I am shocked and appalled
Fear and loathing in law and politics
Risk-perception expert David Ropeik writes at Project Syndicate that nuclear energy remains controversial in Germany in the wake of Chancellor Merkel’s decision to extend the operating lives of the country’s nuclear plans. A 2006 BBC poll finds that in France some 56% of the public opposes nuclear energy, even though 75% of the country’s electricity comes from it. Apparently it is not always possible for people to be acclimated to things they are just afraid of at a gut level.
According to Ropeik, things that are undetectable, capable of causing great pain, man-made, and associated with distrusted persons tend to amplify fear to an irrational degree. Nuclear power certainly fits the bill. So do drugs and guns (and maybe the internet). These same characteristics can provoke revulsion as well. Ask anyone about organ markets and the likely reaction will be disgust. Psychologists Yoel Inbar and David Pizarro write that revulsion clearly influences moral, social, and legal judgments. But should fear and revulsion have any place in the formation of public policy?
Some argue that there is an innate wisdom to fear and revulsion. There are many things in the world that are possible (even if unlikely) vectors for disease or death that, unsurprisingly, touch off fear and revulsion in many people. Playing with feces, cannibalism, and murder, among others strike us as instinctively wrong and rightfully so: none are conducive to the health and survival of either individuals or society.
In the present day, many of the issues subject to policy debate that make people squeamish – human cloning, gene therapy, and nuclear power – push the boundaries of both science and ethics. Often, we do not know the full scope and scale of the possible dangers. The fact that we instinctively see a warning light might be a good thing.
But there are serious pitfalls to relying on fear and revulsion as the basis of policy. Drugs, guns, and the black market for organs cannot just be legislated away. Nuclear power can be, but only at the great cost of making the problem of carbon emissions and other pollution even more intractable. The solutions to many problems require nuance, thought and delicacy, but fear and revulsion are uncompromising and absolute.
This is particularly problematic when fear and revulsion inform policies related to the treatment of human beings. At some level, these emotions have informed every effort to systematically mistreat or annihilate groups of people. For much of human history, fear and revulsion have formed the basis for policy as well as morality in general, providing ample fodder for the cynical and manipulative. Witch-hunts, pogroms, genocide, and unequal rights were the result.
So how are we to know when fear and revulsion may appropriately inform policy responses to things that unsettle us? Unfortunately, it might be impossible to know until after the fact. Now that is a scary thought.
-Charles
Image by Flickr user greenpeacede used under a Creative Commons Attribution License
Related posts:
- The nuclear arsenal and promise-keeping
- Are guns covered in the public option?
- Lawful mutiny
- What morality “means”
- We buy their drugs and sell them our guns
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