Levente Szentkirályi - The Ethics of Precaution: Uncertain Environmental Health Threats and Duties of Due Care

Thousands of substances are manufactured in the United States to which the public is routinely exposed and for which toxicity data are limited or absent. Some insist that uncertainty about the severity of potential harm justifies implementing precautionary regulations, while others claim that uncertainty justifies the absence of regulations until sufficient evidence confirms a strong probability of severe harm.

In this book, Levente Szentkirlyi overcomes this impasse in his defense of precautionary environmental risk regulation by shifting the focus from how to manage uncertainty to what it is we owe each other morally. He argues that actions that create uncertain threats wrongfully gamble with the welfare of those who are exposed and neglect the reciprocity that our equal moral standing demands. If we take the moral equality and rights of others seriously, we have a duty to exercise due care to strive to prevent putting them in possible harms way.

The Ethics of Precaution will be of great interest to researchers, educators, advanced students, and practitioners working in the fields of environmental political theory, ethics of risk, and environmental policy.

Levente Szentkirlyi is a teaching faculty member at the University of Colorado at Boulder, where he teaches discipline-specific academic writing and problems of social justice. Broadly trained in political science and philosophy, his interdisciplinary research interests bridge normative political theory with environmental policy and broadly consist of environmental justice, moral responsibility, and the ethics of risk. Dr. Szentkirlyis appreciation for scholarship that intersects different disciplines has deeply influenced his student-centered pedagogy and has shaped substantive research interests in teaching and learning in political science.

First published 2020

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ISBN: 978-0-367-19374-4 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-0-429-24431-5 (ebk)

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This book is written in memory of my late father, classical pianist and composer, professor, photographer, and Hungarian freedom fighter, Dr. Andrs Szentkirlyi. Days before my father died from complications of a heart attack, as he lay in critical condition on a gurney waiting to be helicoptered to an area hospital, in what would prove to be the last lucid exchange I would have with him, my father took my hand and reminded me to pay our utility bill on time with the check he had left on his desk in his study. Even in that tense moment, I recall being puzzled how he could be concerned with such trivial matters as avoiding a late fee when his life was in the balance. Admittedly, my family always struggled financially, so even modest unexpected expenses created difficulties for us. Further, having endured many hardshipsnot the least of which included surviving the Second World War in Budapest, having his life shaken by the 1956 Hungarian revolution, and losing his first son to leukemiamy father took very little for granted. In retrospect, however, this exchange with my father had neither to do with our finances nor a reluctance to accept the gravity of his situation, but rather testified to his perseverance and his deep sense of responsibility for his family.

Unexpectedly drawn into Hungarys armed resistance against Soviet oppression (in which his older sister, a young nurse, was shot and killed while aiding victims of a street battle), after surviving one of the violent street battles of the uprising, my father was seized by Soviet forces and Hungarian secret police, detained for several days, interrogated, and beaten. What ultimately saved him from certain execution was his youth: for in a time of moral bankruptcy, the Soviets oddly refrained from killing revolutionaries who were not yet legally adults. Understanding, however, that upon his 18th birthday he would be re-apprehended for his known support of the resistance, my father was compelled to abandon his family and he escaped to Austriasoon after which he settled in Rome, only to enlist with the U.S. Army in 1959 to immigrate to the United States with hope in a better future. Overcoming both language and financial barriers to continuing his education and musical training, he earned degrees from premier music conservatories and research institutions in the country. My fathers doctoral studies and pursuit of a college teaching career required a great many sacrifices of him and our family, which made his wrongful termination as an assistant professor by the Music Department at Bowling Green State University, as well as his subsequent failure to return to academia, that much harder to bear. Forced to table his talent and passion for composing and teaching classical music, after years of accepting whatever work he could secure to support his family, my father finally settled into photographyturning what had once been a hobby into his new professionand he struggled the rest of his life as a small business owner. Yet he never bemoaned his circumstances, or became resentful, or projected his disappointments and frustrations onto others. He simply did what was necessary to persevere. And despite the unreasonable concessions life imposed on him, my father fostered an optimistic and cheerful disposition, finding purpose in his family and joy in lifes simple pleasuresan enduring testament to his integrity and strong character.