Ethical Aspects of Technical Risks

19 important questions on Ethical Aspects of Technical Risks

What are the reasons that the hazards of a technology cannot be predicted?

  • Complexity
  • Uncertainty
  • Ignorance
  • Ambiguity

Which different strategies engineers follow to ensure safe products?

  1. Inherently safe design
  2. Safety factors
  3. Negative feedback mechanism
  4. Multiple independent safety barriers

What is Inherently safe design?

An approach to safe design that avoids hazards instead of coping them.
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What is Safety factors?

A factor or ratio by which an installation is made safer than is needed to withstand either the expected or the maximum (expected) load.

What is Negative feedback mechanism?

A mechanism that if a device fails or operator loses control assures that the (dangerous) device shuts down.

What is Multiple independent safety barriers?

A chain of safety barriers that operate independently of each other so that if one fails the others do no necessarily also fail.

What are the four steps that a Risk assessment consist of?

  1. Release assessment
  2. Exposure assessment
  3. Consequence assessment
  4. Risk estimation

Which two kinds of releases can be distinguished?

  • Incidental
  • Continuous

What is Failure mode?

Series of events that may lead to the failure of an installation.

How can the probability  of the occurrence be calculated?

  1. Statistical data about accidents in the past
  2. Event trees and fault trees

What is Fault tree?

Tree of events in which we move backwards from an unwanted event (a fault) to the events that could lead to undesirable event.

What is Models for dose-response relationships?

Models that presuppose or predict a certain relationship between dose and response.

What types of Models for dose-response relationships are used?

  • Animal tests
  • Epidemiological research

What is Animal tests?

Test for determining dose-response relationships by exposure animals to various dosages and assessing the their response.

What are the considerations for deciding whether a risk is morally acceptable?

  1. The degree of informed consent with the risk
  2. The degree to which the benefits of a risky activity weigh up against the disadvantages and risks
  3. The availability of alternatives with a lower risk
  4. The degree to which risks and advantages are justly distributed

What is Risk-cost-benefits analysis?

This is a variant of regular cost-benefit analysis. The social costs for risks reduction are weighed against the social benefits offered by risk reduction, so achieving an optimal level of risk in which the social benefits are highest.

What is Best available technology?

As an approach to acceptable risk, best available technology refers to an approach that does not prescribe a specific technology but uses the best available technological alternatives as yardstick for what is acceptable.

What is the general form of Precautionary principle?

  1. The threat dimension
  2. The uncertainty dimension
  3. The action dimension
  4. The prescription dimension; is mandatory

What is Societal experiments?

We speak of the introduction of new technology in society as a societal experiment if the (final) testing of possible hazards and risks of a technology and its functioning take place gy the actual implementation of a technology in society.

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