Laws of Fear: Beyond the Precautionary Principle. By Cass R.
Sunstein. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005. 246p. $65.00 cloth,
$23.99 paper.
This is the era in which many prefer to be safe than to be sorry. In
the past five years, we have seen the United States justify a preemptive
war against Iraq lest Saddam Hussein use weapons of mass destruction
against us or others. Ordinary Asian citizens donned surgical masks to
avoid contracting severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS. And in the
wake of the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, Americans stocked up
on duct tape so that they could be “sheltered-in-place.” Is
not an ounce of prevention worth a pound of cure?