Environmental Health Risks

Ethical Aspects

Friedo Zölzer, Gaston Meskens

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781351273343
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Economics
• Subtopic: Sustainable Development
• Index: Economics

Environmental health involves the assessment and control of environmental factors that can potentially affect human health, such as radiation, toxic chemicals and other hazardous agents. It is less commonly understood that environmental health also requires addressing questions of an ethical nature.

Bringing together work from experts across a range of sub-disciplines of environmental health, this collection of essays discusses the ethical implications of environmental health research and its application, presented at the 3rd International Symposium on Ethics of Environmental Health held in August 2016 in the Czech Republic. In doing so, it builds upon the insights and ideas put forward in the first volume of Ethics of Environmental Health, published by Routledge in early 2017.

This volume will be of great interest to students and scholars of environmental health, applied ethics, environmental ethics, medical ethics and bioethics, as well as those concerned with public health, environmental studies, toxicology and radiation.

Part I
Perception of environmental health risks and ethics

1
Environmental health risks, moral emotions and responsible risk communication¹

Jessica Nihlén Fahlquist and Sabine Roeser

1 Introduction

Environmental health risks give rise to intense and emotional debates, which pose a great challenge for risk communication. The effectiveness of risk communication is a well-debated and well-researched area. However, effective risk communication can give rise to ethical questions, which have not yet been extensively discussed in the literature on risk communication, with some exceptions (cf. Morgan and Lave 1990; Valenti and Wilkins 1995; Johnson 1999). In this paper, we focus on how to ‘communicate responsibly’ about risk, an activity that requires ethical analysis. We develop a three-level framework of morally responsible risk communication, focusing on the procedure, the message and the effects of risk communication. These levels provide a basis for three conditions for ethical risk communication: ethical risk communication requires an ethically legitimate procedure, an ethically justified message and concern about the effects of risk communication. We specifically address the role of emotions as a key to addressing and explicating moral values at these three levels of risk communication. We then discuss several cases related to environmental health risks to see what implications our framework has for risk communication.

2 Moral emotions and risk

Emotions play an important role in public risk perception (Slovic 2010). However, emotions are usually seen as an obstacle to sound decision-making and communication about risks (Sunstein 2005). At most, emotions are seen as a potential tool for manipulation, which is why emotions are often endorsed by marketing experts and eschewed by those who are looking for criteria for responsible risk communication. These views are based on the idea that emotions are irrational gut reactions, i.e. suggesting a dichotomy between rationality and emotions (e.g. Haidt 2001). However, developments in emotion research show that this is a false dilemma, based on an overly simplistic conception of emotions. Emotion scholars from philosophy and psychology have shown that emotions are not opposed to rationality, knowledge and cognition, but they are a form of practical, moral rationality and that they have cognitive and affective aspects (Scherer 1984; Frijda 1987; Lazarus 1991; Solomon 1993; Nussbaum 2001; Roberts 2003; Zagzebski 2003). Neuropsychological research by Damasio shows that people without emotions but intact rationality have impaired capacities for decision-making when it comes to concrete practical and moral judgements, and concerning judgements about acceptable risk (Damasio 1994). Decision-making about technological risks is not only a matter of technical, scientific expertise but also involves an ethical assessment (Shrader-Frechette 1991; Hansson 2004; Asveld and Roeser 2009). Technologies and risks are inherently value laden (Verbeek 2011; Möller 2012). Emotions such as sympathy, compassion and feelings of responsibility help to draw our attention to moral aspects of risks such as justice, fairness and autonomy (Roeser 2006, 2009, 2010a, 2010b). Including moral values, virtues and emotions does not threaten the objectivity of risk; rather, they are required for a proper appreciation of risk (Roeser 2006; Athanassoulis and Ross 2010; Hansson 2010; Hermansson 2012). These ideas can shed important new light on morally responsible risk communication (Roeser 2012b; Roeser and Nihlén Fahlquist 2013). In the following sections, we will explore how moral emotions can contribute to ethically responsible communication about environmental health risks.

3 Three conditions for ethical risk communication

According to Leiss and Powell (2004), the practice of risk communication has developed through three phases. In the first phase, risk communication was seen as a form of education whereby the public should be informed about risk estimates. The underlying idea was that people in general did not understand science well enough and needed to be educated. The second phase transformed risk communication into a marketing practice with the aim to persuade people to adopt a certain message. In the current, third phase risk communication is viewed as a participatory practice with which the gap between experts and lay people can be bridged (Leiss and Powell 2004). Trust plays an important role in bridging this gap and making risk communication effective (e.g. Persensky et al. 2004). However, it should be emphasized that trust is not merely important in order to achieve effective risk communication. Trust is a moral emotion that requires trustworthiness and ethically responsible risk communication. When a government, a powerful agency or corporation aims to affect people’s attitudes and behaviour in accordance with a certain goal, this entails moral responsibility. If this responsibility is taken seriously, this can create trust. It is important to see the difference between building trust in order to communicate effectively and building trust because one acknowledges one’s power and takes responsibility accordingly. Thus, ethical risk communication is not merely required for instrumental reasons, but first and foremost for normative reasons.

We will now discuss three levels of risk communication and how feelings of moral responsibility, trust and other moral emotions can and should play a role at these levels in order to achieve responsible risk communication.

Risk communication consists of a message concerning risk and a procedure through which the message is designed and communicated, which can be an iterative process. Needless to say, there will also be effects of the risk communicative process and the message communicated. Risk assessors and risk managers are likely to have intended effects with the process and their message, i.e. their assessment and description of the risk, but it is also conceivable that the procedure and message have unintended effects. Consequently, risk communication can be analyzed at three levels: the procedure, the message and the effects.

These three levels provide a conceptual model that can be used for ethical analysis. Moral emotions are relevant in relation to all of these stages. In common approaches to risk communication and stakeholder participation, emotions do not play an explicit role. However, given the research illustrating the importance of moral emotions in relation to risk (Slovic 2010), stakeholders should be explicitly encouraged to express moral emotions concerning risks, as this will help to clarify moral concerns, thereby facilitating ethical reflection (Roeser 201 8). In a similar vein, we see that messages about risk usually either consist of callous numbers or attempts to appeal to superficial gut reactions in a manipulative way. However, risk messages are inherently value laden. These values can be expressed through moral emotions like care, empathy and respect. Such emotions are not primitive gut reactions, but have cognitive content and a focus on moral values. This way, they can contribute to critical reflection (Roeser 201 8).

In addition to the procedure and the message, the effects of risk communication should also be analyzed from an ethical perspective. Interestingly, evaluation of risk communication is under-theorized and seldom undertaken in practice (Fischoff, Brewer, and Downes 2011). However, Downs distinguishes between three types of evaluation which should be undertaken. First, there is the formative evaluation during the planning phase. Second, there is the process evaluation, evaluating the implementation of, for example, a campaign. Finally, there should be an outcome evaluation, analyzing whether the goals of, for example the campaign, were met (Downs 2011). Our suggestion is that the evaluation should take emotions into account: those of recipients or stakeholders. This could be done by assessing whether they have been emotionally affected in a morally acceptable way. In addition, the evaluation could also address the emotions of risk communicators, for example care, empathy and feelings of responsibility which contribute to designing a morally responsible risk message and procedure.

Evaluating the intended and unintended effects of risk communication is needed to evaluate whether the procedure and message are ethically justified and whether they address all relevant actors, moral emotions and values.

Against the background of the three-level framework presented previously, risk communication should fulfil three conditions. Ethically responsible risk communication has a legitimate procedure, an ethically justified risk message, and concern for and evaluation of the effects of the message and procedure. We will now go through these conditions in more detail in turn.

4 A responsible risk communication procedure and the role of moral emotions

The first condition for responsible risk communication requires a legitimate procedure. The dominant view in the social science literature is that a legitimate procedure of decision-making about risk should be a form of participatory technology assessment. Participation can take place at different stages of risk analysis, i.e. in risk assessment, risk management and risk communication. Many scholars argue that if relevant stakeholders are involved in political discussions and decisions about risk, it increases the likelihood of achieving acceptance (Skitka, Winquist, and Hutchinson 2003). People may accept a decision that they think has been reached fairly, even when they disagree with the actual outcome.

It is worth emphasizing that regardless of the efficacy of participatory approaches, it is ethically imperative in a democratic society that the public is included and allowed to participate in decision-making and communication about risk. However, including stakeholders in risk communication and regulation entails numerous challenges (cf. e.g. Bijker, Bal, and Hendriks 2009; Lofstedt et al. 2010). First, how should fairness and legitimacy be achieved within the participatory context? Second, who should be represented, by whom and how should the representation be implemented? Jamieson and Briggs (2009), discussing so-called stakeholder partnerships as a promising way to make risk communication more inclusive, argue that some of the challenges involve deciding how to achieve properly balanced and representative partnerships and how to make sure the representatives actually speak for their stakeholder groups (Jamieson and Briggs 2009). It has been argued that even if risk communication becomes more inclusive and participatory, it is essentially a ‘relationship between unequal parties’ and there will always be an asymmetry in communicative initiative, informational privilege, and risk influence between experts and lay people (Hayenhjelm 2006). The party that initiates communication naturally has the privilege to set the agenda and decide with whom to communicate (Hayenhjelm 2006). An additional problem is the fact that experts often disagree, because contemporary risk issues are often ambiguous and value laden and experts can be biased due to conflicts of interest. However, that does not necessarily imply a relativistic argument for abandoning the role of experts and to leave all risk decisions to lay people. As Munnichs argues, experts do have specific cognitive skills and enjoy public authority for this reason. However, their dominance may be questioned in an adequate procedure of expert contestation (Munnichs 2004). The latter entails a view, inspired by Popper, according to which scientific claims should be exposed to a free competition of thought, where as many different expert views as possible are represented in a debate. Some experts are likely to share the same worries as the public, which means that those worries are represented in scientifically informed debates about risk. Although this may be part of the solution to make the procedure more legitimate, a morally responsible risk communication procedure also requires that the public actively participate in the debate. Lay people can add important perspectives, as they have a broader conception of risk that comprises moral values (Slovic 2000) that are also emphasized by philosophers who study risk (Hansson 2004; Roeser 2007; Asveld and Roeser 2009). As emotions are important in lay people’s risk perceptions and could draw our attention to moral aspects of risk issues, they should be explicitly discussed and reflected upon (Roeser 2010b). This allows for a fair dialogue in which all the affected parties and their emotions are heard and seriously considered (Roeser and Pesch 2016).

5 Responsible risk communication: the risk message and the role of moral emotions

In addition to a legitimate procedure for communicating risks, the second condition for ethically responsible risk communication requires that the risk message should be formulated and presented in a way that is ethically justified. It has been illustrated by social scientific research on risk that different framings of risk messages have different results on people’s perceptions and behaviour (Tversky and Kahneman 1974; Thaler and Sunstein 2008). Since there are no neutral ways t...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• List of Contributors
• Foreword
• Preface
• PART I Perception of environmental health risks and ethics
• PART II Philosophical approaches to environmental health ethics
• PART III The role of vested interests in environmental health research
• PART IV Decision-making tools for environmental health
• Index