Lexical Utilities, Precautionary Principle, and Continuous Quantities

Lexical utilities have been proposed as an attempt to model the precautionary principle. However, critics argue that this introduces hypersensitivity and allows for sweeping interventions for the sake of precaution no matter the possible costs. Advocates of lexical precautionary principle (LPP) have advanced a counterargument to this objection by suggesting that in lexicographic structures lower-ranked criteria causally impact on higher-ordered ones and so LPPs are not hypersensitive for they are seeking the precaution that minimizes overall risk. However, lexicographic models preclude, by definition, causal interaction between lower and higher-ordered criteria and, second, they cannot model continuous quantities that are almost always necessary when cost-benefit calculations take place. As a result, lexical utilities constitute a rather impossible modeling strategy of the precautionary principle.