Are Unwanted Risks Ethically Worse than Wanted Ones?
by: Christian Munthe
Paper presented at the 1997 Annual Meeting of the Society for Risk Analysis Europe, Stockholm, June 15-18, 1997
Abstract
Societal decisions regarding the possible granting of permission
for industrial and power plants, waste disposals, traffic routes and other
facilities implementing modern science and technology (here simply called
technology-decisions) often provoke debates regarding the risks involved.
A main theme in these debates concerns the magnitudes of these risks and
whether or not they are worth taking to reach some aim. This is also a
main theme in traditional risk-analysis and critical discussions of risk-management.
However, sometimes the fact that some people do not want to be exposed
to the risks in question has been suggested as an independent argument,
i.e. regardless of the magnitudes of these risks. A well known phenomenon
in this respect on the local and national level is what has been labelled
"not in my backyard" (NIMBY), but the argument also has been
used on an international level. In accordance, the view that unwanted risks
are less acceptable than wanted or indifferent ones (regardless of their
magnitudes) has been proposed as being highly relevant for technology-decisions.
The paper explores to what extent there are good reasons for accepting
such a proposal. The main part of the paper is devoted to an examination
of the extent to which the view that unwanted risks are less acceptable
than wanted ones can be supported by, on the one hand, welfare-based ethical
theories underlying standard models for risk-analysis, such as utilitarianism,
and, on the other, a moral requirement to respect the autonomy of individual
persons. Also, the very concept of an unwanted risk is explored and some
peculiarities are noted. It is argued that no categorical impermissibility
of exposing people to unwanted risks can be supported. However, there are
still good reasons for policy-makers to consider the degree to which risks
are unwanted as a factor in technology-decisions that is relevant independently
of the welfare-gains at stake. In particular, policy-makers should avoid
paternalism in risk-management, i.e. the exposure of people to unwanted
risks for the reason that this will benefit these very same people. Also,
conceptual unclarities regarding which risks are to be viewed as unwanted
can be handled in a political context by adopting a purely pragmatic point
of view regarding the construction of policies and regulations. It is noted
that this conclusion has some interesting implications for policy-making
as well as for the way in which risk-analysis should be conducted.
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