THE PROACTIONARY PRINCIPLE
Version 1.2,
July 29, 2005
People’s freedom to innovate technologically
is highly valuable, even critical, to humanity.
This implies a range of responsibilities for
those considering whether and how to develop, deploy, or
restrict new technologies. Assess risks and opportunities
using an objective, open, and comprehensive, yet simple
decision process based on science rather than collective
emotional reactions. Account for the costs of restrictions
and lost opportunities as fully as direct effects. Favor
measures that are proportionate to the probability and
magnitude of impacts, and that have the highest payoff
relative to their costs. Give a high priority to people’s
freedom to learn, innovate, and advance.
Unpacking the Proactionary Principle
We can call this “the” Proactionary Principle
so long as we realize that the underlying Principle is less
like a sound bite than a set of nested Chinese boxes or
Russian matroshka (babushka) dolls. If we pry open the lid
of this introductory-level version of the Principle, we will
discover nine component principles lying within:
-
Freedom to innovate:
Our freedom to innovate technologically is valuable to
humanity. The burden of proof therefore belongs to those
who propose restrictive measures. All proposed measures
should be closely scrutinized.
-
Objectivity:
Use a decision process that is objective, structured,
and explicit. Evaluate risks and generate forecasts
according to available science, not emotionally shaped
perceptions; use explicit forecasting processes; fully
disclose the forecasting procedure; ensure that the
information and decision procedures are objective;
rigorously structure the inputs to the forecasting
procedure; reduce biases by selecting disinterested
experts, by using the devil’s advocate procedure with
judgmental methods, and by using auditing procedures
such as review panels.
-
Comprehensiveness:
Consider all reasonable alternative actions, including
no action. Estimate the opportunities lost by abandoning
a technology, and take into account the costs and risks
of substituting other credible options. When making
these estimates, carefully consider not only
concentrated and immediate effects, but also widely
distributed and follow-on effects.
-
Openness/Transparency:
Take into account the interests of all potentially
affected parties, and keep the process open to input
from those parties.
-
Simplicity:
Use methods that are no more complex than necessary
-
Triage: Give
precedence to ameliorating known and proven threats to
human health and environmental quality over acting
against hypothetical risks.
-
Symmetrical treatment:
Treat technological risks on the same basis as natural
risks; avoid underweighting natural risks and
overweighting human-technological risks. Fully account
for the benefits of technological advances.
-
Proportionality:
Consider restrictive measures only if the potential
impact of an activity has both significant probability
and severity. In such cases, if the activity also
generates benefits, discount the impacts according to
the feasibility of adapting to the adverse effects. If
measures to limit technological advance do appear
justified, ensure that the extent of those measures is
proportionate to the extent of the probable effects.
-
Prioritize (Prioritization):
When choosing among measures to ameliorate unwanted side
effects, prioritize decision criteria as follows: (a)
Give priority to risks to human and other intelligent
life over risks to other species; (b) give non-lethal
threats to human health priority over threats limited to
the environment (within reasonable limits); (c) give
priority to immediate threats over distant threats; (d)
prefer the measure with the highest expectation value by
giving priority to more certain over less certain
threats, and to irreversible or persistent impacts over
transient impacts.
-
Renew and Refresh:
Create a trigger to prompt decision makers to revisit
the decision, far enough in the future that conditions
may have changed significantly.
A
Proactionary Alternative to the Precautionary Principle
The Proactionary Principle emerged out of a
critical discussion of the widely used “precautionary
principle” during Extropy Institute’s Vital Progress Summit
I in 2004. The precautionary principle has been used as a
means of deciding whether to allow an activity (typically
involving corporate activity and technological innovation)
that might have undesirable side-effects on
human health or the environment. In practice, that principle
is strongly biased against the technological progress so
vital to the continued survival and well-being of humanity.
Understanding that we need to develop and
deploy new technologies to feed billions more people over
the coming decades, to counter natural threats from
pathogens to environmental changes, and to alleviate human
suffering from disease, damage, and the ravages of aging,
those involved in the VP Summit recognized two things: The
importance of critically analyzing the precautionary
principle, and the formation of an alternative, more
sophisticated principle that incorporates more extensive and
accurate assessment of options while protecting our
fundamental responsibility and liberty to experiment and
innovate.
The precautionary principle, while
well-intended by many of its proponents, inherently biases
decision making institutions toward the status quo, and
reflects a reactive, excessively pessimistic view of
technological progress. By contrast, the Proactionary
Principle urges all parties to actively take into account
all the consequences of an activity—good as
well as bad—while apportioning precautionary measures to the
real threats we face, in the context of an appreciation of
the crucial role played by technological innovation and
humanity’s evolving ability to adapt to and remedy any
undesirable side-effects.
While precaution itself implies using
foresight to anticipate and prepare for possible threats,
the principle that has formed around it threatens human
well-being. The precautionary principle has become enshrined
in many international environmental treaties and
regulations, making it urgent to offer an alternative
principle and set of criteria. The need for the Proactionary
Principle will become clear if we understand the flaws of
the precautionary principle.
Principle Against Progress
The precautionary principle appears to have
originated with the German principle of
Vorsorgeprinzip. No single formulation
of the principle has been universally adopted. Variations
exist between influential formulations, such as those
involved in the North-Sea conferences from 1984 to 1995, as
well as those expressed in the Rio Declaration of 1992 and
the UN Framework Climate Convention of 1992. All versions do
have in common three elements: The possibility of harm to
humans or the environment, resulting from a technology or
activity; scientific uncertainty regarding cause-effect
relationships; and the justifiability of taking
precautionary measures.
According to the popular and relatively clear
version found in The Wingspread Declaration (1999), the
precautionary principle states that:
“When an
activity raises threats of harm to human health or the
environment, precautionary measures should be taken even if
some cause and effect relationships are not established
scientifically.
In this
context, the proponent of the activity, rather than the
public, should bear the burden of proof.”
Al alternative formulation:
We should
permit no new technology to be developed and no new
productive activity to take place unless we can
scientifically prove that no harm to health or environment
will result.
Statements of the precautionary principle
vary in several ways. It’s worth making a basic distinction
between a weaker and a stronger formulation. The weaker form
refers to threats of serious or irreversible
harm or damage. The stronger version (such as both of the
above statements) omits this condition and so claims more
than the weaker: it calls for precautionary measures even
when the possible harm is not a serious or
irreversible one.
Variants of the precautionary principle
differ in a second important way, depending on whether they
include a cost-effectiveness clause. The Rio
Declaration of 1992 incorporated such a clause:
“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.”
We should also pay attention to a third way
in which formulations of the precautionary principle vary.
The particular phrasing of the clause concerning our
knowledge of the causal relationship between the alleged
threat and health or the environment, shift the burden of
proof to different degrees. If the claim is that that
restrictive precautionary measures are justified and
required “if any possibility” of harm exists, then
restrictions of any kind will be much easier to justify. A
less drastic claim says that precautionary measures are
justified even if the cause-effect relationship has not been
fully established.
All versions of the precautionary principle
are inadequate for their purpose, and are systematically
skewed against economic and technological progress and
development. It can easily be wielded to prevent the
introduction of all kinds of new technologies. A wide range
of international environmental treaties and regulations
already incorporate the principle and use it to restrict
numerous activities. Alar, a chemical for regulating growth
in apples, was withdrawn from distribution in 1989 following
misinformed public clamor regarding its alleged
carcinogenicity. Dr. Elizabeth Whelan has noted how the
principle has been used to ban “a health-enhancing chemical
like chlorine” because of doubtful “adverse effects on
wildlife—or its effect in high dose laboratory animal
experiments.”
The precautionary principle is a favorite
tool of those who oppose medical applications of
biotechnology as well as any form of agricultural
biotechnology, especially genetically modified crops and
livestock. GM foods and medical biotech have enormous
potential for meeting global needs for improved health and
adequate nutrition. The effects of a widely applied
precautionary principle would be disastrous for
countries that need to use pesticides or genetically
modified crops to feed their populations.
What’s Wrong with the Precautionary Principle?
The precautionary principle has at least six
major weak spots. It serves us badly by:
-
assuming
worst-case scenarios
-
distracting attention from established threats to
health, especially natural risks
-
assuming
that the effects of regulation and restriction are all
positive or neutral, never negative
-
ignoring
potential benefits of technology and inherently favoring
nature over humanity
-
illegitimately shifting the burden of proof and
unfavorably positioning the proponent of the activity
-
conflicting with more balanced, common-law approaches to
risk and harm.
First, the precautionary principle always
assumes worst-case scenarios. Any release of chemicals into
the environment might initiate a chain of
events leading to a disaster. Genetically modified organisms
might cause unanticipated, serious, and
irreversible problems. By imagining the proposed technology
or project primarily in a worst-case scenario—while assuming
that refraining from action will have no
disastrous consequences—the adherents of the principle
immediately tilt the playing field in their favor.
Second, the precautionary principle ignores
background risk, distracting our attention from established
dangers to health. Nature itself brings with it a risk of
harms such as infection, hunger, famine, and environmental
disruption. We should apply our limited resources first to
major risks that we know are real, not merely
hypothetical. The more we attend to merely hypothetical
threats to health and environment, the less money, time, and
effort will remain to deal with substantial health problems
that are highly probable or thoroughly established. The
principle errs in focusing on future technological harms
that might occur, while ignoring natural risks
that are actually occurring.
Third, adherents of the precautionary
principle assume that proposed regulations and restrictions
will cause no harm to health. Yet the very application of
the principle itself can endanger our health. Consider, for
instance, the consistent correlation between the health of a
nation’s citizens and their standard of living. Widespread
application of the precautionary principle, by hampering
economic activity, will tend to reduce living standards and
thereby worsen health. In addition, major efforts to
eliminate small, speculative risks can unleash far greater
and more likely harms.
Fourth, the precautionary principle fails to
treat natural and human threats on the same basis. Users of
the principle routinely ignore the potential benefits of
technology, in effect favoring nature over humanity. The
principle does not account for the fact that the risks
created by technological stagnation are at least as real as
those of technological advancement. As biochemist Bruce Ames
of UCLA has demonstrated, almost all of our exposure to
dangerous chemicals comes in the form of natural
chemicals. Yet fear and attention are primarily directed
toward synthetic chemicals. A particular
chemical has the same effects regardless of whether its
source is natural or synthetic. Despite this, scientifically
unsound activists treat human-derived chemicals as guilty
until proven innocent, and naturally occurring chemicals as
innocent or insignificant.
Fifth, the precautionary principle
illegitimately shifts the burden of proof by positioning
advocates of proposed activities or new technologies as
reckless, in contrast with the “responsible” advocates of
“precaution”. The content—even the very name—of the
precautionary principle positions environmental activists
and Luddites as friends and protectors of the common person.
The innovators are made to prove safety, having already been
portrayed as indifferent to the common good and interested
only in profiting.
Having illegitimately shifted the burden of
proof, activists can impose their values without troubling
themselves with evidence and without taking responsibility
for the results of overly-precautious policies. For example,
the Environmental Working Group opposed the use of
pesticides, speculating about possible carcinogenic effects
of trace amounts of their residues. They do not seem to have
taken into account the probability that restricting
pesticides would increase cancer rates.
Activists get away with the burden of proof
trick by managing perceptions of risk instead
of examining the real risks. This move is particularly
dangerous because we have limited resources to address a
multitude of risks. We cannot afford to make decisions
driven by manipulated perceptions. It’s crucial that we rely
on a comprehensive, scientifically grounded perspective when
choosing which risks have the strongest claim on our
attention.
Sixth, and finally, the precautionary
principle conflicts with the more balanced approach to risk
and harm derived from common law. Common law holds us liable
for injuries we cause, our liability being proportionate
with the degree of foreseeable risk. By contrast, the
precautionary principle dismisses liability and acts like a
preliminary injunction—but without the involvement of a
court, without the burden of proof, and without taking
responsibility for harm caused by the injunction.[1]
The
Essence of the Proactionary Principle
If the precautionary principle had been
widely applied in the past, technological and cultural
progress would have ground to a halt. Human suffering would
have persisted without relief, and life would have remained
poor, nasty, brutish, and short: No chlorination and no
pathogen-free water; no electricity generation or
transmission; no X-rays; no travel beyond the range of
walking.
Most activities involving technology will
have undesired effects as well as desirable ones. Whereas
the precautionary principle is often used to take an
absolutist stand against an activity, the Proactionary
Principle allows for handling mixed effects through
compensation and remediation instead of prohibition. The
Proactionary Principle recognizes that nature is not always
kind, that improving our world is both natural and essential
for humanity, and that stagnation is not a realistic or
worthy option.
The Proactionary Principle stands for the
proactive pursuit of progress. Being proactive involves not
only anticipating before acting, but learning
by acting. When technological progress is
halted, people lose an essential freedom and the
accompanying opportunities to learn through diverse
experiments. We already suffer from an undeveloped capacity
for rational decision making. Prohibiting technological
change will only stunt that capacity further. Continuing
needs to alleviate global human suffering and desires to
achieve human flourishing should make obvious the folly of
stifling our freedom to learn
Let a thousand flowers bloom! By all means,
inspect the flowers for signs of infestation and weed as
necessary. But don’t cut off the hands of those who spread
the seeds of the future.
[1]
Sam Kazman has elaborated on
this point in “Better Never?”