Appraising the precautionary principle -- a decision analysis perspective

Ralph L. Keeney and Detlof Von Winterfeldt

Journal of Risk Research, 2001, vol. 4, issue 2, 191-202

Abstract: The public and regulators are naturally concerned about any decision that has uncertain but potentially serious health and environmental consequences. When facing such decisions, some individuals say we should resolve significant uncertainties before taking expensive action that may be unnecessary. Others support the precautionary principle, which says that policy makers should err on the side of caution by acting now to avoid or limit potentially detrimental consequences. This paper appraises the precautionary principle from a perspective decision analytic point of view. We argue that neither the 'resolve uncertainties before taking action' nor the 'act now on the side of caution' are appropriate as general policies for all environmental decision problems. Instead, we conclude that policy makers need to conduct sound, in-depth analyses to resolve the pros and cons of acting now versus conducting more research on a case-by-case basis.

Date: 2001
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/13669870010027631 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:jriskr:v:4:y:2001:i:2:p:191-202

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/RJRR20

DOI: 10.1080/13669870010027631

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Risk Research is currently edited by Bryan MacGregor

More articles in Journal of Risk Research from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().