IN DEFENSE OF HEALTH-BASED STANDARDS

This paper explores the utilitarian ethical foundations underlying two standards for pollution control: an efficiency standard and a health-bawd standard. The main point is that a health-based standard can be defended quite easily on utilitarian grounds; safety proponents need not be self-serving, irrational nor ignorant. Criticism of health-based standards as ''too costly'' is not always persuasive since material consumption is not the only component of social welfare, nor do consumption increases necessarily increase social welfare.