Defining risk: Normative considerations

The public thinks about (i.e., defines) environmental human health risks in different terms than the “experts.”; And because the manner in which we conceive of risk goes a long way in determining how risk management is conceived and carried out, any definition of risk has important normative elements. I argue that environmental policy based on the public's conception of risk fails to adequately protect fundamental human rights to health and liberty, by taking undue account of certain psychological factors that enter into the public's perception of risk. A survey of some of these factors is offered in an attempt to determine their policy relevance. The traditional scientific conception of risk, although not adequate to entirely define risk policy, serves as an important anchor for the protection of these rights by focusing on the probability or number of adverse health effects.