Lotte Asveld and Sabine Roeser (eds), The Ethics of Technological Risk

Conventional approaches in risk management try to address risks in a ‘valueneutral’ and ‘objective’ way. However, recent insights in moral philosophy and the social sciences, notably Science and Technology Studies (STS), have shown that this objectivity is not only illusory, but that this approach can be rendered unfair as well. Risk management is a normative discipline in need of thorough ethical reflection, proponents of a broader conception of risk management argue. The edited volume The Ethics of Technological Risk presents the state-of-the-art of ethical reflection on technological risks. Based on the presentations at a conference on ‘Ethical Aspects of Risks’, which took place at Delft University of Technology in June 2006, the editors have compiled over 15 contributions by leading scholars in the field of risk, philosophy, social sciences and psychology. Apart from an introductory and a concluding part the volume consists of four parts, dedicated to Principles and Guidelines, Methodological Considerations, Involving the Public and Instruments for Democratization, respectively. Each part starts with a brief introduction to guide the reader through the chapters and to explicitly mark the cross-relations between the different parts. The volume starts with an introductory part in which Sven Ove Hansson develops an agenda for the ethics of risks. Hansson discusses four subareas of ethics of risk: the value dependence of risk assessments, ethics as a supplement to standard risk analysis, ethical studies of risk as a means to improve risk analysis and ethical studies of risk as a means to improve moral philosophy. Especially the latter point is refreshing, since it indicates that there is work to do for both moral philosophers and risks analysts alike. Not only should risk analysts become more aware of the ethical aspects of risks, scholars in the field of moral philosophy should also pay more attention to risks in moral theory. At present, moral theories fail to adequately deal with risks and