aimed at protecting innocent people and other social interests. This rule can protect an aggressor even in cases where he does not have the right to such protection. (shrink)

It is generally recognised that the potential positive and negative impacts of geoengineering will be distributed unevenly both geographically and temporally. The question of distributive justice in geoengineering thus is one of the major ethical issues associated with geoengineering. Currently, the question of distributive justice in geoengineering is framed in terms of who gets what (potential) benefits and harms from geoengineering, i.e. it is about the distribution of the outcomes of geoengineering. In this paper, I argue that the discussions on (...) distributive justice in geoengineering should not be outcome-based. Instead, it should be risk-based. I identify two problems for framing the question of distributive justice in geoengineering in terms of the distribution of its outcomes, i.e. the ‘if and then’ syndrome and the limited applicability of distributive principles in geoengineering policy, and suggest risk is a more proper object of distribution in the case of geoengineering. Following Hayenhjelm, I argue that the object of distribution in the case of fair distribution of risk should be (i) sources of risks and (ii) precautionary measures. I shall then demonstrate how it can be applied to the question of distributive justice in geoengineering. Finally, I end this paper by exploring the possible responses to the question of distributive justice in geoengineering by three major accounts of distributive justice, i.e. egalitarianism, prioritarianism, and sufficientarianism. (shrink)

I claim that differences in the importance attached to economic liberty are more important in debates over the use of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in agriculture than disagreements about the precautionary principle. I will argue this point by considering a case study: the decision by the U.S. Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) to grant nonregulated status to Roundup Ready soy. I will show that the unregulated release of this herbicide-resistant crop would not be acceptable morally unless one (...) places a very high premium on economic liberty. This is true even if one takes a sound science attitude to unknown risks, rather than a precautionary attitude. I concede that it may not have been within APHIS’s legislative mandate to regulate Roundup Ready soy further, but for those of us who do not put a high premium on economic liberty, this only calls for extending regulatory oversight of GMOs. (shrink)

This paper offers a social phenomenological reading of the globally binding practice of 'social distancing' in light of the precautionary measures against the spreading of the Covid-19 virus. Amid speculation about the far-reaching effects of temporarily applicable measures and foresights about the advent of an ethos that has been heralded by the media as the 'new normal', the ubiquitous phenomenon of social distancing calls for a fundamental ontological elucidation. The purported hermeneutic that is situated in the broader place branding (...) and experiential marketing literatures places Covid-19 in the shoes of Being, and, therefore, imagines how Being would behave ontologically if it were a virus. By positing that the virus does operate like Being, five these are formulated as experiential interpretive categories with regard to the ontological status of Covid-19. The adopted approach makes the following contributions to the extant literature: First, it addresses a wholly new phenomenon in place branding, namely a pre-branded place that is non-negotiable, globally applicable and seemingly equivalent to pure void. Second, it advances the application of phenomenological research in experiential consumption by highlighting the aptness of the so far peripheral (in the marketing discipline) strand of Heideggerian fundamental ontology. Third, it expands the notion of place in the place branding literature, by showing how spatialization is the outcome of temporalization, in line with the adopted phenomenological perspective. (shrink)

Much of contemporary research ethics was developed in the latter half of the twentieth century as a response to the unethical treatment of human beings in biomedical research. Research ethical considerations have subsequently been extended to cover topics in the sciences and technology such as data handling, precautionary measures, engineering codes of conduct, and more. However, moral issues in the humanities have gained less attention from research ethicists. This article proposes an ethical principle for reading for research purposes: Respect (...) the author. (shrink)

There are many different meanings of sustainability and precaution and no evident connection between the new normative concepts and the traditional moral theories. We seek an ethical basis for sustainability and precaution—a common framework that can serve as a means of resolving the conceptual ambiguities of the new normative concepts and the conflicts between new and traditional moral concepts and theories. We employ a systemic approach to analyze the past and possible future extension of ethics and establish an inclusive framework (...) of ethical extension. This framework forms the basis for what we call a systemic ethic. (shrink)

Martin Peterson’s The Ethics of Technology: A Geometric Analysis of Five Moral Principles offers a welcome contribution to the ethics of technology, understood by Peterson as a branch of applied ethics that attempts ‘to identify the morally right courses of action when we develop, use, or modify technological artifacts’ (3). He argues that problems within this field are best treated by the use of five domain-specific principles: the Cost-Benefit Principle, the Precautionary Principle, the Sustainability Principle, the Autonomy Principle, and (...) the Fairness Principle. These principles are, in turn, to be understood and applied with reference to the geometric method. This method is perhaps the most interesting and novel part of Peterson’s book, and I’ll devote the bulk of my review to it. (shrink)

Risk communication has been generally categorized as a warning act, which is performed in order to prevent or minimize risk. On the other side, risk analysis has also underscored the role played by information in reducing uncertainty about risk. In both approaches the safety aspects related to the protection of the right to health are on focus. However, it seems that there are cases where a risk cannot possibly be avoided or uncertainty reduced, this is for instance valid for the (...) declaration of side effects associated with pharmaceutical products or when a decision about drug approval or retirement must be delivered on the available evidence. In these cases, risk communication seems to accomplish other tasks than preventing risk or reducing uncertainty. The present paper analyzes the legal instruments which have been developed in order to control and manage the risks related to drugs – such as the notion of “development risk” or “residual risk” – and relates them to different kinds of uncertainty. These are conceptualized as epistemic, ecological, metric, ethical, and stochastic, depending on their nature. By referring to this taxonomy, different functions of pharmaceutical risk communication are identified and connected with the legal tools of uncertainty management. The purpose is to distinguish the different functions of risk communication and make explicit their different legal nature and implications. (shrink)

While there is an extensive literature on how the precautionary principle should be interpreted and when precautions should be taken, relatively little discussion exists about the fair distribution of costs of taking precautions. We address this issue by proposing a general framework for deciding how costs of precautions should be shared, which consists of a series of default principles that are triggered according to desert, rights, and ability to pay. The framework is developed with close attention to the pragmatics (...) of how distributions will affect actual behaviours. It is intended to help decision-makers think more systematically about distributional consequences of taking precautionary measures, thereby to improve decision-making. Two case studies—one about a ban on turtle fishing in Costa Rica, and one about a deep-sea mining project in Papua New Guinea—are given to show how the framework can be applied. (shrink)

This paper argues that there is a significant moral difference between force applied against (imminent) attackers on the one hand and force applied against “threatening” people who are not (imminent) attackers on the other. Given that there is such a difference, one should not blur the lines by using the term “self-defense” (understood as including other-defense) for both uses of force. Rather, only the former is appropriately called self-defense, while for the latter, following German legal terminology, the term “justifying defensive (...) emergency” will be used here. The two justifications are not governed by the same criteria and thus lead to different results. The paper will proceed by providing first, in section (1), a brief sketch of the contours of the self-defense justification, putting particular emphasis on the necessity criterion. On the account presented here, the necessity criterion of the self-defense justification is particularly harsh on the aggressor (and thus not to be interpreted as literally requiring the employment of “the mildest means”) and its applicability is only triggered by an (imminent) attack, not by other kinds of threats. Section (2) will then further explain the differences between self-defense and justifying defensive emergency. A particularly important difference is that people who are subjected to justified self-defense cannot permissibly defend themselves, while people who are subjected to (extremely harmful or even lethal) justified defensive emergency measures can. Thus, in this latter case we have a “moral equality” (of sorts) of the involved parties: they can permissibly use force against each other. Section (3) will list and defend some conditions that a successful argument against the imminence requirement of the self-defense justification has to satisfy. In the light of these conditions, sections (4) to (7) will discuss a number of objections that have been adduced against the imminence requirement as well as proposals that have been made in support of alternative accounts. It will be argued that all these objections and proposals fail. Section (8) will provide a number of thought experiments in support of the claim that the harsh necessity criterion of the self-defense justification is only triggered by imminence while force against non-imminent threats can be justified with the help of the justifying emergency exemption, as well as for the claim that the justifying emergency exemption puts the person using preventive force against non-imminent threats on a shorter leash and makes him liable to counter-measures. Section (9) will explain the rationale for tying the applicability of the harsh necessity criterion of the self-defense justification to imminent attacks. Section (10) will discuss some special cases and show why they do not undermine the normative validity of this tie. (shrink)

In the global fight against the rapid spread of COVID-19, a variety of unprecedented preventive measures have been implemented across the globe, as well as in Vietnam. How Vietnamese people respond to threats to their health and life remains unclear. For this reason, the current study aims to examine Vietnamese people’s protective behavior and its factors. Based on 1,798 online survey respondents’ data collected on the last three days of the nationwide social distancing campaign in mid-April, it is found that (...) gender, knowledge of COVID-19 and preventive measures, and attitudes towards the COVID-19 prevention policies are the three main factors of participants’ protective behaviors. We also find that males are less likely than females to adopt precautionary measures. People who are knowledgeable about COVID-19 may have inappropriate practices towards it. Further research is needed to examine other determinants of protective behaviors to provide more useful information for authorities, public health policy-makers, and healthcare workers to deliver the best practices to control COVID-19 in our country. (shrink)

Since the International Agency on Cancer Research’s monograph found glyphosate to be a likely carcinogen, the regulatory focus on the chemical has centred on this determinative criterion for regulatory action. Yet, other pertinent factors, such as the effects of glyphosate on fresh and ground water and ensuing effects on biodiversity, have received less attention as legitimate rationales for regulating the chemical. This underrepresentation prevents a wider policy discussion on the environmental and human health effects of the chemical and fails to (...) disrupt assumptions of path-dependently continuing on agriculture’s chemical treadmill. To avoid ad hoc post hoc chemical regulation, we assess four areas of chemical regulatory oversight in Europe with regard to glyphosate affecting water: (1) the undue emphasis on in laboratorio versus in situ testing; (2) assessing single chemicals (isolated glyphosate) versus admixtures (glyphosate plus surfactants and adjuvants) that are used in practice; (3) the tendency to downplay harms to non-human life; and (4) the lack of policy coherence in the existing regulatory framework. Focusing on European Union regulation of pesticide and water policy affecting aquatic environments, we conclude that issues of measurement and priority have become highly politicised in both science and policy, requiring preventative, precautionary frameworks utilising plural forms of measurement. (shrink)

We investigate the firms’ specific attributes that determine the difference in speed of adjustment (SOA) towards the cash holdings target in the Scandinavian countries: Denmark, Norway and Sweden. We examine whether Scandinavian firms maintain an optimal level of cash holdings and determine if the active cash holdings management is associated with the firms’ higher SOA and lower adjustment costs. Our findings substantiate that a higher level of off-target cost induces professional managers to rebalance their cash level towards the optimal balance (...) of cash holdings. Our results reveal that Scandinavian firms accelerate SOA towards cash targets primarily for the precautionary motive. Moreover, our results show that SOA is heterogeneous across Scandinavian firms based on adjustment cost and deviate cash holdings towards the target mainly with the support of internal financing. Furthermore, our empirical findings show that the SOA of Norwegian firms is significantly higher than the Danish and Swedish firms. (shrink)

How do mushroom foragers make safe and efficient decisions under high degrees of uncertainty, or deal with the genuine risks of misidentification and poisoning? This article is an inquiry into ecological rationality, heuristics, perception, and decision-making in mushroom foraging. By surveying 894 Finnish mushroom foragers with a total of 22,304 years of foraging experience, this article illustrates how socially learned rules of thumb and heuristics are used in mushroom foraging. It illustrates how traditional foraging cultures have evolved precautionary principles (...) to deal with uncertainties and poisonous species, and how foragers leverage both simple heuristics and complex cognitive strategies in their search for, and identification of, mushrooms. Foragers also develop selective attention through experience. The results invite us to consider whether other human foraging cultures might use heuristics similarly, how and why such traditions have culturally evolved, and whether early hunter-gatherers might have used fast and frugal heuristics to deal with uncertainty. (shrink)

This dissertation seeks to examine the validity of the justification commonly offered for a coercive(1) psychiatric intervention, namely that the intervention was in the ‘best interests’ of the subject and/or that the subject posed a danger to others. As a first step,it was decided to analyse justifications based on ‘best interests’ [the ‘Stage 1’ argument] separately from those based on dangerousness [the ‘Stage 2’ argument]. Justifications based on both were the focus of the ‘Stage 3’ argument. Legal and philosophical analyses (...) of coercive psychiatric interventions generally regard such interventions as embodying a benign paternalism occasioning slight, if any, ethical concern. Whilst there are some dissenting voices even at the very heart of academic and professional psychiatry, the majority of psychiatrists also appear to share such views. The aim of this dissertation is to show that such a perspective is mistaken and that such interventions raise philosophical and ethical questions of the profoundest importance.(2) The philosophical well-spring of the Stage 1 dissertation argument lay in an observation made by Philippa Foot (3) that the “… right to be let free from unwanted interference” is one of the most fundamental and distinctive rights of persons, a right which takes precedence over any “… action we would dearly like to take for his sake.” This – in conjunction with the recognition that some coercive psychiatric interventions are of a gravity as to result in the personhood of the subject being severely damaged if not destroyed – suggested that the concept of personhood play a central role in the formulation of the dissertation argument. For ease of analysis it was presumed that the term ‘person’ could be defined by a set of necessary and sufficient conditions of which ‘minimum levels of rationality’ and ‘ability to communicate’ were the only conditions relevant to the formulation of justifications for coercive psychiatric interventions. This presumption was explicated into a number of postulates which enabled the construction of a rigorous foundation on which to develop the dissertation argument. This argument then sought to determine whether psychiatric assessments of irrationality were accurate and reliable. In furtherance of this analysis it was necessary to examine the reliability of psychiatric determinations in other areas of claimed expertise namely diagnosis, treatment and assessment of dangerousness. This ‘crossing of the disciplinary threshold’ brought to light the dearth of studies on psychiatric misdiagnosis and iatrogenic harm. A variant of the Precautionary Principle was developed to enable the extent of such harms to be estimated. The not insignificant levels of psychiatric misdiagnosis and iatrogenic harm and erroneous assessments of dangerousness which were thus found are of considerable relevance to any ethical analysis of the justification for coercive psychiatric intervention and serve to undermine simple paternalistic justifications. ---- (1)The term ‘coercive’ (rather than ‘non-consensual’) is used to indicate an intervention carried out against the explicit and contemporaneous objections of the subject (2)Not least because the number of individuals detained in Irish psychiatric hospitals is of a comparable order of magnitude to the number detained in Irish prisons subsequent to a criminal conviction. (3) See Foot (1977), p.102. (shrink)