Lilian Bermejo-Luque y Javier Rodríguez Alcázar, Directora y miembro de FiloLab respectivamente, han publicado recientemente el artículo «Justifying the Precautionary Principle as a political principle» en la Revista Ethics in Science and Environmental Politics (Vol 23. 7-22, 2023 |DOI: https://doi.org/10.3354/esep00206 ). En este artículo se defiende el Principio de Precaución (PP) a partir de una redefinición del mismo que trata de esquivar sus principales críticas, argumentando en favor de una acepción distintivamente política del PP cuyas ventajas se muestran aplicando el principio a dos situaciones complejas y problemáticas: las restricciones a la libre circulación durante la pandemia del COVID-19 y el vertido de residuos en el Mar de Irlanda. A continuación publicamos con el abstract y el artículo en Open Access.
ABSTRACT
Our aim is to defend the Precautionary Principle (PP) against the main theoretical and practical criticisms that it has raised by proposing a novel conception and a specific formulation of the principle. We first address the theoretical concerns against the idea of there being a principle of precaution by arguing for a distinctively political conception of the PP as opposed to a moral one. Our claim is that the rationale of the PP is grounded in the fact that contemporary societies wish to avoid morally unacceptable risks while at the same time pursuing other goals, aspirations and values. Following this political conception of the PP, we propose a specific formulation in terms of an argumentation scheme—the Argumentation Scheme for Appealing to Precaution—which is meant to solve, in turn, the main practical concerns that the PP has raised. We explain the advantages of our proposal by analysing appeals to precaution in the cases of (1) the European restrictions on the free movement of persons during the COVID-19 pandemic and (2) the discharge of nuclear wastes into the Irish Sea.
KEY WORDS: Precautionary principle · Proactionary principle · Precautionary framework · Political minimalism · Public decision-making · Argumentation scheme
Acceso al artículo.
