Quantitative Risk Assessment pp 225-237 | Cite as
Risk and the Social Value of a Life
Abstract
Many risk-management decisions in the sphere of public policy hinge on the issue of evaluating and comparing various measures to reduce risk to life. On the surface, such problems seem to have a straightforward solution: Estimate how many lives the measure may be expected to save, and then multiply the resulting number by the “value of a life.” Accordingly, it is maintained that the planning of measures such as installing safety devices or rebuilding hazardous facilities implicitly rests on assessing the value of human lives in essentially economic terms. Decisions of the sort at issue here are seen as a straightforwardly hardheaded matter of comparing the cost of the protective measure on the one hand, with the product of lives saved by “the value of a life” on the other. Consider just one example of this line of thought (quoted from a recent discussion):
Keywords
Accidental Death Social Account Rational Deliberation Industry Coal Mining Private Health PlanPreview
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References
- 1.Lee J. Seidler and Lynn L. Seidler, eds. (1975) The Cost-Benefits of Saving Lives, in Social Accounting: Theory, Issues and Cases, Los Angeles, p. 319. The account is based on an article in Business Week (October 14, 1972), p. 41.Google Scholar
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