Risk and Rationality

Philosophical Foundations for Populist Reforms

K. S. Shrader-Frechette

• Publisher: University of California Press
• Year: 2023
• Print ISBN:
  9780520320772
• eBook ISBN:
  9780520320789
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Ethics & Moral Philosophy

Risk and Rationality: Philosophical Foundations for Populist Reforms offers a rigorous philosophical reconstruction of how societies should evaluate and govern technological hazards. K. S. Shrader-Frechette charts a "middle path" between cultural relativism and naive positivism, demonstrating why risk evaluation is neither a mere social construct nor a value-free technical exercise. After situating modern risk analysis in its institutional history (NEPA, OSHA, RARADA), she dissects the value judgments embedded in all three stages of assessment—identification, estimation, and evaluation—showing how methodological choices shape policy outcomes. Through targeted critiques of prevailing strategies—expert/lay splits between "perceived" and "actual" risk, probability-only decision rules, Bayesian–utilitarian maximization under deep uncertainty, producer-favoring default choices, and the "isolationist" discounting of Third-World harms—Shrader-Frechette argues that lay aversion to involuntary, catastrophic, or inequitably distributed risks is often more rational than experts concede. The book's constructive core advances "scientific proceduralism," a normative framework that weds empirical objectivity to democratic ethics. Risk evaluations, Shrader-Frechette contends, can be objective—insofar as they are probabilistically revisable and open to critical testing—while also answerable to principles of equity, consent, and due process. She proposes methodological reforms (ethically weighted risk–cost–benefit analysis; performance-based ranking of expert judgments by predictive accuracy) and procedural reforms (free, informed consent for imposed risks; compensation and due-process rights; market-share liability) that realign assessment and management with public reason. Bridging philosophy of science, environmental ethics, and policy analysis, Risk and Rationality supplies scholars and practitioners with a defensible account of rational risk governance—one that explains persistent public opposition to hazardous sitings without pathologizing citizens, and that equips analysts to design evaluations and institutions capable of earning democratic legitimacy. This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press's mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1991.

Many titles in the Voices Revived program are also newly available as ebooks, offered at a discounted price to support wider access to scholarly work.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Chapter One Risk and Rationality
• Chapter Two Science against the People
• Chapter Three Rejecting Reductionist Risk Evaluation
• Chapter Four Objectivity and Values in Risk Evaluation
• Chapter Five Five Dilemmas of Risk Evaluation
• Chapter Six Perceived Risk and the Expert-Judgment Strategy
• Chapter Seven Democracy and the Probabilistic Strategy
• Chapter Eight Uncertainty and the Utilitarian Strategy
• Chapter Nine Uncertainty and the Producer Strategy
• Chapter Ten Third-World Risks and the Isolationist Strategy The Case for an Egalitarian Account of Rational Risk Management
• Chapter Eleven Risk Evaluation
• Chapter Twelve Risk Management
• Notes
• Index of Names
• Index of Subjects