Kosten-Nutzen-Analyse als normatives Entscheidungsverfahren: zweifelhafte und durchgreifende ethische und rechtliche Einwände

Abstract

With the cost-benefit analysis, economists cultivate a specific decision-making procedure that is also partially accepted in politics. The objections raised in the tradition of criticizing utilitarianism and against the economization of decision-making, such as the criticism of balancing, of an allegedly lack of distributive justice, or of the tendency to describe human beings in behavioral scientific terms as self-interested, are, however, hardly convincing upon closer examination. But first, the empiricist theoretical basis of (covertly normative) cost-benefit analysis seems untenable. This refers to its idea that normative questions have to be transformed into questions of factual preferences. Second, there are massive collisions with a liberal-democratic constitutional law whose principles are at the same time basic ethical principles. This concerns both the rights of freedom (which must not depend on the ability to pay) and the model of democracy and respect for the rule of law. Third, there are insoluble application problems for cost-benefit analysis, which becomes visible especially (but not only) in the context of climate protection, both in overall considerations and in individual analyses, such as the construction of a coal-fired power plant.