Averting Catastrophe
Описание книги
Best-selling author Cass R. Sunstein examines how to avoid worst-case scenarios The world is increasingly confronted with new challenges related to climate change, globalization, disease, and technology. Governments are faced with having to decide how much risk is worth taking, how much destruction and death can be tolerated, and how much money should be invested in the hopes of avoiding catastrophe. Lacking full information, should decision-makers focus on avoiding the most catastrophic outcomes? When should extreme measures be taken to prevent as much destruction as possible? Averting Catastrophe explores how governments ought to make decisions in times of imminent disaster. Cass R. Sunstein argues that using the “maximin rule,” which calls for choosing the approach that eliminates the worst of the worst-case scenarios, may be necessary when public officials lack important information, and when the worst-case scenario is too disastrous to contemplate. He underscores this argument by emphasizing the reality of “Knightian uncertainty,” found in circumstances in which it is not possible to assign probabilities to various outcomes. Sunstein brings foundational issues in decision theory in close contact with real problems in regulation, law, and daily life, and considers other potential future risks. At once an approachable introduction to decision-theory and a provocative argument for how governments ought to handle risk, Averting Catastrophe offers a definitive path forward in a world rife with uncertainty.
Оглавление
Cass R. Sunstein. Averting Catastrophe
Averting Catastrophe. Decision Theory for COVID-19, Climate Change, and Potential Disasters of All Kinds
Contents
Introduction
1. What We Don’t Know
Eight Conclusions
Ignorance and Maximin
2. With and Without Numbers
Doctors
Assigning Probabilities
Gaps in Knowledge
3. The Maximin Principle
Problems
4. The Precautionary Principle
Danger
OMB Circular A-4
What Is Going on Here?
Loss Aversion
The Mythical Benevolence of Nature
5. Uncertainty
Strategies of Avoidance
Into the Thicket
Precautions Again
6. Objections
The Argument Is Trivial
Infinite Risk Aversion
Uncertainty Does Not Exist
Not Usual
Distributional Considerations
7. Irreversibility
Existence Value, Option Value
Options, Imperfect Knowledge, and Precautions
Seriousness and Sunk Costs
Irreversibility and Incommensurability
Qualifications
Irreversibilities and Optimal Delay
Irreversibilities, Distribution, and the Least Well-Off
Precommitment Value
Conclusion
Acknowledgments
Appendix A
Appendix B
Notes. Epigraph
Introduction
Chapter 1. What We Don’t Know
Chapter 2. With and Without Numbers
Chapter 3. The Maximin Principle
Chapter 4. The Precautionary Principle
Chapter 5. Uncertainty
Chapter 6. Objections
Chapter 7. Irreversibility
Conclusion
Index
About the Author
Отрывок из книги
Cass R. Sunstein
NEW YORK UNIVERSITY PRESS
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In my view, frequentists are unconvincing on that count. It is not nonsensical to specify a probability that an event will occur even if we do not have a frequency distribution. But it is unnecessary to defend that conclusion for present purposes. Bayesians should also be willing to agree that, in some circumstances, Knightian uncertainty does indeed exist (a point to which I will return).
Consider in this regard a document from the White House, Principles for Regulation and Oversight of Emerging Technologies, issued in 2011 and still in effect.8 (I was a coauthor of the document, and with apologies and a salute to my co-authors, I am going to raise doubts about it.) In general, the document embraces cost-benefit analysis, but in a puzzlingly qualified way:9
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