The Precautionary Principle and Enlightened Doomsaying

Résumé 0

The principle of precaution is a response to a real problem. The threats humanity currently faces, and whose inclusion in the system could endanger its survival, demands a new radical form of caution. Neither the phronesis of the Old nor the calculation of chances of the Modern applies. The principle of precaution however appears incapable of meeting this challenge, given the weakness and inadequacy of its core tenets. It mistakes its target by positing that it is uncertainty that paralyzes action. One sees that is rather in incapacity where one transforms what one knows into beliefs that incite action. It is on the level of the metaphysical nature of time that an answer to this challenge is sought, by introducing Henry Bergson’s theory of modalities in a new approach to the master argument. What results therefrom leads to a new form of rationality whose sometimes paradoxical properties we explore. By placing the emphasis on scientific uncertainty, the Precautionary Principle utterly misconstrues the nature of the obstacle that keeps us from acting in the face of catastrophe. The obstacle is not uncertainty, scientific or otherwise; it is the impossibility of believing that the worst is going to occur. Even when it is known that it is going to take place, a catastrophe is not credible. To overcome this major hurdle, we have recourse to a special metaphysics of time based on a novel solution to the Master Argument of Diodorus Cronus, informed by Henri Bergson’s theory of modalities. We derive from it a new conception of rationality, some properties of which challenge our intuitions.