Risk Acceptability According to the Social Sciences

2. The Emergence of a New Subdiscipline

CII.pler 2 "lie Imergence 01 • New Su.discipllne Summary: This chapter introduces the pubbc concern about risk from technology which encouraged different disciplines to converge upon the subject of public tolerance of risks. It traces the origins of the new subdiscipline. Historians and philosophers of science are interested in the origins of distinctive sets of ideas. The subdiscipline of risk perception affords an interesting contemporary case. Its emergence can reasonably be dated to 1969 when Chauncey Starr's article "Social Benefit Versus Technological Risk" in Science provoked controversy . The controversy gave rise to conferences, the conferences gave rise to research institutes and journals. These qUickly gave rise to a new profession and to a considerable literature. The new subdiscipline is not only a defined historical entity. Its restrictive assumptions and preferred methods provide it with structure and reinforce its internal channels of communication. Like any other discipline it is equipped with screening devices which exclude methods or information incompatible with the knowledge which it has already processed. In the 1950s the nuclear community and electrical industries expected to be thanked for creating new energy sources which would , nsure productivity, wealth, and health for the world. Gradually, through the 1960s they were the target of increasingly articulate, hostile public criticism. Government, recognizing its 19 policy dilemmas, and industry, trying to justify itself, asked what could be known about public attitudes to risk. Risk Definitions The definition of risk has naturally been at issue as the special disciplines studying risk perception develop. The United Nations recommends two divergent definitions for evaluating toxicity in chemicals: (a) focused on properties of pure probability; (b) focused on properties of utility. (a) "Risk is a statistical concept and has been defined by the preparatory committee of the United Nations Conference on the Human Environments as the expected frequency of undesirable effects arising from exposure to a pollutant" (World Health Organization , 1978:19). No attempt to define the degree of harm is included here. (b) "Most literature on this subject begins with the thesis that risk (R) can be estimated as some sort of product of the probability (P) of the event times the severity of the harm (H), or R = P x H" (Campbell 1980). Benefits enter this equation because it treats safety as a measure of the acceptability of some degree of risk. The two definitions have different policy implications. By concentrating only on probable frequencies of bad outcomes, the first definition gives the policymaker no headaches about how to compare harms with benefits, and some would claim it wisely steers clear of the scientific pretensions of utility calculations. Interestingly the idea that risk means only probabilities of hann is very widespread, even where "risk-benefit" is a method deliberately compared with costbenefit analysis. What does reasonable riskiness mean? What are acceptable levels of risk? Is the American public risk-averse? How does this new image of risk aversion fit with the favorite old image of the American way of life-entrepreneurs made rich by risk-taking? Does the lay public perceive risks differently from the experts and if there is discrepancy, how can it be reduced? How new is the confrontation of brutal industrialists and a fearful public? The questions echo Blake's inveighing against cruel nineteenth-century mill owners. If that perspective gives the right analogy, strict regulation would surely be in order. But regulation is costly. So are safety precautions. Then the issue broadens out to allocating the costs of safe production and from there to the general merits and demerits of economic growth. Industrial development never 20 eliminates dangers to life and limb; excluding one source of danger introduces another: Asbestos was originally a great discovery for checking fire damage; lead was a means of providing steady water supplies. Perhaps the right solution was to refuse economic growth. If only the nation were of one mind, the government's task would be clearer: Education of the public must narrow the disagreement. Early polls show that the blue-collar workers are mainly in favor of nuclear power for peaceful purposes. Does this indicate that they should be educated away from their shortsighted views by a paternalistic government? The official labor movement in America is divided on the issue. The people who are worried about the environment were first seen as a middleclass elite interested in preserving their mountain holidays or as rural folk interested in their own backyards. Public...