Abstract
The precautionary approach has been widely considered reasonable
for many issues in environmental policy, including climate change.
It has also been recognized, however, that standard formulations of
the precautionary principle suffer from many difficulties. An
influential strategy to avoid these difficulties is to formulate a
narrow version of the principle on the basis of the maximin rule.
Rawls proposed that following the maximin rule can be rational
under certain conditions. Defenders of this strategy argue that
these conditions are approximated when it comes to issues like
climate change. In the first part of this paper, I argue that the
Rawlsian conditions do not establish the unique rationality of the
maximin rule, hence the precautionary principle cannot be defended
on its basis. When the Rawlsian conditions are approximated, other
principles can also lead to reasonable choices. In particular, a
prioritarian principle can capture the precautionary approach and
serve a useful role in climate change policy. I develop this
proposal in the second part.