Limiting Risks: Environmental Ethics as a Policy Primer |
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| Authors: | Leslie Paul Thiele |
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| Institution: | professor of political science at the University of Florida. His teaching and research interests include political philosophy and environmental ethics and politics. His most recent book is Environmentalism for a New Millennium: The Challenge of Coevolution;(Oxford University Press, 1999). |
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| Abstract: | This article constructs a conceptual and normative framework for policy-oriented discussions of environmental uncertainty and risk. Human-caused environmental risks are unavoidable in a technologically and economically advanced society. Contemporary environmentalists deploy ecological and ethical axioms to structure the debate over environmental uncertainty and risk management. They adopt the "imperative of sustainability" and the "precautionary principle" as the foci of an ethical and ecological effort to evaluate and limit environmental risk. The policy implications of these axioms for those engaged in environmental risk and cost/benefit analysis are explored. |
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