5 th Module A definition of ”Risk society” Luis E. Bruni

1. History, Theory, and Philosophy of Science (In SMAC + RT)7th smester -Fall 2005Institute of Media Technology and Engineering Science Aalborg University Copenhagen 5th Module A definition of ”Risk society” Luis E. Bruni

2. “Roots of the ecological crisis” Gregory Bateson All of the many current threats to man’s survival are traceable to the combination of three root causes: • Technological progress • Population increase • Certain errors in the thinking and attitudes of our culture  including wrong epistemological premises.

3. ”The Risk Society” - Ulrick Beck • In advanced modernity  the social production of wealth is systematically accompanied by the social production of risks. • The problems and conflicts related to the distribution of resources  now overlap  with the problems and conflicts derived from the production, definition and distribution of techno-scientifically produced risk. • Example 1  the risk of atomic fall-out is a techno-scientifically produced risk. • Example 2  if there are any risks derived from GMOs  these would be new techno-scientifically produced risks. • Example 3  earth wakes and volcanic eruptions are not techno-scientifically produced risks. • In some cases it is hard to evaluate whether the risk is natural or man-made  for example  the case of a mad-cow disease epidemic.

4. The new paradigm of risk society • In the course of the exponentially growing productive forces in the modernization process  hazards and potential threats have been unleashed to an extent previously unknown. • In this new context  some historic types of thinking are overridden by new types of thinking. • Beck  the new paradigm of risk society how can the risks and hazards systematically produced as part of modernisation be prevented, minimized or channelled?  how can they be limited and distributed away so that they neither hamper the modernisation process nor exceed the limits of that which is “tolerable”  ecologically, medically, psychologically and socially?  relate to information society.

5. Wealth and risks • In the “welfare states of the west”  problems of “overweight” take the place of hunger. • Scientific techno-modernisation was “fighting” scarcity  and today is fighting plentifulness  not only of food  the attention economy. • When we were fighting scarcity  we were willing to accept a few unseen side effects  which today are not so invisible anymore. • The knowledge is spreading that the sources of wealth are “polluted” by growing “hazardous side effects”  this gives birth to the notion of social responsibility.

6. The new meaning of “risk” • What is the new meaning the notion of “risk” is taking in this scenario? • From personal and local risks  to global risks for the whole of humanity  risks without frontiers. • Old socially created risks  like those created by overpopulated urban centres and poor sanitation were perceptible to the senses. • Today  many risks  escape perception  “and are localised in the sphere of physical and chemical formulas”  e.g. toxins in foodstuffs  allergenic materials  radiations  waves in the air …  relate to information society system’s collapse.

7. Risks without frontiers • Before  many risks were related to an undersupply of hygienic technology. • Today  they have their basis in industrial overproduction. • Risk  must be defined as  a systematic way of dealing with hazards and insecurities induced and introduced by modernisation itself. • The new risks are no longer tied to their place of origin  e.g. the industrial plant relate to information society. • Risk society  is a world risk society  risks have no frontiers.

8. The calculation of risks • The normative basis of the calculation of risks  the concept of accident and insurance, medical precautions, etc.  do not fit the basic dimensions of these modern threats. • In all its disastrous consequences  the risk assessment of a potential chemical spill would be very different form the risk assessment of the accidental release of a genetically modified pathogen. • Nuclear plants  are not privately insured or insurable  the risks involve people who is not yet born and who will be born far away. • The calculation of risk as it has been established so far by science and legal institutions collapses. • How about the risks of massive electricity and communication failure?

9. The effect of synergies • A complex situation which is often ignored Synergetic = working together, cooperative Synergy = a combined action • The same pollutant  may have different meaning for different people  age, gender, habits, occupation, education, information. • What may seem “insignificant” for a single product  can be extremely significant when collected in the “consumer reservoir”  single thresholds or tolerance levels become hard to quantify if we take synergetic effects into consideration. • E.g.: omniprescence of wireless

10. A category error • A category error a risk analysis oriented to one single component is incapable of answering questions about safety. • Example: the taking of several medications can nullify or amplify the effect of each individual one  besides the synergetic effect of several medicines  at the same time people may be exposed simultaneously to different pollutants in the air, water and foods. • The insignificancies can add up quite significantly. • The elements of synergies cannot be measured in an additive-subtractive budget  they can interact and enhance each other in very unpredictable ways  multiplying budgets.

11. Knowledge Dependence of Modernization Risks • The “invisible” hazards  escape human direct perception (through generations). • These hazards  require the “sensory organs of science”  theories, experiments, measuring instruments  in order to become visible or interpretable as hazards at all. • The victims are completely dependent on the judgments, mistakes and controversies of experts  while subjecting them to terriblepsychological stresses. • Risks  are knowledge-dependent.

12. Thinking the Separated Together: Presumptions of Causality • Statements on hazards  are never reducible to mere statements of fact  they contain both a theoretical and a normative component. • A causal interpretation must be added  the pattern of cause and effect  not an easy task with “invisible”, long-term or synergic risk factors and side-effects. • Things that are substantively-objectively, spatially and temporally disparate are drawn together causally and thus brought into a social and legal context of responsibility.

13. Implicit Ethics • The implied causality always remains more or less uncertain and tentative. • The “normative”nature in which the riskness of the risk becomes tangible  cannot be removed by mathematics or experiments. • Sooner or later the question of acceptance arises  and with it, the old questions re-arise how do we wish to live? What is the human quality of humankind  what is the natural quality of nature which is to be preserved? • Determinations of risks are the form in which ethics – (and with it philosophy, culture and politics) – is resurrected inside the centers of modernisation  in business, the natural sciences and the technical disciplines  “an unwanted means of democratisation in the fields of industrial production andmanagement”  taking into account what before was defined as externalities.

14. Externalities • Externalities for example  all the costs that a producer transfers to the community by not taking responsibility of some of the environmental or social side-effects that his/her production unit may be giving place  you can also think about it as the difference between taking a personal risk and imposing a risk or a hazard to others. • Determinations of risks  become public discussion  between authorities, stakeholders and experts. • Risk determinations are an unrecognised, still underdeveloped symbiosis of the natural and the human sciences  of everyday and expert rationality  of interest and fact.

15. Scientific and Social Rationality • In definitions of risks  science does not have the monopoly of rationality anymore. • Science’s rationality claim to be able to investigate objectively the hazardousness of a risk  but it moves exclusively within a framework of probability statements. • One must assume an ethical point of view in order to discuss risks meaningfully. • Risk determinations are based on mathematical possibilities and social interests  especially if presented with technical certainty. • In some circles it is said that risks which are not yet technically manageable do not exist  at least not in scientific calculation or jurisdictional judgment.

16. Probability vs. magnitude of the event • The quantifiable concepts of risk concentrate on the probable occurrence of an accident and deny the difference about the qualitative nature and the magnitude of the event. • Example  it is much more probable the crash of an airplane than a nuclear plant explosion. • Risk assessment will be evaluated in terms of the probability of occurrence and not on the magnitude of the event  the airplane crashed may be valued as more risky  even though its effects are localised and the effects of the nuclear plant explosion, as improbable as it might be  may affect nations and generations not yet born.

17. Scientific and social rationality(II) • The length and irreversibility of mega-technological decisions that trifle with the lives of future generations  is at the base of the notion of sustainability. • Some misunderstood notions of risk-research may follow the footsteps of “technophobia”  forgetting that it is the wrong use of technology and not technology per se what we have to avoid. • Scientific and social rationality may do indeed break apart  but are at the same time interwoven and interdependent. • The scientific concern with the risks of industrial development relies on social expectations and value judgements  just as the social discussion and perception of risks depend on scientific arguments. • Scientific rationality without social rationality remains empty. • But social rationality without scientific rationality remains blind.

18. The social recognition of risk • In an overproduction of risks  risks can sometimes relativise, supplement or outdo one another. • One hazardous outcome may be defended by dramatising the risks of others  e.g. the dramatization of climatic change minimises the risk of nuclear energy. • Every interested party  stakeholders  attempt to defend itself with risk definitions.

19. Social responsibility is mainstream • Every socially recognised “cause” of an actual or potential risk  comes under massive pressure for change. • Even if this public pressure is fended off  sales drop, markets collapse, and the “trust” of costumers has to be won back and strengthened by large, expensive advertising campaigns. • The insecurity within industry intensifies  no one knows who will be struck next  good arguments become a condition of business success  the socially responsible go forward.

20. Chains of causality and complex Systems • Generally, opinions within the sciences and disciplines concerned in a given problem diverge wildly anyway  the social effect of risk definitions is therefore not dependent on their scientific validity. • There is an effort to causally relate some unwanted effects to individual factors  these factors can hardly be isolated within the complex systems in which they are embedded. • The systemic interdependence of the highly specialised agents of modernisation  correspond to the difficulty and sometimes impossibility of isolating single causes and responsibilities. • Is there a need for some epistemological changes in science in order to address complex interrelated systemic issues that have to do with risks assessment and sustainability?

21. Links to information society • Effect of electromagnetic waves to humans, organisms and biological systems. • Collapse of vital digital systems  security. • Information overload. • Attention deficit and other cognitive disorders. • Hardware life cycle. • …