The philosophy of technology assessment
pp. 201-226
in: Gonzalo Munvar (ed), Spanish studies in the philosophy of science, Berlin, Springer, 1996Abstrakt
The emergence of the new culture of risk (Beck, 1986; Lagadec, 1981) is obviously tied to the technological innovations characteristic of our time and to the failure to rectify the environmental and social risks of contemporary techno-science. We have a long list indeed of crises associated with this culture of risk: accidents in nuclear, chemical, and armament industries, related as much to production as to transportation; the continuous pollution of the environment and vital products by chemical processes and substances; the propagation of acid rain; the growing deterioration of the ozone layer; the prospective climate changes due to global warming; the poverty, the hunger, and the permanent economic and social crises in the so-called Third World, where the greater part of the world's population lives, multiplying incessantly; the threat of the eventual employment of chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons in war.