PHILOSOPHICAL PROBLEMS IN COST–BENEFIT ANALYSIS

Cost–benefit analysis (CBA) is much more philosophically interesting than has in general been recognized. Since it is the only well-developed form of applied consequentialism, it is a testing-ground for consequentialism and for the counterfactual analysis that it requires. Ten classes of philosophical problems that affect the practical performance of cost–benefit analysis are investigated: topic selection, dependence on the decision perspective, dangers of super synopticism and undue centralization, prediction problems, the indeterminateness of our control over future decisions, the need to exclude certain consequences for moral reasons, bias in the delimitation of consequences, incommensurability of consequences, difficulties in defending the essential requirement of transferability across contexts, and the normatively questionable but equally essential assumption of interpersonal compensability.

[1]  INCOHERENCE, INCONSISTENCY, AND MORAL THEORY: MORE ON ACTUAL CONSEQUENCE UTILITARIANISM , 1982 .

[2]  Harry G. Frankfurt,et al.  The importance of what we care about: Freedom of the will and the concept of a person , 1971 .

[3]  Ralph L. Keeney,et al.  Why Indirect Health Risks of Regulations Should be Examined , 1986 .

[4]  David Copp.  The justice and rationale of cost-benefit analysis , 1987 .

[5]  M. Sagoff.  Some Problems with Environmental Economics , 1988 .

[6]  S. Hansson.  Dimensions of Risk , 1989 .

[7]  R L Keeney,et al.  Mortality risks induced by economic expenditures. , 1990, Risk analysis : an official publication of the Society for Risk Analysis.

[8]  M. Porter.  The Competitive Advantage Of Nations , 1990 .

[9]  Lessons from Federal Pesticide Regulation on the Paradigms and Politics of Environmental Law Reform , 1993 .

[10]  Ralph L. Keeney.  Mortality risks induced by the costs of regulations , 1994 .

[11]  M. O'Connor,et al.  What is the Value of Rangitoto Island? , 1994, Environmental Values.

[12]  W. Wasike,et al.  Cost-benefit analysis and the environment , 1995 .

[13]  Comments on Tengs et al., "Comparative study of the cost-effectiveness of life-saving interventions". , 1995 .

[14]  L Sjöberg,et al.  The Cost‐Effectiveness of Lifesaving Interventions in Sweden , 1997, Risk analysis : an official publication of the Society for Risk Analysis.

[15]  Jonathan B. Wiener,et al.  Managing the Iatrogenic Risks of Risk Management , 1998 .

[16]  N. Pidgeon,et al.  On the Contingent Valuation of Safety and the Safety of Contingent Valuation: Part 1-Caveat Investigator , 1998 .

[17]  A. Ellerman,et al.  The Declining Trend in Sulfur Dioxide Emissions: Implications for Allowance Prices☆ , 1998 .

[18]  A. Xepapadeas,et al.  Environmental Policy and Competitiveness: The Porter Hypothesis and the Composition of Capital , 1999 .

[19]  J. Lenman.  Consequentialism and Cluelessness , 2000 .

[20]  Lisa Heinzerling,et al.  The Rights of Statistical People , 2000 .

[21]  Amartya Sen,et al.  The Discipline of Cost‐Benefit Analysis , 2000, The Journal of Legal Studies.

[22]  James K. Hammitt,et al.  Are The Costs of Proposed Environmental Regulations Overestimated? Evidence from the CFC Phaseout , 2000 .

[23]  W. Kip Viscusi,et al.  Risk Equity , 2000, The Journal of Legal Studies.

[24]  U. Latacz-Lohmann,et al.  The Indifference Curve, Motivation, and Morality in Contingent Valuation , 2001 .

[25]  David Schmidtz,et al.  A Place for Cost‐Benefit Analysis , 2001 .

[26]  Wlodek Rabinowicz.  Does Practical Deliberation Crowd Out Self-Prediction? , 2002 .

[27]  Patrick Hofstetter,et al.  Tools for Comparative Analysis of Alternatives: Competing or Complementary Perspectives? , 2002, Risk analysis : an official publication of the Society for Risk Analysis.

[28]  R. Revesz,et al.  The Biases of Risk Tradeoff Analysis: Towards Parity in Environmental and Health-and-Safety Regulation , 2002 .

[29]  Jacqueline Patterson,et al.  Weighing Health Benefit and Health Risk Information when Consuming Sport‐Caught Fish , 2003, Risk analysis : an official publication of the Society for Risk Analysis.

[30]  Michael Gochfeld,et al.  Risk‐Risk Balancing for Hazardous Waste Workers: Alternative Work, Traffic Fatalities, and Unemployment , 2004, Risk analysis : an official publication of the Society for Risk Analysis.

[31]  S. Hansson.  Weighing risks and benefits , 2004 .

[32]  Sven Ove Hansson,et al.  The case for ethical technology assessment (eTA) , 2006 .

[33]  S. Hansson.  Uncertainty and the Ethics of Clinical Trials , 2006, Theoretical medicine and bioethics.

[34]  Sven Ove Hansson,et al.  Social decisions about risk and risk-taking , 2007, Soc. Choice Welf..