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Casting Radical Uncertainty on the Precautionary Principle: Shackle and Foucault revisited

Journal Name:

  • European Journal of Economic and Political Studies

Publication Year:

  • 2008

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Author NameUniversity of Author
Abstract (2. Language): 
This article interprets the Precautionary Principle in environmental regulation from the perspective of radical uncertainty embedded in knowledge as well as the knowledge-power networks formed in the existence of such uncertainty. In this sense, the article makes an epistemological critique of the current application of the Precautionary Principle (using Shackle) and extends the paradox of uncertainty to read its implications for networks of knowledge and power (using Foucault). Participatory decision-making is questioned as an alternative to current environmental forms of regulation. “There would be no uncertainty if a question could be answered by seeking additional knowledge. The fundamental imperfection of knowledge is the essence of uncertainty (Shackle 1955, 52). “Time is a denial of the omnipotence of reason. Time divides the entirety of things into that part about which we can reason, and that part about which we cannot. Yet the part about which we cannot reason has a bearing on the meaning of the part that is amenable to reason. The analyst is obliged to practice, in effect, a denial of time. For he can reason only about what is in effect complete; and in a world where there is time, nothing is ever complete (Shackle 1992, 27).
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REFERENCES

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