Can We Avoid Risk Dilemmas?

Mark Jablonowski

Chapter 6 in Risk Dilemmas, 2007, pp 81-101 from Palgrave Macmillan

Abstract: Abstract We have granted from the beginning the unrealism of seeking genuinely “zero” solutions to risk. The best we can hope for is some natural background level of risk consistent with perpetuation of life on earth, achieving at least the subsistence level. When we accept risk above this level, we open ourselves up to risk dilemmas of the “doomed if we do, doomed if we don’t” variety. The question is not, then, whether a strictly zero risk level can be achieved. It cannot. Effective precaution, however, is about preventing dilemmas inherent in acquiescing to the possibility of catastrophe. Possibility here is defined in terms of fuzzy acceptance criteria based on natural characteristics — not absolute zero. The real question is, can risk dilemmas be avoided?

Keywords: Radical Solution; Subsistence Level; Alternative Assessment; Knowledge Imperfection; Risk Avoidance (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2007
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pal:palchp:978-0-230-28859-1_6

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DOI: 10.1057/9780230288591_6

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