Is it reasonable to expect that the ethical duty of public officials is to respond to an environmental problem by objectively examining the scientific facts and the potential hazards to local residents, independent of economic and political considerations?
The people do have good reasons to expect unbiased information coming to them about hazards that have to deal with them. Our group agrees that the public deserves to know; we think that they deserve to know everything (especially potentially harmful situations) that deals with them (and their families). Even if the information could cause them political or financial trouble, the situation could be even more risky (physically- for example: toxins living beneath their houses). The public officials should let the people know and tell them everything (objective view point) no matter how it affects their political standing or financials needs/problems.
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What if the public is notified of a potential problem (say an 80% chance of something happening), some families make a choice to move, or put in certain safeguards in their houses that cost money, and then, in the end, there is no problem. Who should pay for repairs? At what point do public officials become responsible for the information they put out?
ReplyDeleteMrs. LaPlace: If families decide to put certain safeguards in their houses that cost money, and there is no problem, then they should pay for what they bought even though they were notified by someone else that there may be a problem. The public officials should become responsible when they fail to inform the public about a problem that destroyed the property of a public citizen. If the family knows that they could possibly be harmed if they move somewhere, and they move anyway, then the family should be responsible for any problems.
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