Concept of risk: risk assessment and nuclear safety

Thesis/Dissertation · Mon Dec 31 23:00:00 EST 1979

OSTI ID:6455720

Thompson, P B

The dissertation is a critical examination of risk assessment and its role in public policy. Nuclear power safety safety issues are selected as the primary source of illustrations and examples. The dissertation examines how risk assessment studies develop a concept of risk which becomes decisive for policy choices. Risk-assessment techniques are interpreted as instruments which secure an evaluation of risk which, in turn, figures prominently in technical reports on nuclear power. The philosophical critique is mounted on two levels. First, an epistemological critique surveys distinctions between the technical concept of risk and more familiar senses of risk. The critique shows that utilization of risk assessment re-structures the concept of risk. The technical concept is contrasted to the function of risk within a decision-maker's conceptual agenda and hierarchy of values. Second, an ethical critique exposes the value commitments of risk assessment recommendations. Although some of these values might be defended for policy decisions, the technical character of risk assessment obfuscates normative issues. Risk assessment is shown to be a form of factual enquiry which, nonetheless, represents a commitment to a specific selection of ethical and social values. Risk assessment should not be interpreted as a primary guide to decision unless the specific values incorporated into its concept of risk are stated explicitly and justified philosophically. Such a statement would allow value questions which have been sublimated by the factual tone of the analytic techniques to be debated on clear, social and ethical grounds.

• Research Organization: State Univ. of New York, Stony Brook (USA)
• OSTI ID: 6455720
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY
290600 -- Energy Planning & Policy-- Nuclear Energy
530200* -- Environmental-Social Aspects of Energy Technologies-- Assessment of Energy Technologies-- (-1989)
DECISION MAKING
ENERGY POLICY
ETHICS
GOVERNMENT POLICIES
NUCLEAR POWER
POWER
RISK ASSESSMENT
SAFETY
SOCIAL IMPACT