Wildland Fire Response in the United States: The Limitations of Consequentialist Ethics When Making Decisions Under Risk and Uncertainty

One of the dominant ethics of natural resource management (NRM), and arguably Western culture, is consequentialism, which evaluates the ethical merit of decisions based solely on consequences or outcomes of those decisions. When used in NRM, this ethic is largely applied as the default, without interrogation of whether it is appropriate or useful. In this case study, we examine the intersections of consequentialism, decision psychology, and fire response in the United States. We explore how trying to maximize beneficial outcomes creates dilemmas for fire managers who must make decisions despite considerable risk and uncertainty about outcomes. Consequentialism as a guiding ethic may exacerbate risk aversion and fire suppression and ultimately contributes to a dilemma, wherein fire managers trying to reduce negative outcomes may increase the probability of negative outcomes (via catastrophic wildfire) in the long run. In place of consequentialism, we explore how virtue ethics in fire response and moral pluralism may ultimately better support the goals of risk management and positive outcomes. From this case study, readers will gain insight on the challenges of applying ethical theory to current natural resource issues, the way cognitive biases can affect decision-making, and alternative ethics to the dominant consequentialist system in NRM.
Keywords: ethics, public lands, psychology, wildfire, human behavior, United States