We defend the precautionary principle against five common charges, namely that it is ill-defined, absolutist, and a value judgement, increases risk-taking, and marginalizes science. We argue, first, that the precautionary principle is, in principle, no more vague or ill-defined than other...

Some risks have extremely high stakes. For example, a worldwide pandemic or asteroid impact could potentially kill more than a billion people. Comfortingly, scientific calcultions often put very low probabilities on the occurrence of such catastrophes. In this paper, we argue that there are...

Empirical research by Jonathan Haidt and Joshua Greene seems to support the idea that in moral decision-making under uncertainty, people follow their initial intuitions and 'gut feelings'. Rational judgements are at most rationalizations or afterthoughts in our judgements about risks. This paper...

In the policy analysis community it is widely recognized that 'sound' policies meet three criteria: effectiveness, efficiency and equity. In most western countries, cost--benefit analysis (CBA) is currently the standard method to <italic>ex ante</italic> evaluate transport policy options. It scores high for...

In this paper we argue that traditional approaches to risk assessment should be supplemented by an explicit discussion of the moral acceptability of nuclear technology and the risks it poses. The introduction of nuclear energy in society should be seen as an ongoing social experiment, whose...

In this paper we discuss how rights-based moral theories can increase our understanding of siting controversies. It is argued that the notion of residual obligations can be used to overcome, at least in part, the conflict between the individual right not to be exposed to involuntary risks...

Cost-benefit analysis is commonly understood to be intimately connected with utilitarianism and incompatible with other moral theories, particularly those that focus on deontological concepts such as rights. We reject this claim and argue that cost-benefit analysis can take moral rights as well...