Risk and Beck in Risk Society

Karri Liikkanen

University of Helsinki

Rome Safety and Security Conference

Villa Lante

25-26 August 2011

Table of Contents

1 INTRODUCTION ___________________________________________________________________ 1

2 BECK’S RISK ______________________________________________________________________ 1

2.1 THE RELATION BETWEEN RISK, ECONOMICS AND TECHNOLOGY____________________________________1

2.2 THE BLINDNESS TOWARDS RISKS AND THE NEW SUBJECT________________________________________2

2.3 THE LOGIC OF RISK PERCEPTION_________________________________________________________5

2.4 WHY DO RISKS EXIST?_______________________________________________________________6

3 CRITIQUE AND DEFENSE FOR BECK ___________________________________________________ 8

3.1 CONCEPT OF RISK__________________________________________________________________8

3.2 PERCEPTION OF RISK_______________________________________________________________12

3.3 CAN RISK ANALYSTS BE TRUSTED?_____________________________________________________12

3.4 THE USE OF PROBABILITY IN RISK ANALYSIS_______________________________________________14

3.5 DOES RISK ANALYSIS IGNORE THE HARM OF AN EVENT?______________________________________15

3.6 APPLICATION OF DAVID SKLANSKY TO BECK-DEFENSE_________________________________________15

4 CONCLUSIONS ___________________________________________________________________ 17

REFERENCES ______________________________________________________________________ 18

1 Introduction

Ulrich Beck formulates in his book Risk Society an idea of a risk society. It is a sort of a next

form of society after the modern industrial society. It is part of, or Beck’s version of,

switching into the postmodern. Beck is inspired particularly in the changing of the whole

system. In risk society, distribution of the wealth is not determining anymore, it is the

distribution of risk.

I will first analyze what Beck means with risk. Then I will look at it through Scott

Campbell’s’ and Greg Currie’s critique and try to understand Beck better. Then I will take a

short look at a somewhat controversial source, David Sklansky, who is a well-known poker

and gambling theorist.

We will have to note very first, that Beck’s “monumental” book was published in 1986, right

after the Chernobyl disaster. It is a bit dated and at times quite dark and dystopian, even

poetic. We shall keep these points in mind when we dive into the Risk Society, but we shall

not let them ruin our fun – this is a very interesting book.

2 Beck’s risk

2.1 The relation between risk, economics and technology

Beck understands risk to be an essential part of our present and future society. Risk has

surpassed or is surpassing wealth as a factor that defines life and economics. In pursuance of

moving from industrial society to risk society, we are moving from distribution of wealth to

distribution of risks. Beck uses words such as wealth-distributing society, scarcity society and

risk-distributing society, risk society. The first two are linked together, as are the last two.

“The distribution of socially produced wealth and related conflicts occupy the foreground so

long as obvious material need, the ‘dictatorship of scarcity’, rules the thought and action of

people”. (Beck 1992, 20). So, Beck is talking about post-scarcity society. Industrial society

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and its economy are defined by scarcity, risk society is defined by risks. In other words, in

industrial society the aim is to gain wealth, in order to do this the problem of distribution of

scarcity needs to be solved. This is what economics starts with: scarcity can be replaced with

food and goods, that causes wealth. In risk society wealth is gained by avoiding risks. In

developed western countries people don’t die because of hunger – they die because of risks.

Nobody is afraid of hunger, but everyone is afraid of risks. As Beck puts it: “I am hungry!”

has switched into “I am afraid!” (Ibid., 49).

Beck sees the risks as part of the system. They have integrated firmly into it. This system is

society. Western society has been created at the same time as science has. They are a

congealed couple. The synthesis, according to Beck, creates risks at the same time as it

creates the wealth. What has created the western wealth? The answer that we get from

economics is technology: “technology is knowledge of how to transform raw materials into

goods that consumers use to fulfill their needs” (Pohjola, 2010). In this sense, technology is

the fuel of the economic growth, which creates wealth. Economy grows as technology creates

the wherewithal for it by offering goods to consumers. And in other way economic growth is

the fuel for technology, for the development of technology demands resources and the

resources come from economic growth (Kurzweil 2006, 1-5). This relationship is very

concise, not like of mother’s and child’s – more like of symbiotic lovers’ who can’t leave

their love nest even for a second. Or it can also be described as the relationship of dancer and

beauty: they can’t be separated from one another (Airaksinen 2005).

Economic growth creates wealth. It needs technology. Technology needs resources in order

to develop. Strictly speaking, this is not accurate. Economy can grow without technology,

e.g. when population grows. Technology is not the only source of economic growth, but at

this stage of our analysis, it is sufficient to say that they are linked to each other: we want to

produce more technology in order to produce more economic growth, and vice versa.

2.2 The blindness towards risks and the new subject

Society produces risks, because its constant needs need to be satisfied. From this follows an

interesting contradiction: destruction of the earth destroys the value of goods, but the

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justification of destruction comes from the supposed growth of the value of goods (Beck

1992, 39). It is here, where the system comes in. It legitimates the destruction by explaining

the risks away. Kind of like an American police officer who yells at the crowd: “There is

nothing to see here!” Beck gives numerous examples, here is one from Brazil: (Citing Der

Spiegel 1984, no. 50: 110)

Villa Parisi, a slum of 15,000 people -- Here they even sell gas masks in

supermarkets. Most of the children have asthma, bronchitis, diseases of the nose

and throat, and skin rashes. -- The history of the dirtiest town in the world

began in 1954, when Pegropràs, the Brazilian oil company, selected the coastal

marsh as the site for its refinery -- It was the boom phase of Brazilian

capitalism. The military government invited foreign enterprises to produce

environmentally harmful products there. ‘Brazil can still afford to import

pollution’, boasted Planning Minister Paulo Vellosa in 1972, the year of the

environmental conference in Stockholm. Brazil’s only ecological problem was

poverty, he claimed. – ‘The main causes of disease are malnutrition, alcohol

and cigarettes’, the spokesman for Pegropràs says. -- The catastrophe happened

on 25 February this year [1984]. Through the sloppiness of Pegropràs, 700,000

liters of oil flowed into the swamp -- Within minutes a fire storm raced through

the favela. Over 500 people were burnt to death. The corpses of small children

were never found. ‘They just evaporated from the heat’ (Ibid., 43)

This example gives a good picture of the logic of risk distribution. Beck goes on:

Economic conditions of production, freed from the constraints of legitimation,

attract industrial concerns like magnets, and combine with the particular

interests of the countries overcoming material poverty and gaining national

autonomy into an explosive mixture, in the truest sense of the word. The devil of

hunger is fought with the Beelzebub of multiplying risks. Particularly hazardous

industries are transferred to the poor countries of the periphery. The poverty of

the Third World is joined by horror at the unleashed destructive powers of the

developed risk industry (Ibid.).

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Industry produces risks and the poor countries can “afford” to import them. The problem is

that no one really can afford to take them. Still these risks are taken. This is an interesting

thing. Risks are genuinely being taken, no matter how big they are. There is no rationale that

would say: “this risk we shall not take, it is too grave, it will destroy us all”. Even risk of

death can be given a value. This is what risk analysis does. This is what we do every day

when we leave our homes and cross the street. Even that is a death-risk. Or people work

voluntarily in hazardous environments or have hobbies such as mountain climbing. I think

Timo will have more to say about this in his presentation. In this sense Beck’s book is quite

utopian – it draws a picture of people who don’t want to die and who even don’t want to take

risk of dying.

Then what is Beck aiming at? To deny real occurrences? Or to give an unrealistic evocation

of human, typical to analytic philosophy? To the second question, we can answer yes. For it

would seem, that Beck’s human is a human that doesn’t want to die. Real life humans instead

quite often seem to desire death. Or he/she might just leave the option of death out from the

equation to be able to perform in otherwise desirable way. Or then, he/she can take a health

insurance. Every theory of society presupposes a certain kind of human being. This has to be

done in order to ground the theory into something. Otherwise it would just float in the air. In

economics we have homo economicus and in often in social philosophy we have the rational

human, such as in Robert Nozick’s Anarchy, State and Utopia. This human we could call

homo ratio. Beck’s human is different from both of these. We could call him/her homo vita,

vita being the Latin word for life. Beck’s human wants to live.

I shall note, that homo vita is the subject I will use in my dissection. In my opinion it is as

unrealistic as homo economicus or homo ratio. But philosophy is a study of possible worlds. I

can imagine a possible world, where any of these subjects could exist. Homo vita gives an

interesting way to approach the problem if risk, and in particular, the Beck-risk. With its help,

we can hope to understand its character.

Beck talks about the monopoly to rational knowledge, which has been awarded to science.

When it comes to risks, “the sciences’ monopoly on rationality is broken”, Beck says. “There

is no expert on risk”. (Ibid., 29.) There are always competing and contradictory statements

that can’t be fit together. E.g. where does one draw the line between still acceptable and no

more acceptable exposure? The line must be somehow arbitrary. Beck asks: “Should the

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possibility of an ecological catastrophe be accepted, for instance, in order to satisfy economic

interests?” (Ibid.). Referring to the example I gave earlier, we could answer yes. But this is a

descriptive yes. Beck seems to have something else in mind. He talks about legislation, he

means it in normative way. Then the answer in Beck’s corner seems to be no.

We could say, that in Beck’s view economic growth is the reason for the risk production and

the experts are assistants. Thus the scientific method is the fundamental reason for the

creation of the risk society. Before scientific thinking there wasn’t industry and before

industry there wasn’t risk society. Risk society is born only after the industrial society, as its

output.

Beck’s aim is to show that risk penetrates into all corners of the society, and it doesn’t honor

class positions (Ibid. 39-40). This is easy to see: nuclear explosion kills you whether you are

rich or not. Hence the subject of industrial society becomes antiquated. The new subject of

risk society doesn’t aim first at income, but avoiding of risks. Here is a pertinent point of

Beck’s risks: they are extremely dangerous systemic risks. Beck is not talking about little

risks, he is talking about apocalyptic risks, after which there will be no one left to share the

profit, whether it came from maximizing income or from avoiding risks. This is similar with

Keynes’ old filing: “The long run is a misleading guide to current affairs. In the long run we

are all dead” (Keynes 1971).

2.3 The logic of risk perception

If we presuppose Beckian homo vita -subject, then humans don’t want to die. But why are

life-threatening risks still allowed to exist? Why are we putting deadly poisons to the nature?

Why don’t we shut down factories that are hazardous to our environment? Here we return to

industrial subject: I have to get food to the table. Hunger is more fundamental need than risk-

avoiding. Away from sight, away from mind, as we say in Finnish. Beck’s new subject that

lives among risks is born only through the industrial subject. Beck’s subject also needs active

ongoing taking care of: if it gets hungry again, the industrial subject opens it mouth again and

lets it stomach scream the risks silent. When I’m hungry I don’t think about the possibility

that the factory next to me might leak and its solvents pour into the lake where my children

are swimming. When I’m hungry, I’m hungry, and then I don’t care about risks.

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Hunger in here also refers to other trivial necessities, such as sleeping and eating. We note

that hunger plays its devilish game: when I am hungry, I perceive no risk. It is so simple

because when I’m hungry I don’t care about the destruction of the world. When I’m not

hungry, I can perceive risk or then not. Even with a full stomach risk perception is not self-

evident, even then I can be not perceiving risk. E.g. experts can explain it away or I can just

be blind to it.

I shall note that this is about risk perception (Beck, 57). This is not about if risk exists

objectively or not. Here we are dealing with homo vita subject’s subjective risk perception.

According to Beck, objective risk is an illusion created by experts. It is part of the system’s

operation, risk production system’s operation. But it is not easy to perceive. Hunger can

easily be perceived, but risk cannot. As Beck puts it:

There are always competing and conflicting claims, interests and viewpoints of

the various agents of modernity and affected groups, which are forced together

in defining risks in the sense of cause and effect, instigator and injured party.

There is no expert on risk. Many scientists do go to work with the entire

impetus and pathos of their objective rationality, and their effort to be objective

grows in proportion to the political content of their definitions. (Ibid., 29.)

This example is a bit difficult and confusing. Hence it is a good one to show, that risks are

hard to analyze. Risk of dying and risk of destruction are particularly hard to analyze. We

shall return to this problem later when looking at Beck’s critics.

With fundamental need (hunger) existing, risk becomes secondary. In Beck’s analysis this is

linked with system: system makes the production of risk unavoidable. This is done with ever

going reciprocal insistence of demand and production. Because more wealth is needed, more

and more production is needed to satisfy the ever growing need. The need will never seize to

exist and it will never be satisfied. That is why economic growth will never stop, except in

case of Beckian disaster taking place.

2.4 Why do risks exist?

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We need yet a few clarifying words about risks and their production. Our lives in risk society

are not so horrible. There were risks before risk society too. E.g. in 19th century Finland there

was a much bigger risk to die in hunger, birth or some other reason caused by primitiveness.

Compared to today, risks were result of undeveloped technology. If summer was cold and

winter began too early, crop failure followed. And it was followed by famine and mass death.

During years 1866-1868 8% of Finland’s population died. This can be called a catastrophe,

albeit again drawing the line between a catastrophe and non-catastrophe is difficult. But this

is certainly not a Beck-catastrophe and not a Beck-risk. This is hunger risk, viz by definition

different from Beck-risk, which follows only after there is no hunger. Beck’s catastrophes are

the kind where everyone dies:

People in the nineteenth century had to learn, on penalty of economic ruin, to

subject themselves to the conditions of industrial society and wage labor. In just

the same way, they also have to learn today as in the future, under the shadow

of an apocalypse of civilization, to sit down at a table to find and enforce

solutions to self-inflicted endangering that crosses all borders. (Ibid., 47-48.)

There is a clear difference between Finland’s 19th century famine risk and Beck’s apocalyptic

risk: latter are self-inflicted. Old risks are surely serious and lethal, and no doubt there was a

larger risk to die prematurely in Finland in 19th century than today. But then risks followed

from something that couldn’t be helped. E.g. from bad weather that destroyed the crops. We

can imagine an apocalyptic risk, such as a meteorite colliding with earth. Then everyone

would die. Is this not a Beck-risk? No, because the collision of the meteorite was not self-

inflicted. Instead a nuclear war would clearly be self-inflicted. Generally, the gamut of things

that people can affect is growing all the time. Maybe soon we could even affect meteorite’s

path. Then it would become Beck-risk. Also famine will become a Beck-risk when it is

caused by global warming than was caused by human action. And then famine will cross all

the borders, because Beck-risks know no borders.

Modern catastrophes, such as the one of Brazil above, are sort of foretaste of what’s coming.

E.g. in this Brazil’s example 500 people died, which is quite a little compared to Finnish

famine’s 150,000 deaths. Even in the Chernobyl’s disaster not so many people died. Or then

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we can ask that again. The estimates vary tremendously. And this is an example of Beck’s

claim of the difficulty to estimate risks. Can we find an expert here?

WHO’s report from 2006 estimated deaths from the accident at 56 and from radiation to

9,000 (WHO 2006). Greenpeace estimates 250,000 cancers and 100,000 deaths from cancer

(Greenpeace 2006). Russian professor Aleksei Jablokov whereas estimates the number of

deaths at 900,000 and strongly criticizes WHO by saying that it is under control of nuclear

freaks (Uusi Suomi 2008). These varying estimates seem to speak in favor of Beck’s claim

that there is no expert in risk. In the 19th century death count was visible on the shoulder of

the road. Today’s risks are so diverse that their influences are hard to estimate. Even though

I’m not hungry, I still see no risks.

Other reason why there are risks, even though according to Beck’s homo vita subjects there

shouldn’t be any, is that they are too horrible to think of. I can’t stand constant fear. I want to

live freely, away from awful fears and risks. They are impossible to solve, for they are

produced by the system, and they are too horrible to be thought of. Therefore I suppress them

away. Retelling Descartes: “I think. therefore there is – I don’t think, therefore there is not”.

Beck asks, can anxiety be foundation for political movements? (Beck 1992, 50)

3 Critique and defense for Beck

Scot Campbell and Greg Currie have written an article in 2006 called Against Beck – In

Defence of Risk Analysis. In this article they aspire to argue against Beck’s view of risk and

risk analysis. They have divided their critique to 12 points. I will focus on 5 of those which I

think are the most relevant to our study here. I aim to deepen my understanding of Beck’s

risk by reflecting it with the critique. I hope it will prove fruitful.

3.1 Concept of Risk

Campbell and Currie (from now on C&C) give a definition for risk:

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Consider an event X which hasn’t happened, but might, and which if it did

would be (in some way) bad, either in itself or in its consequences. The badness

of such an event is called, variously, a loss, harm, or disutility. If you act in a

way, A, that makes X possible, you risk X in doing A. The degree of risk from

X is a function of two things: its probability and its harm, that is, the degree of

badness. Risk analysts typically calculate the degree of risk by multiplying the

harm of the bad event with its probability (which is expressed either as a

percentage or, more typically, as a decimal fraction, i.e., a number between 0

and 1). Thus two equiprobable outcomes have different risks if the occurrence

of the one would be more unpleasant than the occurrence of the other, and two

equally unpleasant outcomes constitute different levels or risk if one is more

probable than the other. (C&C 2006, 150-151.)

This sounds clear. This is risk analysis’ concept of risk. Risk analysts have gotten into an

unsolvable disagreement with Beck and this is because of their different opinions of risk.

Beck’s view is namely quite incongruous compared to C&C’s. Beck defines risk like this:

Risk may be defined as a systematic way of dealing with hazards and

insecurities induced and introduced by modernization itself (Beck 1992, 21).

This sounds really different than what C&C just stated. There is a fundamental difference

between these two views and we have heard it before: system produces risks and risks are

part of the system, a congealed inextricable part. With this holds similar logic as I illustrated

before with hunger and risk perception: without system there is no risk particularly in the

sense that Beck means it. This relation is only even stronger: risk is if and only if there is

system. Let’s look at this:

Risk cannot exist without system and system cannot exist without risk. They are included in

one another implicitly. And this system is modernization.

This is still quite easy to understand. It becomes harder when we try to grasp Beck’s thought

that “risk is a systematic way of dealing with hazards and insecurities induced and

introduced by modernization itself”. This risk is NOT as C&C defined it. Beck’s risk is not

the harm that you fear to happen, but it is the way of dealing with hazards and insecurities.

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This sounds absurd. We can say: 1) risk is systematic and systemic, 2) modernization creates

harms, hazards and insecurities, to which risks answer a part of the system. Risk is an answer

to a threat. Why so? Shouldn’t risk be the threat itself? This is what C&C say at least:

risk has to be thought of as something that we deal with, or attempt to deal with;

we cannot say that risk itself is a way of dealing with something (C&C 2006,

151).

But for Beck this is exactly how it is. For him risk is the handling of danger. It is a risk to

handle danger. The harms and insecurities created by modernization are so complex that their

handling is a great risk. But they have to be handled. This leads to a circle. Dangers are

harmful, so they have to be taken care of, but the handling in itself is dangerous, so it is a

risk. Timo Airaksinen calls a similar case the multiplying theory of risks and describes it as

follows:

Each action contains its own risks.

From this follows:

Each new action contains a new risk.

And

Each new action aimed at decreasing risk contains one or more

new risks. (Airaksinen 2011, 48.)

Airaksinen says that a new security measure is a window to a new risk space. And that’s how

it surely is. If e.g. suspicion about cell phone radiation is the insecurity or danger then risk is

when these suspicions start to be systematically investigated. Maybe they will put radiation

meters to all cell phones. Then maybe these meters will cause radiation and cancer. Like

Beck said: risk is the systematic way of dealing with hazards and insecurities.

I will give couple of more examples. The lamp from the ceiling might fall onto my head. This

is danger. I have to deal with it somehow. I will build a protective bubble around me. Should

the lamp fall now, the bubble will protect me. But there can be problems with the bubble. It

might not work properly and the lamp crushes me anyway. Or its air ventilation system

malfunctions and I choke inside of it. This first case Airaksinen calls trivial risk (it appears as

a straight negation to security measure) and latter not-trivial risk (can’t be concluded from the

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secured subject). This is not a Beck-risk par excellence, but it still suites to demonstrate what

I’m trying to say.

I will give an example of a downright Beck-risk. A Finnish tabloid yells: “Take the bread

away from little children”. In the article a doctor urges parents to keep their children away

from bread; they shouldn’t eat it at all during their first three years. (Ilta-Sanomat 2011, 2.) In

this case the hazard or insecurity created by modernization is bread that shouldn’t be eaten, or

knowledge that it shouldn’t be eaten. Risk is the systematic measures that will possibly

follow from this. E.g. exaggerated actions such as excessive supervision of children’s diet,

controlling of the children etc. The consequences can be much worse than if the children

would just have been allowed to eat bread. And again we find contradictory information: in

Fazer’s (Finnish company that produces bread) web page there is a survey that says that

Finnish children don’t eat enough bread (Fazer 2009). Experts are out there and contradictory

information is being produced all the time. Our homo vita person (or any other person)

cannot know what is true and he/she has to do his/hers decision him-/herself. There is no

absolute knowledge when it comes to risks.

Beck-risks and so-called traditional risks can also intertwine. E.g. the earthquake in Japan on

11.3.2011 is obviously not a Beck-risk, for it is not produced by modernization. It can

nevertheless have consequences that it wouldn’t have had should there not have been

modernization. Fukushima’s reactor was damaged in the quake and there was a possibility

that some kind of disaster could’ve happened. Quake couldn’t have had this kind of

consequence without the nuclear plant, which had been produced by the modernization

process. And again we collide with experts’ statements. They released radioactive steam from

the reactor in order to stabilize the pressure. Both the energy company Tepco and Japan’s

officials assured that this procedure won’t be harmful to humans. (MTV3 2011.) How can

one make this kind of assurance? How exactly can the consequences of radioactive steam be

known? Is it not harmful if the wind is towards the ocean? How about the fish and so on?

When interpreting Beck one has to keep in mind his idiosyncratic conception of risk. Beck’s

risks are not unconnected events but part of the picture of events created by the system. They

don’t exist without this picture. Risks place themselves as a part of this picture. We would

need a Photoshop-software that would encompass the whole world in order to remove them

from it. And the owners of Photoshop brand would probably not allow it.

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3.2 Perception of Risk

C&C are puzzled why Beck defines risk so peculiarly. Maybe we can try to find an answer to

this by reading Beck closely. As C&C remark, Beck says: “because risks are risks in

knowledge, perceptions of risks and risks are not different things, but one and the same”

(Beck 1992, 55). This is exactly Beck’s point. He is talking about the experience of risk. We

remember here what I said earlier about the logic of risk perception: When I am hungry I

don’t perceive risk. It is because of this identifying of risk and risk perception that the

rationality of sciences doesn’t work with risks. According to Beck all perceive risk in some,

often different, way and therefore there is no objective point of view. Beck criticizes science

for monopolizing rationality for this monopoly breaks down with risks for there is no

objectivity in them.

3.3 Can Risk Analysts Be Trusted?

From previous passage C&C get a question: can risk analysts be trusted? Let’s see what Beck

says:

the sciences are entirely incapable of reacting adequately to civilization risks,

since they are prominently involved in the origin and growth of those very risks.

Instead – sometimes with the clear conscience of ‘pure scientific method’,

sometimes with increasing pangs of guilt – the sciences become the legitimating

patrons of a global industrial pollution and contamination of air, water,

foodstuffs, etc. (Ibd., 59)

And to this C&C answer following:

Beck’s argument here is not at all an epistemological one; he is not arguing that

we are all equally well placed, in terms of knowledge and skill, to make

assessments of risk. His argument is that whatever knowledge experts possess is

nullified by their having an interest – whether conscious or not – in

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misinterpreting the degree of risk that attaches to harmful events that may

possibly occur. (C&C 2006, 154.)

This C&C’s claim can be answered in at least two ways:

1) Beck doesn’t mean that scientists would have a utilitarian viewpoint that they were

striving for, but that they are part of the system. No one has a utilitarian viewpoint in

it (because its functioning leads to destruction), but it has a logic of functioning of its

own.

2) Science automatically corrects non-scientific statements and therefore nullifies them,

NOT that knowledge possessed by the scientists would be nullified by their striving

for utility for themselves.

C&C seem to be focusing more on the individual points than on the core – the core would be

the system. Risk analysts and other scientists are part of the system where risks are born.

Therefore Beck doesn’t criticize scientists (he is one himself) but science and particularly

science as part of the system. According to C&C Beck’s claim is that science always contorts

and denies risk where it is (Ibid., 156). This is unquestionably a blunt statement. C&C bring

forth another formulation in footnote. According to it Beck’s claim could mean that

science is placed in a ‘contradictory position’, since many modern risks come

about because of the application of science. However, even if it were true that

science creates many risks, it hardly follows that science is in any sort of

‘contradictory’ position (Ibid., 155).

Let’s look at this “contradictory” position:

Let’s assume first that science enhances quality of life. Let’s then assume that risks don’t

enhance quality of life. If we go on and assume that risks follow from science, then we can

say science does not enhance the quality of life.

Even though this is not a pure antinomy, it can still be said that science produces

contradictory products. This is the tension included in science. Beck and C&C represent

opposite parties in this tension. Therefore it is vital to be able to have discussion between

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these parties. It seems to be quite difficult though. The parties seem to be talking a bit past

each other. Next chapter shall act as an example of this problem.

3.4 The Use of Probability in Risk Analysis

Science’s rationality claim to be able to investigate objectively the

hazardousness of a risk permanently refutes itself. It is based, firstly, on a house

of cards of speculative assumptions, and moves exclusively within a framework

of probability statements, whose prognoses of safety cannot even be refuted,

strictly speaking, by actual accidents. Secondly, one must assume an ethical

point of view in order to discuss risks meaningfully at all. Risk determinations

are based on mathematical possibilities and social interests, especially, if they

are presented with technical certainty. In dealing with civilization’s risks, the

sciences have always abandoned their foundation of experimental logic and

made a polygamous marriage with business, politics and ethics – or more

precisely, they live with the latter in a sort of ‘permanent marriage without a

license’.” (Beck 1992, 29.)

Beck therefore claims that the bad thing about probability calculations is that they create a

picture of as if -safety and their predictions cannot be refuted even with an estimation that has

come true. Even though an accident happened, it doesn’t change the predictions at all. C&C

point out though, that this is not so. They use a coin flip as an example of this. In coin flip

both sides have the same probability, 50% or 1:2. If we flip a coin 40 times and get 38 heads,

according to C&C there has to be something wrong with the coin and 1:2 is not true anymore.

(C&C 2006, 159.) So they would start calculating a new probability for the coin flip. For

Beck it is not so. The probability doesn’t change. And strictly speaking, it doesn’t. Even if we

flipped a coin 1000 times and we got only heads, it wouldn’t change the probability of the

coin. And this is the big difference between the arguing parties. C&C are empirical scientist

whereas Beck is analytical philosopher (or social scientist). They are like people in different

dimensions, that can’t see each other. C&C’s critique misses Beck. Their aim is good but

they are shooting at a ghost ship: cannonballs fly straight through it. This is the problem

mentioned earlier: how to get these radically different points of view to have a decent

conversation?

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The second point was the ethics of risk analysis. Beck yells out for ethical point of view when

talking about risks. Calculations don’t deliver that.

3.5 Does Risk Analysis Ignore the Harm of an Event?

C&C aim at proving that risk analysis does take into consideration the magnitude of risk.

They use as an example a less dangerous situation. If e.g. the probability of an airplane crash

is 1:10,000 and its harm rate is 300 points (on a scale where 100,000 is the maximum), it gets

a risk score of 0,3. If then the probability of a nuclear plant explosion is 1:100,000 and its

harm rate 95,000 it gets a risk score of 0,95. Nuclear explosion gets over 30 times the risk

score that plane crash got. This should prove that risk analysis does ignore the harm of an

event, according to C&C. (Ibid., 163.)

C&C, however, don’t take into consideration that in death probabilities don’t matter

anymore. This is the homo vita subject’s opinion. C&C talk past Beck because they haven’t

considered the homo vita subject. Beck’s aim is to describe risk abstractly as a part of a

capitalist system. In a way C&C realize Beck’s fear of “science’s monopoly of rationality”.

Science “defines risk” and population “perceives it”. (Beck 1992, 57-61.) Experts analyze the

risk away and after that the layman has nothing to say. His/hers word weights less than

experts’ even if his/hers child had just died in an acid rain.

For last a little lighter chapter.

3.6 Application of David Sklansky to Beck-defense

Risk of death is sure interesting. Poker theorist David Sklansky examines it in his book

Fighting Fuzzy Thinking in Poker, Gaming and Life:

The fact is that tactical and strategic decisions, as far as how to conduct a war,

frequently can best be arrived at by using the same principles that should be

used to analyze games. However, there is one big difference between games and

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wars. In wars, people die. Now I’m not just being cute here. The fact is that

people dying in a war screws up the game theory analysis. (Sklansky 2000,

177.)

Sklansky seems to be agreeing with Beck. When facing death game theory doesn’t apply

anymore. This can be concluded from homo vita -subjects cry: “I don’t want to die!”.

Sklansky goes on. He gives an example of a situation where you can call sick form work

because you know you can win 1000 dollars in gin rummy from a person who is in town only

today. If you get caught you lose your job and it’s not worth 1000 dollars. You estimate the

possibility to get caught to 1:100 (1%). Is this worth it? If you said yes, you should also be

ready to accept a 2% chance to earn 2000 dollars and 10% chance to earn 10,000 dollars. All

these have the same mathematical expectation and if you answered yes to all the questions,

you could give away your job for 100,000 dollars. This is clear. It should also be as clear why

risk analysis falls apart when risking your life instead of money, glory, happiness or injury.

Would you take 1:1000 chance to die for 25,000 dollars? If you said yes, does it mean that

you would take 1:100 risk to die for 250,000 dollars? Even if you still said yes, you probably

wouldn’t let me flip a coin that I would either kill you or you get 12,5 million. And you

probably wouldn’t let me kill you for 25 million. Still all these have the same mathematical

expectation. (Ibid., 177-178.)

Here we have to note, though, that value of money (or production function in economics’

terminology) is not linear: the more money I have, the less value the same amount of money

has. There is a big difference between if I get 10 or 100 dollars but not so grave difference

between if I get 10 million or 10 million and 90. Or even on logarithmic scale: if I get 100

million. When I have enough to support me and my family for the rest of my life, it doesn’t

matter so much anymore.

Now, if we take this reasoning to its extreme, we get an interesting result – namely, that there

is almost nothing for which it is worth taking even fairly small risks of dying. -- It certainly is

true that if everybody thought like this, it would be harder to get people to fight and, thus, to

win a war. Politicians and generals do not analyze risking life the way I just did. Or do they?

Remember, the analysis assumed that it was your own life. I think that they would come to

similar conclusions if it were their own life they were risking, rather than yours. (Ibid., 178.)

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Here emerges the fiendish logic of Beck’s risks: experts are part of the system that creates

risks. In the world of risks, risks are same for everyone, they don’t honor class positions. E.g.

they return back to the rich as poisonous food. Beck calls this The Boomerang Effect (Beck

1992, 37). Risks can destroy everyone regardless of their skin color, sex, nationality and

wealth. When big apocalyptical risk happens, not matter how small the probability, everyone

dies.

4 Conclusions

Beck deals with systematic risks. His view of risks is peculiar and difficult to understand. It is

analytic and at the same time provocative and rhetoric, therefore it is so difficult for

empiricists (or anyone for that matter!) to get a hang of it. We are back at the old philosophy

of science’s problem: theory-dependence of observations. Beck has at least been able to

prove that there are problems with the empirical approach. His own approach is also

problematic – Beck would seem to be a bit too dramatic when talking about the destruction of

everything and a bit too abstract when criticizing empirical science. Is dialectics between the

two approaches possible? Let’s hope so, maybe that will save the planet.

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Ilta-Sanomat 11.3.2011 s. 2

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