Social Benefit Versus Technological Risk: What is Our Society Willing to Pay for Safety?

Abstract

This chapter offers an approach for establishing a quantitative measure of benefit relative to cost for an important element in our spectrum of social values specifically, for accidental deaths arising from technological developments in public use. As a result, our society historically has arrived at acceptable balances of technological benefit and social cost empirically by trial, error and subsequent corrective steps. In examining the historical benefit-risk relationships for 'involuntary' activities, it is important to recognize the perturbing role of public psychological acceptance of risk arising from the influence of authorities or dogma. Assuming that some long-range societal benefit was anticipated from this war, author find that the related risk, as seen by society as a whole, is not substantially different from the average non-military risk from disease. The risks associated with general aviation, commercial aviation and travel by motor vehicle deserve special comment.