Motivation

How does a new framework for explaining and making normative evaluations become credible at a given moment in history and why? In this paper, I will explore this question with a study of the ways in which behavioral psychology has been used to think about environmental policy. The lack of concern over global warming in the US, and the mass mobilization against genetically modified foods in EU, have been the subject of work by Cass Sunstein, who suggests that both of these reactions are in part the product of human cognitive biases. For example: if you ask people to choose between preventing a one-in-ten chance of 2000 deaths and a one-in-one-million chance of 200 million deaths, the vast majority will chose the former, despite the fact that both scenarios have the identical “expected value” (a loss of 200 lives), and the death of 200 million will have catastrophic ancillary effects. Thus, Sunstein concludes, people seem to systematically undervalue small probabilities of extreme harm, and a rational public policy on global warming—and one that reflects the true concerns of the people—should account and adjust for this bias. It seems to me, however, that this analysis goes too far too fast, and fails to adequately consider the complex way in which probability actually enters our moral evaluations. Insofar as causal attributions in the worlds of ethics and of law are not dictated the external world, explanations that focus on statistical risk and “expected value” overlook the way in which we feel, and assign, responsibility for harm — and it is this that best explains the results of the study. A similar limitation in Sunstein’s analysis can be seen in his account of the genetically modified foods debates in the EU, according to which categorical opposition to GMOs is essentially irrational and based on perceived rather than real risk. While I do not contest that this is part of the story to be hold, it seems to me that Sunstein’s account of “rational” motivation is a bit thin, failing to account for the fact that the public might have legitimate concerns about the behavior, track-record, and trustworthiness of the institutions that are given the power to evaluate and control the potential harm associated with GMOs. These are, however, first impressions, and I will certainly flesh them out as I further explore the conditions and manner in which the approach to environmental policy advanced by Sunstein came to occupy the authoritative position that it holds today.