Emotions And Risky Technologies

“Acceptable Risk” – On the Rationality (and Irrationality) of Emotional Evaluations of Risk What is “acceptable risk”? That question is appropriate in a number of different contexts, political, social, ethical, and scienti c. Thus the question might be whether the voting public will support a risky proposal or project, whether people will buy or accept a risky product, whether it is morally permissible to pursue this or that potentially harmful venture, or whether it is wise or prudent to test or try out some possibly dangerous hypothesis or product. But complicating all of these queries, the “sand in the machinery” of rational decision-making, are the emotions. It is often noted (but too rarely studied) that voters are swayed by their passions at least as much as they are convinced by rational arguments. And it is obvious to advertisers and retailers that people are seduced by all sorts of appeals to their vanities, their fears, their extravagant hopes, their insecurities. At least one major thread of ethical discourse, the one following Kant, minimizes the importance of the emotions (“the inclinations”) in favor of an emphatically rational decision-making process, and it is worth mulling over the fact that many of those who do not accept Kant’s ethical views more or less applaud his rejection of the “moral sentiment theory” of the time, promoted by such luminary philosophers as David Hume and Adam Smith.

Risks arising from technologies raise important ethical issues. Although technologies such as nanotechnology, biotechnology, ICT, and nuclear energy can improve human well-being, they may also convey risks for our well-being due to, for example, abuse, unintended side-effects, accidents, and pollution. As a consequence, technologies can trigger emotions, including fear and indignation, which often leads to conflicts between stakeholders. How should we deal with such emotions in decision making about risky technologies? This book offers a new philosophical theory of risk emotions, arguing why and how moral emotions should play an important role in decisions surrounding risky technologies. Emotions are usually met with suspicion in debates about risky technologies because they are seen as contrary to rational decision making. However, Roeser argues that moral emotions can play an important role in judging ethical aspects of technological risks, such as justice, fairness, and autonomy. This book provides a novel theoretical approach while at the same time offering concrete recommendations for decision making about risky technologies. It will be of interest to those working in different areas of philosophy—such as ethics, decision theory, philosophy of science, and philosophy of technology—as well as scholars in the fields of psychology, public policy, science and technology studies, environmental ethics, and bioethics.

“Acceptable Risk” – On the Rationality (and Irrationality) of Emotional Evaluations of Risk What is “acceptable risk”? That question is appropriate in a number of different contexts, political, social, ethical, and scienti c. Thus the question might be whether the voting public will support a risky proposal or project, whether people will buy or accept a risky product, whether it is morally permissible to pursue this or that potentially harmful venture, or whether it is wise or prudent to test or try out some possibly dangerous hypothesis or product. But complicating all of these queries, the “sand in the machinery” of rational decision-making, are the emotions. It is often noted (but too rarely studied) that voters are swayed by their passions at least as much as they are convinced by rational arguments. And it is obvious to advertisers and retailers that people are seduced by all sorts of appeals to their vanities, their fears, their extravagant hopes, their insecurities. At least one major thread of ethical discourse, the one following Kant, minimizes the importance of the emotions (“the inclinations”) in favor of an emphatically rational decision-making process, and it is worth mulling over the fact that many of those who do not accept Kant’s ethical views more or less applaud his rejection of the “moral sentiment theory” of the time, promoted by such luminary philosophers as David Hume and Adam Smith.

This volume features 16 essays on the philosophy of technology that discuss its identity, its position in philosophy in general, and the role of empirical studies in philosophical analyses of engineering ethics and engineering practices. This volume is published about fifteen years after Peter Kroes and Anthonie Meijers published a collection of papers under the title The empirical turn in the philosophy of technology, in which they called for a reorientation toward the practice of engineering, and sketched the likely benefits for philosophy of technology of pursuing its major questions in an empirically informed way. The essays in this volume fall apart in two different kinds. One kind follows up on The empirical turn discussion about what the philosophy of technology is all about. It continues the search for the identity of the philosophy of technology by asking what comes after the empirical turn. The other kind of essays follows the call for an empirical turn in the philosophy of technology by showing how it may be realized with regard to particular topics. Together these essays offer the reader an overview of the state of the art of an empirically informed philosophy of technology and of various views on the empirical turn as a stepping stone into the future of the philosophy of technology.

Risk has become one of the main topics in fields as diverse as engineering, medicine and economics, and it is also studied by social scientists, psychologists and legal scholars. But the topic of risk also leads to more fundamental questions such as: What is risk? What can decision theory contribute to the analysis of risk? What does the human perception of risk mean for society? How should we judge whether a risk is morally acceptable or not? Over the last couple of decades questions like these have attracted interest from philosophers and other scholars into risk theory. This handbook provides for an overview into key topics in a major new field of research. It addresses a wide range of topics, ranging from decision theory, risk perception to ethics and social implications of risk, and it also addresses specific case studies. It aims to promote communication and information among all those who are interested in theoetical issues concerning risk and uncertainty. This handbook brings together internationally leading philosophers and scholars from other disciplines who work on risk theory. The contributions are accessibly written and highly relevant to issues that are studied by risk scholars. We hope that the Handbook of Risk Theory will be a helpful starting point for all risk scholars who are interested in broadening and deepening their current perspectives.

There are two questions often asked of risk communication: what has been learned from past work, and what is needed to push the field forward? Drawing on the experience of leading risk researchers and practitioners, Effective Risk Communication focuses on answering these questions. The book draws together new examples of research and practice from contexts as diverse as energy generation, human health, nuclear waste, climate change, food choice, and social media. This book treats risk communication as much more than the interchange of risk information between experts and non-experts; rather, it aims to emphasise the diversity in viewpoints and practices. In each specially commissioned chapter, the authors reflect on the theoretical and applied underpinnings of their best projects and comment on how their approach could be used effectively by others. Building upon each other, the chapters will provoke new discussion and action around a discipline which many feel is neither meeting important needs in practice, nor living up to its potential in research. Through a more careful examination of the work already done in risk communication, the book will help develop better, more reflective practice for the future.

This volume bridges contemporary philosophical conceptions of risk and responsibility and offers an extensive examination of the topic. It shows that risk and responsibility combine in ways that give rise to new philosophical questions and problems. Philosophical interest in the relationship between risk and responsibility continues to rise, due in no small part to environmental crises, emerging technologies, legal developments, and new medical advances. Despite such interest, scholars are still working out how to conceive of the links between risk and responsibility, the implications that risks may have to conceptions of responsibility (and vice versa), as well as how such theorizing might play out in applied cases. With contributions from leading scholars, this volume brings together new work examining the interplay between risk and responsibility, exploring its varied philosophical aspects and applications to contemporary issues in law, bioethics, technology, and environmental ethics. Risk and Responsibility in Context will be of interest to philosophers working in ethics, bioethics, philosophy of law, and philosophy of technology, as well as scholars and practitioners in law, health and science management, public policy, and environmental studies. The Open Access version of this book is available at www.taylorfrancis.com. This publication is licensed, unless otherwise indicated, under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution, and reproduction in any medium or format, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate any modifications. Use for commercial purposes is not permitted.

“Technologies have been shaping [our] emotional culture for more than a century, argue computer scientist Luke Fernandez and historian Susan Matt in this original study. Marshalling archival sources and interviews, they trace how norms (say, around loneliness) have shifted with technological change.” —Nature “A powerful story of how new forms of technology are continually integrated into the human experience...Anyone interested in seeing the digital age through a new perspective should be pleased with this rich account.” —Publishers Weekly Facebook makes us lonely. Selfies breed narcissism. On Twitter, hostility reigns. Pundits and psychologists warn that digital technologies substantially alter our emotional states, but in this lively look at our evolving feelings about technology since the advent of the telegraph, we learn that the gadgets we use don’t just affect how we feel—they can profoundly change our sense of self. When we say we’re bored, we don’t mean the same thing as a Victorian dandy. Could it be that political punditry has helped shape a new kind of anger? Luke Fernandez and Susan J. Matt take us back in time to consider how our feelings of loneliness, vanity, and anger have evolved in tandem with new technologies.