How Extreme Is the Precautionary Principle?
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ORIGINAL RESEARCH PAPER
How Extreme Is the Precautionary Principle? Sven Ove Hansson
Received: 26 March 2019 / Accepted: 2 September 2020 # The Author(s) 2020
Introduction
repeatedly been accused of being both irrational and unscientific, [1, 2], and numerous authors have claimed that is stifles innovation by imposing unreasonable demands on the safety of new technologies [3–5]. Judging by these accounts, the precautionary principle would seem to be rather extreme. But are these descriptions accurate? In order to answer that question, we need to pay close attention to how the precautionary principle is defined and conceived by those who have the legislative power to apply it. “The Precautionary Principle in Official Documents” delineates how the precautionary principle is defined in official documents. The picture that emerges differs radically from the negative descriptions just referred to. “A Science-based Principle” is devoted to a philosophical explication of the principle, as it is presented in these documents. In “The First Problem: Competing Top Priorities,” “The Second Problem: The Need for Scientific Updates,” and “The Third Problem: Excluding Too Implausible Dangers,” three major problems in the application of the precautionary p r i n c i p l e a r e d i s c u s s e d , a n d in t he f i n a l “Conclusion” some conclusions are offered on the effects of applying the principle and on the limitations on its use.
No other safety principle has been so vehemently contested as the precautionary principle. It has
The Precautionary Principle in Official Documents
Abstract The precautionary principle has often been described as an extreme principle that neglects science and stifles innovation. However, such an interpretation has no support in the official definitions of the principle that have been adopted by the European Union and by the signatories of international treaties on environmental protection. In these documents, the precautionary principle is a guideline specifying how to deal with certain types of scientific uncertainty. In this contribution, this approach to the precautionary principle is explicated with the help of concepts from the philosophy of science and comparisons with general notions of practical rationality. Three major problems in its application are discussed, and it is concluded that to serve its purpose, the precautionary principle has to (1) be combined with other decision principles in cases with competing top priorities, (2) be based on the current state of science, which requires procedures for scientific updates, and (3) exclude potential dangers whose plausibility is too low to trigger meaningful precautionary action. Keywords Precautionary principle . Risk . Scientific corpus . Science-policy interface . Mere possibilities . Sound science
S. O. Hansson (*) Division of Philosophy, Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), Teknikringen 76, 100 44 Stockholm, Sweden e-mail: [email protected]
The precautionary principle is often taken to be a general instruction to be cautious, much like
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