Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- List of boxes
- Authors cited
- Acknowledgements
- List of acronyms
- Part I The precautionary principle – why so much fuss about such a simple idea?
- Part II Harm and chance – managing risk
- 3 Harm, risk, and threat
- 4 Ordinary risk management: risk management as we know it
- 5 Problems with ordinary risk management
- Part III Defining and justifying a coherent precautionary principle
- Part IV Precaution in action
- Part V Conclusion
- References
- Index
3 - Harm, risk, and threat
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- List of boxes
- Authors cited
- Acknowledgements
- List of acronyms
- Part I The precautionary principle – why so much fuss about such a simple idea?
- Part II Harm and chance – managing risk
- 3 Harm, risk, and threat
- 4 Ordinary risk management: risk management as we know it
- 5 Problems with ordinary risk management
- Part III Defining and justifying a coherent precautionary principle
- Part IV Precaution in action
- Part V Conclusion
- References
- Index
Summary
To lay some essential groundwork for an exposition and critique of standard risk management theory and practice, this chapter clarifies some key concepts, including harm, risk, and threat; introduces the ideas of insurable risk and systemic risk; distinguishes caution and precaution; and uses two stylized cases to introduce the two kinds of novel prospects that are candidates for precautionary response.
Caution is consistent with aversion to demonstrated risk. Precaution goes beyond caution in two ways: it is concerned to not just to avert harm in the here-and-now but to forestall future harm, and this vigilance applies not only to demonstrated harmful prospects but also to the chance of future harm. Precaution gets us into the business of forestalling prospects of future harm that are in some sense speculative.
Chance of harm
To begin thinking carefully about precaution, we need to bring some precision to the concept of chance of harm. The term, harm, has clear meaning.
Harm (noun): damage, impairment. Commonly, there is an additional shade of meaning – the damage or impairment can be attributed to some particular thing, circumstance, or event. We are much less likely to apply the concept of harm to some general, existential malaise.
Chance concerns possibilities that are indeterminate, unpredictable, and (in some renditions) unintended.
Chance (noun): something that happens unpredictably without discernible human intention or observable cause; something mediated by the fortuitous or incalculable element in existence, i.e. luck, contingency.
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- Information
- Risk and Precaution , pp. 31 - 42Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2011