The Rationality of a Safe Minimum Standard

Abstract

The Safe Minimum Standard (SMS) is a policy shift to safety defaults to forestall irreversible outcomes. Critics charge an inconsistency: what justifies "business as usual" cannot also justify switching to the SMS. Currently the SMS is only a procedural shift where economic optimality procedures are buttressed by extra-special focus on uncertainty. Yet social welfare function may not be complete enough, warranting a more fundamental SMS shift. Numerous moral positions support this SMS approach. This SMS also operationalizes the intolerable cost as a trigger point, noting societies with lower tolerance for sacrifice must trigger the SMS earlier.

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