K. S. Shrader-Frechette - Böcker

Shrader-Frechette looks at current U.S. government policy regarding the nation's high-level radioactive waste both scientifically and ethically. What should be done with our nation's high-level radioactive waste, which will remain hazardous for thousands of years? This is one of the most pressing problems faced by the nuclear power industry, and current U.S. government policy is to bury 'radwastes' in specially designed deep repositories. K. S. Shrader-Frechette argues that this policy is profoundly misguided on both scientific and ethical grounds. Scientifically - because we cannot trust the precision of 10,000-year predictions that promise containment of the waste. Ethically - because geological disposal ignores the rights of present and future generations to equal treatment, due process, and free informed consent. Shrader-Frechette focuses her argument on the world's first proposed high-level radioactive waste facility at Yucca Mountain, Nevada. Analyzing a mass of technical literature, she demonstrates the weaknesses in the professional risk-assessors' arguments that claim the site is sufficiently safe for such a plan.We should postpone the question of geological disposal for at least a century and use monitored, retrievable, above-ground storage of the waste until then. Her message regarding radwaste is clear: what you can't see can hurt you.

Risk and Rationality: Philosophical Foundations for Populist Reforms offers a rigorous philosophical reconstruction of how societies should evaluate and govern technological hazards. K. S. Shrader-Frechette charts a “middle path” between cultural relativism and naive positivism, demonstrating why risk evaluation is neither a mere social construct nor a value-free technical exercise. After situating modern risk analysis in its institutional history (NEPA, OSHA, RARADA), she dissects the value judgments embedded in all three stages of assessment—identification, estimation, and evaluation—showing how methodological choices shape policy outcomes. Through targeted critiques of prevailing strategies—expert/lay splits between “perceived” and “actual” risk, probability-only decision rules, Bayesian–utilitarian maximization under deep uncertainty, producer-favoring default choices, and the “isolationist” discounting of Third-World harms—Shrader-Frechette argues that lay aversion to involuntary, catastrophic, or inequitably distributed risks is often more rational than experts concede.The book’s constructive core advances “scientific proceduralism,” a normative framework that weds empirical objectivity to democratic ethics. Risk evaluations, Shrader-Frechette contends, can be objective—insofar as they are probabilistically revisable and open to critical testing—while also answerable to principles of equity, consent, and due process. She proposes methodological reforms (ethically weighted risk–cost–benefit analysis; performance-based ranking of expert judgments by predictive accuracy) and procedural reforms (free, informed consent for imposed risks; compensation and due-process rights; market-share liability) that realign assessment and management with public reason. Bridging philosophy of science, environmental ethics, and policy analysis, Risk and Rationality supplies scholars and practitioners with a defensible account of rational risk governance—one that explains persistent public opposition to hazardous sitings without pathologizing citizens, and that equips analysts to design evaluations and institutions capable of earning democratic legitimacy.This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1991.

Risk and Rationality: Philosophical Foundations for Populist Reforms offers a rigorous philosophical reconstruction of how societies should evaluate and govern technological hazards. K. S. Shrader-Frechette charts a “middle path” between cultural relativism and naive positivism, demonstrating why risk evaluation is neither a mere social construct nor a value-free technical exercise. After situating modern risk analysis in its institutional history (NEPA, OSHA, RARADA), she dissects the value judgments embedded in all three stages of assessment—identification, estimation, and evaluation—showing how methodological choices shape policy outcomes. Through targeted critiques of prevailing strategies—expert/lay splits between “perceived” and “actual” risk, probability-only decision rules, Bayesian–utilitarian maximization under deep uncertainty, producer-favoring default choices, and the “isolationist” discounting of Third-World harms—Shrader-Frechette argues that lay aversion to involuntary, catastrophic, or inequitably distributed risks is often more rational than experts concede.The book’s constructive core advances “scientific proceduralism,” a normative framework that weds empirical objectivity to democratic ethics. Risk evaluations, Shrader-Frechette contends, can be objective—insofar as they are probabilistically revisable and open to critical testing—while also answerable to principles of equity, consent, and due process. She proposes methodological reforms (ethically weighted risk–cost–benefit analysis; performance-based ranking of expert judgments by predictive accuracy) and procedural reforms (free, informed consent for imposed risks; compensation and due-process rights; market-share liability) that realign assessment and management with public reason. Bridging philosophy of science, environmental ethics, and policy analysis, Risk and Rationality supplies scholars and practitioners with a defensible account of rational risk governance—one that explains persistent public opposition to hazardous sitings without pathologizing citizens, and that equips analysts to design evaluations and institutions capable of earning democratic legitimacy.This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1991.