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Environmental Risk Analysis: Robustness Is Essential for Precaution

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Jan Sprenger
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Abstract

Precaution is a relevant and much-invoked value in environmental risk analysis, as witnessed by the ongoing vivid discussion about the precautionary principle (PP). This article argues (i) against purely decision-theoretic explications of PP; (ii) that the construction, evaluation, and use of scientific models falls under the scope of PP; and (iii) that epistemic and decision-theoretic robustness are essential for precautionary policy making. These claims are elaborated and defended by means of case studies from climate science and conservation biology.

Type
Norms of Science and Science Policy
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 79 , Issue 5 , December 2012 , pp. 881 - 892
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

†

For helpful discussion and feedback, I would like to thank Mark Burgman, Mark Colyvan, Sven Ove Hansson, Stephan Hartmann, James Justus, Martin Peterson, Helen Regan, Moshe Sniedovich, Katie Steele, Arie Trouwborst, Jonathan Verschuuren, and the numerous audiences where this work was presented. Research on this topic was financially supported by Veni grant 016.104.079 by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research.

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