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The Prospects for Objectivity in Risk Assessment

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Notes

  1. See Mary Douglas and Aaron Wildavsky, Risk and Culture (Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 1983); see also Kristin Shrader-Frechette, Risk and Rationality: Philosophical Foundations for Populist Reforms (Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 1991), and Tim Lewens, ed., Risk: Philosophical Perspectives (New York: Routledge, 2007).

  2. See Paul B. Thompson, “The Philosophical Foundations of Risk,” Southern Journal of Philosophy, vol. XXIV, no. 2, 1986.

  3. See, Shrader-Frechette, op. cit.

  4. See Conrad Brunk, Lawrence Hayworth, and Brenda Lee, “Is a Scientific Assessment of Risk Possible? Value Assumptions in the Canadian Alachlor Controversy,” Dialogue, vol. XXX, 1991.

  5. Paul B. Thompson, “Risk and Sustainability,” Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics, vol. 20, 2007, p. 378.

  6. Russ Shafer-Landau, Moral Realism: A Defence (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), p. 18.

  7. Ibid., p. 14.

  8. Ibid., p. 15.

  9. Ibid., p. 39.

  10. See Geoffrey Sayre-McCord, ed., Essays on Moral Realism (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1988); see also Paul K. Moser and Thomas L. Carson, eds., Moral Relativism: A Reader (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001).

  11. See Michael Smith, David Lewis, and Mark Johnston, “Dispositional Theories of Value,” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Supplementary Volumes, vol. 63, 1989, pp. 170–174; see also Philippa Foot, “Morality as a System of Hypothetical Imperatives,” The Philosophical Review, vol. 81, no. 3, 1972.

  12. See Shafer-Landau, op. cit., pp. 39–44.

  13. See ibid, pp. 13–38.

  14. Sven Ove Hansson, “Risk and Ethics: Three Approaches,” in Lewens, op. cit., p. 22.

  15. See Alan Hájek, “The Reference Class Problem is Your Problem Too,” Synthese, vol. 156, 2007.

  16. Ibid., p. 577.

  17. Stephen Perry, “Risk, Harm, Interests and Rights,” in Lewens, op. cit., p. 196.

  18. Lawrence Sklar, “Is Probability a Dispositional Property?” The Journal of Philosophy, vol. 67, no. 11, 1970, p. 359.

  19. Perry, op. cit., p. 196.

  20. Hájek, op. cit., p. 568.

  21. Perry, op. cit., p. 194.

  22. Hájek, op. cit., p. 568.

  23. See Brunk, Haworth, and Lee, op. cit.

  24. See Hansson, 2007, op. cit.

  25. See Shrader-Frechette, op.cit., pp. 131–145.

  26. See Zahra Meghani, “The US’ Food and Drug Administration, Normativity of Risk Assessment, GMOs, and American Democracy,” The Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics, vol. 22, 2009.

  27. See Brunk, Haworth, and Lee, op. cit.; Jonathan Kimmelman, “Valuing Risk,” Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal, vol. 14, no. 4, 2004.

  28. See Shrader-Frechette, op. cit.; see also Kimmelman, op. cit.

  29. Shrader-Frechette, op. cit., p. 80.

  30. See Douglas and Wildavsky, op. cit.; see also Paul B. Thompson, “Risk and Sustainability”, Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics, vol. 20, 2007.

  31. See Perry, op. cit.

  32. Adam Morton, “Great Expectations,” in Lewens, op. cit.

  33. See Shrader-Frechette, op. cit.; see also Sven Ove Hansson, “The False Promises of Risk Analysis,” Ratio, vol. 6, no. 1, 1993.

  34. See Lewens, op. cit.

  35. See Jonathan Baron, Thinking and Deciding (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000, p. 322.

  36. Roderick Firth, “Ethical Absolutism and the Ideal Observer,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, vol. 12, 1952, pp. 317–345; see also Michael Smith, David Lewis, and Mark Johnston, op. cit.

  37. Shafer-Landau, op. cit., p. 42.

  38. See Jeffrey Janofsky and Barbara Starfield, “Assessment of Risk in Research on Children,” The Journal of Pediatrics, vol. 98, no. 5, 1981.

  39. See Sven Ove Hansson, “Ethical Criteria of Risk Acceptance,” Erkenntnis, vol. 59, no. 3, 2003.

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  1. Department of Community Health and Prevention, Drexel University School of Public Health, 1505 Race Street, Bellet Building, Room 1124, Philadelphia, PA, 19130, USA

    John Rossi

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Rossi, J. The Prospects for Objectivity in Risk Assessment. J Value Inquiry 46, 237–253 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10790-012-9338-9

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