The Ethics of Precaution: Uncertain Environmental Health Threats and Duties of Due Care by Levente Szentkiralyi

Author:Levente Szentkiralyi [Szentkiralyi, Levente]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Public Policy, Social Science, Political Science, Environmental Policy, General
ISBN: 9780429521058
Google: fTj3DwAAQBAJ
Goodreads: 52458819
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2019-11-22T00:00:00+00:00

neither a nor b (or either corresponding action) is sufficient to bring about the harmful consequence, but both are necessary conditions. For instance, the production of large volumes of gasoline and fuel additives by oil and chemical companies results in gas stations and related industries throughout the United States filling their underground storage tanks (UST) with known toxic and carcinogenic substances.21 In turn, the storage of these materials invariably causes the contamination of municipal sources of drinking water, as UST commonly leach their contents into surrounding soils and groundwater systems: for example, since UST came under federal regulation in the early 1980s, more than 500,000 leaks have been reported.22 When an intervening relationship is simple—permitting a clear causal connection between a causing b and b causing the harm—conventional theories of moral responsibility would suggest that an actor who causes b is more culpable, because her contribution to the harm is more direct. However, with greater numbers of the intervening variables and more complex causal chains, the appropriate distribution of moral responsibility becomes obscure. This is also in large measure because the passing of time between an action and some manifest harm confounds our moral assessments: “the lapse in time between the action of an agent and the time at which the effect takes place”23 and imposes some harm to others, which can obscure the extent to which the agent should be held culpable. For the more time that passes, the more likely it is that some other causal event or actor intervenes on the causal chain and alters the course of events or contributes to the eventual harm.

The same can be said of moderating causal factors: for when some actiona causes a harmful outcome whose severity or likelihood is influenced by some other actionb

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