Acceptable Risk [Paperback]

Baruch Fischhoff (Author), Sarah Lichtenstein (Author), Paul Slovic (Author), Steven L. Derby (Author), Ralph Keeney (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 27, 1984

The common denominator of a growing number of hard decisions facing modern societies is the need to determine 'how safe is safe enough?'. The authors begin by defining acceptable-risk problems and analysing why they are so difficult to resolve, considering such issues as uncertainty about their definition, lack of relevant facts, conflicting and conflicted social values, and disagreements between technical experts and the lay public. Drawing on their own experience in risk management as well as the relevant research literatures, they identify and characterise the variety of methods that have been proposed for resolving acceptable-risk problems. They subject these methods to a rigorous critique in terms of philosophical presuppositions, technical feasibility, political acceptability, and validity of underlying assumptions about human behaviour. The authors construct a framework for deciding how to make decisions about risks, and offer recommendations for research, public policy, and practice. Although their principal focus is on technological hazards, their analysis applies to many risks, such as those from new medical treatments or innovative programmes in criminal justice. The necessity of balancing risks and benefits impinges on most people's lives, and a broad audience will find this book thought-provoking and useful.

Editorial Reviews

Review

'A brief summary cannot do justice to the depth and breadth of the analysis laid out in Acceptable Risk ... [The authors] have achieved a masterly systematization of the many practical, methodological, and philosophical problems raised by attempts to answer the question, "how safe is safe enough?"' Nature

' ... the best critical exposition of ways to think about risks ... ends with many sensible recommendations ...' Ian Hacking, The New York Review of Books

Book Description

The authors offer a new framework for decisions about risks and make recommendations for research, for public policy and for practice. Although their principal focus is on technological hazards, their analysis is applicable to other risks, such as those from new medical treatments or innovative programs in criminal justice.

Product Details

• Paperback: 204 pages
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press (January 27, 1984)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0521278929
• ISBN-13: 978-0521278928
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #985,718 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars This is an excellent monograph on the thinking behind risk, March 31, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Acceptable Risk (Paperback)

I read this monograph years ago and lent it to someone who obviously found it equally fascinating because I've never had it back. If risk is a theme in your work, the ideas in Fischoff and Lichtenstein's book are worth reading. They offer explanations and analysis which seem to match how real people and organisations take risk decisions.END

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant and insightful, April 29, 2001

By 

J. G. Heiser (Sunninghill, Berks) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Acceptable Risk (Paperback)

This is a brilliant and stimulating book. Although it nominally concerns itself with the area of hazard management, policy and technology choices associated with loss of life or limb, it provides a great deal of insight into all forms of risk management and formal decision making.

A very well-researched book, it is obvious that the authors have not only thought long and hard about the subject matter, but have also applied a very disciplined analysis to it. Although the authors are scholars, the book is not necessarily aimed at an academic audience. While challenging, it is still approachable by the lay person.

The text does not recommend any particular methodology for decision making, but instead provides a context within which different decision making methods can be understood and evaluated. It begins by analyzing the problems confronting all acceptable risk decisions, discussing '5 generic complexities' that negatively affect all forms of formal risk analysis. Then the authors provide '7 criteria for evaluating the acceptability of approaches to acceptable risk.' The remainder of the book is spent analyzing approaches to risk management on a spectrum of empirical to formal methods, using their 7 criteria.

I found it an extremely enlightening text with applicability beyond that stated by the authors. It sheds light on many of the 'formal' methods that have been developed for areas of concern to me, specifically in the Information Security field, which often tends towards voodoo analysis based on unstated assumptions and incomplete methodologies. Although it was written over 20 years ago, it still provides a great deal of utility and insight today. One of the text's final recommendations is that the field of Risk Management be made into a formal career choice, with all of the 'formal trappings'. It is a tribute to the foresight of the authors that this is exactly what is happening today, with the emergence of the Chief Risk Officer role, trade journals devoted to the generic concept of risk, and ever greater academic attention and career training in risk management.