Sabine Roeser

Risk Communication, Public Engagement, and Climate Change: A Role for Emotions

This article discusses the potential role that emotions might play in enticing a lifestyle that diminishes climate change. Climate change is an important challenge for society. There is a growing consensus that climate change is due to our behavior, but few people are willing to significantly adapt their lifestyle. Empirical studies show that people lack a sense of urgency: they experience climate change as a problem that affects people in distant places and in a far future. Several scholars have claimed that emotions might be a necessary tool in communication about climate change. This article sketches a theoretical framework that supports this hypothesis, drawing on insights from the ethics of risk and the philosophy of emotions. It has been shown by various scholars that emotions are important determinants in risk perception. However, emotions are generally considered to be irrational states and are hence excluded from communication and political decision making about risky technologies and climate change, or they are used instrumentally to create support for a position. However, the literature on the ethics of risk shows that the dominant, technocratic approach to risk misses the normative-ethical dimension that is inherent to decisions about acceptable risk. Emotion research shows that emotions are necessary for practical and moral decision making. These insights can be applied to communication about climate change. Emotions are necessary for understanding the moral impact of the risks of climate change, and they also paradigmatically provide for motivation. Emotions might be the missing link in effective communication about climate change.

Emotional Engineers: Toward Morally Responsible Design

Engineers are normally seen as the archetype of people who make decisions in a rational and quantitative way. However, technological design is not value neutral. The way a technology is designed determines its possibilities, which can, for better or for worse, have consequences for human wellbeing. This leads various scholars to the claim that engineers should explicitly take into account ethical considerations. They are at the cradle of new technological developments and can thereby influence the possible risks and benefits more directly than anybody else. I have argued elsewhere that emotions are an indispensable source of ethical insight into ethical aspects of risk. In this paper I will argue that this means that engineers should also include emotional reflection into their work. This requires a new understanding of the competencies of engineers: they should not be unemotional calculators; quite the opposite, they should work to cultivate their moral emotions and sensitivity, in order to be engaged in morally responsible engineering.

Intuitions, emotions and gut reactions in decisions about risks: towards a different interpretation of ‘neuroethics’

Empirical research by Jonathan Haidt and Joshua Greene seems to support the idea that in moral decision‐making under uncertainty, people follow their initial intuitions and ‘gut feelings’. Rational judgements are at most rationalizations or afterthoughts in our judgements about risks. This paper will challenge the theoretical assumptions made by Greene and Haidt, by proposing a different theory of ethical intuitions and emotions. Ethical intuitions and emotions should not be conflated with spontaneous ‘gut reactions’. Rather, ethical intuitions and emotions can be the source and the result of ethical reflection and deliberation. This allows for different interpretations of the empirical findings of Haidt and Greene and of psychologists who study emotional responses to risks, such as Paul Slovic and George Loewenstein. Emotional and intuitive responses to risk should not be seen as heuristics that are prone to be biases; rather, they should be seen as invaluable sources of insight when it comes to judging the moral acceptability of risks.

Emotions and Ethical Considerations of Women Undergoing IVF-Treatments

Women who suffer from fertility issues often use in vitro fertilization (IVF) to realize their wish to have children. However, IVF has its own set of strict administration rules that leave the women physically and emotionally exhausted. Feeling alienated and frustrated, many IVF users turn to internet IVF-centered forums to share their stories and to find information and support. Based on the observation of Dutch and Greek IVF forums and a selection of 109 questionnaires from Dutch and Greek IVF forum users, we investigate the reasons why users of IVF participate in online communities centered on IVF, their need for emotional expression and support, and how they experience and use the information and support they receive through their participation in the online community. We argue that the emotional concerns expressed in such forums should be taken into account by health care ethics committees for IVF-related matters in order to promote more patient-oriented care and support for women going through IVF.

An Emotional Deliberation Approach to Risk

Emotions are often met with suspicion in political debates about risky technologies, because they are seen as contrary to rational decision making. However, recent emotion research rejects such a dichotomous view of reason and emotion, by seeing emotions as an important source of moral insight. Moral emotions such as compassion and feelings of responsibility and justice can play an important role in judging ethical aspects of technological risks, such as justice, fairness, and autonomy. This article discusses how this idea can be integrated into approaches for political decision making about risk. The article starts with an analysis of the dichotomous view of reason and emotion in risk theory, in approaches to participatory risk assessment as well as in relevant approaches to political philosophy. This article then presents alternative approaches in political philosophy and political theory that do explicitly endorse the importance of emotions. Based on these insights, a procedural approach for policy making is presented, in which emotional responses to technological risks, and the ethical concerns that lie behind them, are taken seriously. This approach allows for morally better political decisions about risky technologies and a better understanding between experts and laypeople.

Nuclear energy, responsible risk communication and moral emotions: a three level framework

Communication about nuclear risks is treacherous territory, especially after Fukushima, requiring not only considerations about effectiveness, but also about ethical legitimacy. In this paper, a three-level framework of morally responsible risk communication is developed, focusing on the procedure, the message and the effects of risk communication. This gives rise to three conditions of ethically responsible risk communication: it requires a legitimate procedure, an ethically justified risk message and concern for and evaluation of the effects of the message and procedure. The role of emotions, such as sympathy, empathy and feelings or responsibility, is emphasized as a key to addressing and explicating moral values at these three levels. Emotions point out moral aspects of risks such as justice, fairness and autonomy. This framework can shed important new light on morally responsible communication about nuclear risks. The first condition of this framework requires that the procedure of communication is participatory, in order to include the relevant moral emotions and values concerning nuclear energy of all stakeholders. A legitimate procedure does not guarantee an ethically justified message concerning nuclear risks. For this reason, the second condition requires an ethical deliberation of the message and the values and emotions entailed in it. Finally, the third condition requires a moral evaluation of the effects of risk communication concerning nuclear energy. A successful risk communication effort triggers reflection, compassion and a willingness to take responsibility for energy-related issues. Problematic effects of risk communication can be a lack of trust or a sense of hopelessness and passivity. Evaluating all three levels from a moral point of view should be done in an iterative way, allowing possible revisions and improvements. Considering the high stakes and current stalemates in the nuclear debate, the suggested model provides a promising, constructive and morally legitimate way forward.

Emotional Reflection About Risks

Emotions can mislead us in our judgments about risks. They can blur our understanding of quantitative information about risks, but they can also bias us in our judgment of the evaluative aspects of risk. In the literature on risk and emotion, the emphasis is on the former phenomenon. That is why most authors propose that if necessary, emotional responses to risks should be corrected by rational and scientific methods. However, when it comes to emotional biases of our moral understanding of risks, it is far from obvious that pure rationality will help us out. In this paper I discuss both kinds of biases. I argue that not all supposedly emotional biases about the quantitative aspects of risks are really due to emotions, and not all biases are really biases after all. If emotions bias our quantitative understanding of risk, we indeed need proper (accessibly presented) quantitative information. However, concerning the second kind of bias I will argue that we need emotions in order to correct our immoral emotions.

Ethical Theories and the Cost–Benefit Analysis-Based Ex Ante Evaluation of Transport Policies and Plans

ABSTRACT In the policy analysis community it is widely recognized that ‘sound’ policies meet three criteria: effectiveness, efficiency and equity. In most western countries, cost–benefit analysis (CBA) is currently the standard method to ex ante evaluate transport policy options. It scores high for effectiveness and efficiency, but generally ignores equity and other ethically important implications of policies. The CBA has its roots in the ethical theory of utilitarianism. However, both utilitarianism and CBA have faced many objections. We present alternative ethical theories, based on deontological theories and contractarianism. We discuss how these theories can inspire the ex ante evaluation of transport policy options. We argue that in order to come to a moral evaluation of transport policies we need a context-sensitive approach. According to such an approach, there is a plurality of morally relevant features that have to be balanced per situation. We argue that such a context-sensitive approach is more appropriate than a priori selecting one theory such as utilitarianism, as such a theory is not appropriate in all possibly relevant circumstances. Consequently, by being based on utilitarianism, CBA overlooks issues of justice, fairness, and autonomy that are morally relevant to an evaluation of transport policies.

Essentials of risk theory

Risk has become one of the main topics in fields as diverse as engineering, medicine and economics, and it is also studied by social scientists, psychologists and legal scholars. This Springer Essentials version offers an overview of the in-depth handbook and highlights some of the main points covered in the Handbook of Risk Theory. The topic of risk also leads to more fundamental questions such as: What is risk? What can decision theory contribute to the analysis of risk? What does the human perception of risk mean for society? How should we judge whether a risk is morally acceptable or not? Over the last couple of decades questions like these have attracted interest from philosophers and other scholars into risk theory. This brief offers the essentials of the handbook provides for an overview into key topics in a major new field of research and addresses a wide range of topics, ranging from decision theory, risk perception to ethics and social implications of risk. It aims to promote communication and information among all those who are interested in theoretical issues concerning risk and uncertainty. The Essentials of Risk Theory brings together internationally leading philosophers and scholars from other disciplines who work on risk theory. The contributions are accessibly written and highly relevant to issues that are studied by risk scholars. The Essentials of Risk Theory will be a helpful starting point for all risk scholars who are interested in broadening and deepening their current perspectives.

Basic Belief and Basic Knowledge: Papers in Epistemology

Introduction Intuitive Knowledge Reconsidered Foundationalism Strikes Back? In Search of Epistemically Basic Mental States Basic Beliefs, Coherence and Bookstrap Confirmation On the Statues of Axioms in Mathematics Mathematical Knowledge: A Defence of Modest and Sober Platonism A Dilemma for Philosophical Knowledge Defeaters and the Basicality of Theistic Beliefs Reforming Reformed Epistemology Why Basic Theistic Belief is Probably Not Warranted, Even if it is True Defending Moral Intuition Basic Beliefs, Testimony and Blind-Trust Proprioception as Basic Knowledge of the Body.