3. Philosophical Perspectives on Safety and Risk

Humans care about themselves and their future. If nothing bad can happen, they are safe. If they know something for certain, they have certainty. But, as finite beings, humans do not enjoy much certainty. And in a dynamic world, they are rarely safe. “Risk” is one of the concepts that may help to come to terms with this. It is, however, notoriously unclear. That is why this text deals, in its first parts, with terminology. Seven basic uses of the term “risk” are distinguished, as well as some attributes like “negative”, “hypothetical”, “meta” or “systemic”. The main objective of this text, however, is a discussion of rational and moral aspects of risk-taking, and of risk governance within what will be called “risk cultures”. Culture, in this analysis, has three dimensions, a physical, an informational, and a social. Typically, only the adequate interplay of all the components in the three dimensions allows for a society, and an individual as its part, to adequately deal with risks. It is within—historically variable—risk cultures that risks are transformed. And it is a signature of modernity that risk cultures have become deliberate risk cultures.