Duties to Future Generations, Proxy Consent, Intra‐ and Intergenerational Equity: The Case of Nuclear Waste
Duties to Future Generations, Proxy Consent, Intra‐ and Intergenerational Equity: The Case of Nuclear Waste
复制标题
对子孙后代的责任、代理同意、代内和代际公平：核废料案例
作者：
K. Shrader
如果增加后代人的风险会减少当代人的风险，增加当代人的风险又会减少后代人的风险，那么如何处理风险转移问题呢？例如，就高放核废料和乏燃料而言，是否应该花费数十亿美元来保护废料并保护子孙后代，或者是否应该将同样的资金用于满足当前的需求，假设子孙后代将比我们现在更有能力处理废料？尽管这些问题看似无法解决，但当人们认识到一些常见的道德和逻辑错误困扰着许多关于技术风险和对子孙后代的责任的讨论时，问题就变得不那么棘手了。在简要解释了代际和代内公平的基础之后，本分析提出了关于代际和代内伦理的许多处理的三个命题：（1）这些讨论经常犯错误，因为它们以忽视权利并专注于福利或效用最大化的方式构建政策论点，（2）它们犯错误，因为它们经常以使代际和代内福利不一致的方式构建政策论点，而事实并非如此，因为它们忽略了改善实践和代理同意的条件，（3）它们他们也会犯错误，因为他们的风险做法与他们的风险言论不符。
How does one deal with problems of risk transfer if it is the case that increasing risks to future generations decreases the risks to present generations, and increasing the risks to present generations decreases the risks to future generations? In the case of high‐level nuclear waste and spent fuel, for example, should billions of dollars be spent to secure the wastes and protect future generations, or should the same monies be spent on present‐day needs, under the assumption that future generations will be better able to deal with the waste than we are at present? Although these questions may appear insoluble, they become less so when one recognizes several common ethical and logical errors that beset many discussions of technological risk and duties to future generations. After briefly explaining the grounds for inter‐ and intragenerational equity, this analysis argues for three propositions about many treatments of inter‐ and intragenerational ethics: (1) these discussions often err because they frame policy arguments in terms that ignore rights and focus on maximizing welfare or utility, (2) they err because they frequently frame policy arguments in ways that set inter‐ and intragenerational welfare at odds, when they are not, because they ignore ameliorating practices and the conditions for proxy consent, and (3) they also err because they engage in risk practices that do not match their risk rhetoric.