No Mud Pies: Risk Avoidance as Risk Regulation
No Mud Pies: Risk Avoidance as Risk Regulation
复制标题
没有泥饼：风险规避作为风险监管
DOI：
--
复制
发表时间：
2007
期刊：
影响因子：
--
通讯作者：
Catherine O’Neill
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Catherine O’Neill
直到最近，环境方面的监管一直以降低风险为指导，这是一种要求风险生产者预防、限制或清理污染物的战略。然而，它越来越依赖于“风险规避”--呼吁风险承担者改变他们的做法和生活方式，以避免暴露在有增无减的污染物中的战略。例如，可能会要求妇女和儿童在饮食中不吃鱼，以避免甲基汞污染的风险；可能会建议哮喘患者在“臭氧警报”日避免外出，以避免地面臭氧污染的风险；可能会指示父母不要让他们的孩子做泥饼，以避免铅和其他重金属污染的风险。然而，目前还没有系统的努力来考虑和证明采取规避风险的举措是合理的。本文承担了这一任务，探讨了风险规避作为监管工具的前景和风险。在其他方面，风险规避策略承诺节省成本并增强自主性。但规避风险也是危险的。风险规避策略是出了名的无效；它们为管理环境风险提供的选择越来越少，最终也是有限的；它们可能带来风险；它们往往是不公平的。鉴于这些和其他论点，文章的结论是，总的来说，在大多数情况下，规避风险是不合适的。最后，文章建议，为了评估转向避险的举措，我们需要一种分析模式，使我们能够考虑一种风险--以及随之而来的避险手段--在道德、文化和社会上是否可以接受。
Regulation in the environmental context has, until recently, been guided by risk reduction - strategies that require risk-producers to prevent, limit, or clean up contaminants. However, it has increasingly come to rely on "risk avoidance" - strategies that call upon risk-bearers to alter their practices and ways of living so as to avoid exposure to contaminants left unabated. For example, women and children might be asked to eliminate fish from their diets to avoid the risks of methylmercury contamination; asthmatics might be advised to refrain from going outside on "ozone alert" days to avoid the risks of ground-level ozone pollution; and parents may be instructed to keep their children from making mud pies to avoid the risks of lead and other heavy metal contamination. However, there has not yet been a systematic effort to consider and justify a move to risk avoidance. This article undertakes this task, exploring the promise and perils of risk avoidance as a regulatory tool. Among other things, risk avoidance strategies promise cost savings and enhance autonomy. But risk avoidance is also perilous. Risk avoidance strategies are notoriously ineffective; they offer diminishing and, ultimately, finite options for managing environmental risks; they may introduce risks; and they are often unjust. In view of these and other arguments, the article concludes that, on balance, risk avoidance will be inappropriate in most instances. Finally, the article suggests that, in order to evaluate a move to risk avoidance, we need a mode of analysis that enables us to consider whether a risk - with its attendant means of avoidance - is morally, culturally, and socially acceptable.