Science Policy, Ethics, and Economic Methodology: Some Problems of Technology Assessment and Environmental-Impact Analysis / Edition 1

by Kristin Shrader-Frechette

Overview

If indeed scientists and technologists, especially economists, set much of the agenda by which the future is played out, and I think they do, then the student of scientific methodology and public ethics has at least three options. He can embrace certain scientific methods and the value they hold for social decisionmaking, much as Milton Friedman has accepted neoclassical econom­ ics. Or, he can condemn them, regardless of their value, much as Stuart Hampshire has rejected risk-cost-benefit analysis (RCBA). Finally, he can critically assess these scientific methods and attempt to provide solutions to the problems he has uncovered. As a philosopher of science seeking the middle path between uncritical acceptance and extremist rejection of the economic methods used in policy analysis, I have tried to avoid the charge of being "anti science". Fred Hapgood, in response to my presentation at a recent Boston Colloquium for the Philosophy of Science, said that my arguments "felt like" a call for rejection of the methods of risk-cost-benefit analysis. Not so, as Chapter Two of this volume should make eminently clear. All my criticisms are construc­ tive ones, and the flaws in economic methodology which I address are uncovered for the purpose of suggesting means of making good techniques better. Likewise, although I criticize the economic methodology by which many technology assessments (TA's) and environmental-impact analyses (EIA's) have been used to justify public projects, it is wrong to conclude that I am anti-technology.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9789027718068
Publisher:	Springer Netherlands
Publication date:	12/31/1984
Edition description:	1985
Pages:	321
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.25(h) x 0.03(d)

Table of Contents

I. Introduction.- One: An Overview of Technology Assessment and Environmental-Impact Analysis.- Two: Assessing Risk-Cost-Benefit Analysis, the Preeminent Method of Technology Assessment and Environmental-Impact Analysis.- II. General Methodological Problems.- Three: The Retreat from Ethical Analysis.- Four: The Fallacy of Unfinished Business.- III. Particular Methodological Problems.- Five: RCBA and the Aggregation Assumption.- Six: RCBA and the Assumption of Partial Quantification.- Seven: The Problem of Regional Equity.- IV. Steps towards Solutions.- Eight: Ethically Weighted Risk-Cost-Benefit Analysis.- Nine: Assessment Through Adversary Proceedings.- Index of Names.- Index of Subjects.

Editorial Reviews

‘...presents what may be the best philosophic defense we have of economic techniques used in policy analysis. Both the friends and foes of these techniques may profitably read this careful, balanced and scholarly book.'
The Philosophical Review

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