​"Extrait du BPOM un état d'esprit".

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Notes:  

• Hans JONAS est le premier philosophe à avoir introduit le concept de  responsabilité des générations présentes vis-à-vis des générations futures, concept qui est à la base des principes de  développement durable.

• L’inquiétant principe de précaution – Gérald BRONNER & Etienne GEHIN – Puf : p61 - « WEBER explique que le partisan de l’éthique de conviction ne se sentira responsable que de la nécessité de veiller sur la flamme de la pure doctrine afin qu’elle ne s’éteigne pas, tandis que le partisan de l’éthique de responsabilité dira « nous devons répondre des conséquences prévisibles de nos actes ». 

• Nous nous sommes toujours refusés de parler, envers et contre tous de parler d’appétence aux risques qui selon nous est un non-sens. Nous préférons la tolérance. Quel est notre seuil de tolérance au-delà duquel le risque ne devient plus supportable ou gérable. 

• La crise énergétique récente nous a montrés, que l’application excessive du principe de précaution à générer selon nous un remède qui s’est révéler pire que le mal dans la lutte contre le réchauffement climatique. Nous avons, toujours selon nous, perdu un temps précieux dans cette bataille par des choix hasardeux ou tous les scenarii n'ont pas été élaborés avec soin ou n’ont pas été pris en compte avec le discernement nécessaire, et ou les décisions prises s’apparentent plus à de la dialectique éristique, qu’à de la logique.  Dans la même veine la destruction d’antennes relais de la 5G, au prétexte qu’elles seraient responsables de la propagation de la COVID, alors que le lien de causalité n’a jamais été établi, fait parti des réserves légitimes que nous sommes en droit d’avoir sur l’application du principe de précaution quand il aboutit à de telles extrémités.

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The Worrying Precautionary Principle  

«To think as a man of action and to act as a man of reflection», as BERGSON said and Nicolas GOGOL to add that "there are cases where too much reflection is worse than not at all". As the saying goes, too much thinking kills action. 

In our view, the precautionary principle encourages us, by excessive caution, to the “status quo” which leads to the sterility of creative thinking. Some claim that it is the theory defended by Hans JONAS31: «in dubio pro malo – in doubt envisages the worst», which must prevail. In our view, they interpret this quote too hastily.

While this theory encourages us to adopt a responsible and cautious attitude, it must be applied with discernment. It does not say to refuse the risk, as falsely claimed by a radical part of her followers and who thus pervert the thought of Hans JONAS. 

Zero risk is a mind illusion and abstaining is in itself a loss of chance, and therefore a risk. His theory tells us, to consider all possible scenarii and to choose the one that will represent the least risk, or says positively the one that will give, with the most reasonable assurance, the best opportunity/risk ratio.  
 

However, the precautionary principle as it is used today advocates inaction, the status quo, rather than the search for a solution, which confines some to a form of intolerance or even worse, intellectual extremism towards all those who do not think like them.

Abstention on the grounds that there are always risks is to refuse reflection, the emergence of solutions, dialogue and action. This is not what Hans JONAS advocates, especially since refusal to act can lead to absurdities even more calamitous than risk taking (calculated ones) itself.  

When debating or working in the workshop, we must be wary of the anathema brandished by those who hide behind, the precautionary principle. It is often a cache of misery to defend dogmatic positions using the dialectic and art of controversy, to influence minds for lack of convincing arguments.  
By raising the spectre of potential risks, they know that they will disturb the undecided, often (if not always) by obscuring or omitting (intentionally or unintentionally) to demonstrate the causal link between the cause and the so-called effects32.
 

Risk managers, and all people endowed with a minimum of reason and logic (and we are all provided with it according to René DESCARTES), know well that there is no zero risk. Their job is to study all the possible scenarii and identify which one is the one that confers the best efficiency ratio – opportunity vs. risk, in harmony with the degree of risk tolerance that the Company is willing to bear and assumes
If it is important as we have seen above not to sink ourselves into credulity, it is also important not to let our interlocutors sink systematically into the mistakes to which we condemn, without any other form of trial, the disturbing and excessive use of the precaution principle34.

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