As increasing numbers of products have got near to marketting, the pressure has been increasing from industry for a relaxation of the precautionary system adopted by the European Union. It concluded that any regulation which reduces competitiveness should be reviewed critically, particularly when it cannot be justified on scientific or public interest grounds. This report was influential in achieving relaxation of the precautionary approach throughout the EU for genetically modified crop plants, which were considered among the safest of products now reaching the marketing stage of development. This assumption hides several important sociological and ethical factors which underlie the way risk is being assessed. Firstly, it should be challenged conceptually.
Instrumental rationality is more familiar.
It adopts a calculative approach to problems, to establish the best means to achieve given ends. It is not concerned with the value of the ends themselves. Its task is simply one of clarification and attempting to establish the interrelationship between facts. Value rationality refers to behaviour that is logically consistent in relation to a particular value position which someone holds. An example would be the standpoint that rejects genetic engineering as intrinsically unacceptable, no matter what the consequences.