Laws of Fear - Beyond the Precautionary Principle (05) by Sunstein, Cass R [Paperback (2005)]

The Seeley Lectures

by Cass R. Sunstein

Laws of Fear - Beyond the Precautionary Principle (05) by Sunstein, Cass R [Paperback (2005)]

Genres: Politics, Philosophy, Nonfiction, Law

Paperback

First published January 1, 2005

About the author

Cass R. Sunstein is an American legal scholar, particularly in the fields of constitutional law, administrative law, environmental law, and law and behavioral economics, who currently is the Administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs in the Obama administration. For 27 years, Sunstein taught at the University of Chicago Law School, where he continues to teach as the Harry Kalven Visiting Professor. Sunstein is currently Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, where he is on leave while working in the Obama administration.

Reviews

[C · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've been reading footnote references to this for years, and decided it was time I got around to reading the original. The first part, which deals with the sort of cognitive biases and fallible heuristics that lead us to attribute too much weight to some risks and too little to others, is still pretty poignant. His latter chapters, in which he introduces his idea of 'libertarian paternalism' - later developed further in the highly influential 'Nudge' - is also well worth a look, though I remain something of an agnostic about this. As an antedote to some of the straightforwardly irrational thinking about means that he discusses, it's quite appealing (what are we to do with someone who can't accept that a 90% chance of surviving is the same as a 10% chance of dying?) At times, though, he seems to come close to advocating a sort of perfectionism of ends, which is another kettle of eggs entirely.

Running through the whole work is a thesis that any sort of 'precautionary principle' is ultimately a flawed decision-making tool, since 'risks are all around us', and not doing X will inevitably mean doing (or at least tolerating) Y. And the PP itself gives us no mechanism to rank the respective riskiness of X and Y. Allen Buchanan has recently done an even better job on this stuff, but in fairness, Sunstein got there first. And as a thesis, it's hard to argue with.

Ultimately, love it or hate it, this has become a highly influential thesis among policy-makers, and for that reason alone, is well worth a read.

[Tuuli]

Recommended to me by my econ professor, I firmly intended to read this, but it proved too cumbersome and I don't have enough time. Had to give it up after about 50 pages... Seemed interesting, but a pretty heavy read.