19.3.05

More Precuation

Now for a somewhat more serious post about the Precautionary Principle. The PP is a bit slippery, because it comes in at least two forms. The first form, which I'll call the Negative PP, was stated in the 1992 Rio declaration and is often invoked in the context of climate change:

Where there are threats of serious or irreversible damage, lack of full scientific certainty shall not be used as a reason for postponing cost-effective measures to prevent environmental degradation.

The Negative PP is an attempt to even out the burden of proof. There is a major problem of countries and companies invoking what we might call the Inverse Positive PP, demanding proof of the harm their activities cause before they change their ways. However, for many environmental risks uncertainty is endemic. There will never be sufficient "proof," or else by the time we have such proof it will be too late to do anything about it. The Negative PP strikes down the delaying tactic of saying "we need more studies," requiring that we do our best to make decisions with the knowledge at hand while remaining open to what we learn from continued experience. The idea of Adaptive Management satisfies the Negative PP.

Yet many have taken the PP farther, creating what I call the Positive PP. The Positive PP places the burden of proof on those who propose an action -- prove it's safe before we let you do it. There is a time and a place for leaning toward the Positive PP. For example, the FDA properly takes an opt-in approach to approving new food additives and drugs, because proponents of these innovations have far more resources to meet that burden than do opponents, and because there is a reasonable suspicion that innovators have a vested interest in not being very concerned about their product's safety.

Yet too strict and too universal an application of the Positive PP has its own dangers. The Positive PP represents a desire to experience the known harms of inaction rather than the uncertain harms of action. It thus leans heavily on a philosophically wobbly act/omission distinction, as well as incorporating a presumption of a sustainable baseline social organization to which the benefit of the doubt can be given. Free market types will be quick to hypothesize plausible catastrophes that might result from any particular change that fundamentally threatens the structure of capitalism, yet most environmentalists advocating the PP would agree that capitalism as we know it is unsustainable. Which course of action, then, is "precautionary"?

Aaron Wildavsky draws a distinction between anticipation and resilience when dealing with risks. The Positive PP is an anticipatory strategy par excellance, demanding that we forsee and avert harm before it hits. Resilience embraces trial-and-error, hoping to carry a broad portfolio of resources so as to be able to weather and learn from catastrophes while picking up the benefits of gambles that pay off -- a worldview held by proponents of the Inverse Positive PP who demand proof of harm. Clearly neither strategy is superior across the board, which weighs in favor of the middle position occupied by the Negative PP. The Negative PP gives more room to explore potential gains from innovations while forcing us to take into account evidence of harm that falls short of a slam-dunk case.

It's interesting to note, given Wildavsky's involvement in the development of Cultural Theory, that anticipation is the preferred strategy of high "group" biases in the CT typology -- the hierarchists and egalitarians -- while the low "group" biases -- individualism and fatalism -- prefer resilience. In the case of the fatalists, anticipation is considered impossible because nature is basically random. Likewise egalitarians see resilience as impossible, because one false step will destroy us all -- there's no room for learning and recovering once a mistake is made. For individualists (like Wildavsky), resilience is preferred because of a presumption of internalization of harms. Individualists see failure as a person's own fault, and so they don't like precautionary busybodies telling them they're not allowed to consent to risks. On the other hand, the high "group" solidarity of the hierarchists leads them to be concerned about risky activities creating externalities. The PP focuses on risks, rather than the balance between risks and benefits, because of the presumption that the benefits will accrue mainly to the proponent of a new activity while the risks will hit innocent bystanders.
Stentor Danielson, 22:14, ,

Is The Precautionary Principle Un-Christian?

I've been reading about the precautionary principle and risk aversion, and it occurred to me that one could make a Biblical argument against them. The passage that came to mind was Matthew 25: 14-30, the parable of the talents:

14 [Jesus said] "Again, it will be like a man going on a journey, who called his servants and entrusted his property to them. 15To one he gave five talents of money, to another two talents, and to another one talent, each according to his ability. Then he went on his journey. 16The man who had received the five talents went at once and put his money to work and gained five more. 17So also, the one with the two talents gained two more. 18But the man who had received the one talent went off, dug a hole in the ground and hid his master's money.

When the master returns, he praises the first two servants and condemns the third. It's unclear how risky the ventures were that the first two servants invested in, and we don't hear the master's reaction to the servant who bought a talent's worth of shares in pets.com. But the parable does seem to suggest that a minimum-regret strategy of focusing on not losing any of the master's money is unacceptable.

The parable seems especially relevant to John Rawls' Difference Principle, which is justified by the minimax precautionary strategies pursued by the parties in the Original Position. Rawls argues that the parties would take a minimax approach, rather than the more obvious maximization approach, because they're acting as representatives of other parties not involved in the discussion. While one might accept some risks on one's own behalf, Rawls says that when acting as a representative one needs to take care to avoid the chance of harm to those you represent. I never found that rationale entirely convincing on its own merits, but this bit of off-the-cuff exegesis suggests it may also be un-Christian. The master in the parable berates the servant who took a minimax approach on his behalf.
Stentor Danielson, 13:54, ,

18.3.05

Promoting Torture, Provoking Outrage

The latest blogospheric brouhaha was ignited by Eugene Volokh, who recently came out in favor of revenge torture:

I like civilization, but some forms of savagery deserve to be met not just with cold, bloodless justice but with the deliberate infliction of pain, with cruel vengeance rather than with supposed humaneness or squeamishness. I think it slights the burning injustice of the murders, and the pain of the families, to react in any other way.

In an update to his post, Volokh points out that whether you approve of vengeance is a matter of basic axioms, so there's no possibility of dialogue between himself and someone who finds his view reprehensible. The blogospheric reaction seems to validate that point, as the typical opponent's reaction is sputtering outrage. For those of us on the left, the idea of the law as a cold maintainer of social order is a basic, often not even consciously articulated, presupposition. By challenging something that sits so deep in our psyches, Volokh left us without the resources to respond rationally. It feels like trying to explain math to someone who insists that 2 + 2 = 5.

As it happens, I think one can have a rational argument about the permissibility of revenge torture, though I can't guarantee that pushing it back to a more basic level of axioms would necessarily find any common ground between Volokh and me. My position parallels my stance against the death penalty -- the law exists to promote the happiness of the citizens, and insofar as revenge does not efficiently further that goal (an empirical proposition, but one I believe to be true, at least in modern Western contexts), it's a waste of resources and a needless reduction of the criminal's happiness. But this kind of response seems unfulfilling. When someone has announced that they aren't bound by an axiom you had treated as unquestionable, it feels ineffective to calmly reason with them.

In this sense, the prevailing reaction to Volokh has certain similarities with the very kind of torture he advocates. Logic doesn't seem to do justice to our feelings of outrage over his violation of our moral code, because there's such a gap between expressing ourselves and prudent action. We want to escape the stultifying bounds of rational discourse and unleash our fury, to demand recognition of the emotional impact of his post even at the expense of undercutting doing something about it. But like revenge, such a reaction is both ineffective and unsatisfying in the long run. It certainly won't convince Volokh of the error of his ways. And it leaves his argument standing there, mocking us with its challenge to something we'd never thought we'd have to defend -- just like taking revenge on a murderer doesn't bring her victims back. Luckily, in this case we have the option of intellectually grappling with Volokh's ideas and satisfying ourselves of why he's wrong, rather than simply venting our outrage and using the brief respite that buys to get our minds occupied with other things.
Stentor Danielson, 08:39, ,

16.3.05

Linguistics Of The Shire

Every now and then you come across a theory that's just really, really fascinating. In this case, it's John McWhorter's theory that the grammar of the indigenous languages of Flores provides possible evidence of contact between Homo sapiens and Homo floresiensis (aka "hobbits").
Stentor Danielson, 12:13, ,

14.3.05

Anti-Litigation

I'm happy to (belatedly) learn that the Clear Skies bill, President Bush's plan to weaken the Clean Air Act, died in committee last week. But what interested me was this quote from James Inhofe, the environment's Senatorial arch-nemesis:

"I'm afraid what has happened here is this bill has been killed by the environmental extremists who care more about continuing the litigation-friendly status quo and making political statements … than they do about reducing air pollution," Inhofe said after Wednesday's vote.

The debate over Clear Skies has been almost entirely over the amounts of reductions proposed (conservatives say it's better than nothing, liberals say it's worse than current law) and whether a cap-and-trade approach is appropriate for mercury (it's not, because unlike the pollutants that cause acid rain and climate change, mercury is very susceptible to collecting in dangerous "hot spots"). Litigation hasn't been on the agenda. So why did Inhofe bring it up alongside the predictable (but wrong) claim that blocking Clear Skies would lead to more pollution?

I think it's just spillover. Republicans have made anti-litigation a central theme in much of their rhetoric. Sometimes it's direct, like "tort reform." Other times it's painted as an insidious dirty trick used by liberals, as in the tirades against "judicial activism" on sexual issues and the demonization of the ACLU. Environment-wise, it was effective at getting the Healthy Forests Initiative passed. So Inhofe just forgot that Cleark Skies hadn't been wedded to the anti-litigation storyline.

The next question is why anti-litigation has become such a powerful theme. Part of it is that it's effective at rallying public support. Stories of bizarre suits and crazy product warning labels are standard fare for American entertainment (in any given issue of Reader's Digest, it's about 30% of the content). So there's a deep reservoir of public exasperation over the issue, particularly among people with less wonky media consumption habits.

Anti-litigation is also a useful lever for pursuing the larger Republican agenda of reducing the accountability of the elite. Filing a lawsuit is one of the only methods that citizens have to take justice into their own hands -- particularly when their opponent is a large corporation or the government. By demonizing and shutting down this avenue of redress, Republican leaders -- who occupy the seats of power in business and government -- insulate themselves from the public. Thus, it's part of the same constellation of strategies as heightened secrecy and exemptions from the rule of law.
Stentor Danielson, 11:55, ,

13.3.05

A Poorly Informed NYT Columnist? *Gasp!*

'I Have A Nightmare' ... That essay [the Death of Environmentalism] by two young environmentalists has been whirling around the Internet since last fall, provoking a civil war among tree-huggers for its assertion that "modern environmentalism, with all of its unexamined assumptions, outdated concepts and exhausted strategies, must die so that something new can live." Sadly, the authors, Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus, are right. ... The fundamental problem, as I see it, is that environmental groups are too often alarmists. They have an awful track record, so they've lost credibility with the public. Some do great work, but others can be the left's equivalents of the neocons: brimming with moral clarity and ideological zeal, but empty of nuance. (Industry has also hyped risks with wildly exaggerated warnings that environmental protections will entail a terrible economic cost.) ... Given the uncertainties and trade-offs, priority should go to avoiding environmental damage that is irreversible, like extinctions, climate change and loss of wilderness. And irreversible changes are precisely what are at stake with the Bush administration's plans to drill in the Arctic wildlife refuge, to allow roads in virgin wilderness and to do essentially nothing on global warming. That's an agenda that will disgrace us before our grandchildren. -- via Juan Non-Volokh>

It's strange that he claims to be a fan of "The Death of Environmentalism," since his analysis is nearly the opposite of the one offered there. Schellenberger and Nordhaus claim that environmentalism has become too modest and wonky, whereas Kristof faults it for having too much sweeping vision without enough careful analysis.

His solution is to focus on a set of priorities determined by the Bush administration's attacks. Strangely enough, "extinctions, climate change and loss of wilderness" seem to be the actual priorities of environmentalists today. He admits as much in his own third paragraph, where he illustrates environmentalism's impotence by stating that it has failed to make progress on its priorities, which according to him are climate change and ANWR.

What we've really got here is another case of a columnist trying to burnish his "independent" credentials by slapping together a swing at one of his own side's constituencies.
Stentor Danielson, 11:22, ,