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- Boholm, Max, 1982-
(author)
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Risk, language and discourse
- 2016
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- This doctoral thesis analyses the concept of risk and how it functions as an organizing principle of discourse, paying close attention to actual linguistic practice. Article 1 analyses the concepts of risk, safety and security and their relations based on corpus data (the Corpus of Contemporary American English). Lexical, grammatical and semantic contexts of the nouns risk, safety and security, and the adjectives risky, safe and secure are analysed and compared. Similarities and differences are observed, suggesting partial synonymy between safety (safe) and security (secure) and semantic opposition to risk (risky). The findings both support and contrast theoretical assumptions about these concepts in the literature. Article 2 analyses the concepts of risk and danger and their relation based on corpus data (in this case the British National Corpus). Frame semantics is used to explore the assumptions of the sociologist Niklas Luhmann (and others) that the risk concept presupposes decision-making, while the concept of danger does not. Findings partly support and partly contradict this assumption. Article 3 analyses how newspapers represent risk and causality. Two theories are used: media framing and the philosopher John Mackie’s account of causality. A central finding of the study is that risks are “framed” with respect to causality in several ways (e.g. one and the same type of risk can be presented as resulting from various causes). Furthermore, newspaper reporting on risk and causality vary in complexity. In some articles, risks are presented without causal explanations, while in other articles, risks are presented as results from complex causal conditions. Considering newspaper reporting on an aggregated overall level, complex schemas of causal explanations emerge. Article 4 analyses how phenomena referred to by the term nano (e.g. nanotechnology, nanoparticles and nanorobots) are represented as risks in Swedish newspaper reporting. Theoretically, the relational theory of risk and frame semantics are used. Five main groups of nano-risks are identified based on the risk object of the article: (I) nanotechnology; (II) nanotechnology and its artefacts (e.g. nanoparticles and nanomaterials); (III) nanoparticles, without referring to nanotechnology; (IV) non-nanotechnological nanoparticles (e.g. arising from traffic); and (V) nanotechnology and nanorobots. Various patterns are explored within each group, concerning, for example, what is considered to be at stake in relation to these risk objects, and under what conditions. It is concluded that Swedish patterns of newspaper reporting on nano-risks follow international trends, influenced by scientific assessment, as well as science fiction. Article 5 analyses the construction and negotiation of risk in the Swedish controversy over the use of antibacterial silver in health care and consumer products (e.g. sports clothes and equipment). The controversy involves several actors: print and television news media, Government and parliament, governmental agencies, municipalities, non-government organisations, and companies. In the controversy, antibacterial silver is claimed to be a risk object that negatively affects health, the environment, and sewage treatment industry (objects at risk). In contrast, such claims are denied. Antibacterial silver is even associated with the benefit of mitigating risk objects (e.g. bacteria and micro-organisms) that threaten health and the environment (objects at risk). In other words, both sides of the controversy invoke health and the environment as objects at risk. Three strategies organising risk communication are identified: (i) representation of silver as a risk to health and the environment; (ii) denial of such representations; and (iii) benefit association, where silver is construed to mitigate risks to health and the environment.
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| 2. |
- Döhlen Wedin, Anna
(author)
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The planner's dilemma : An ethical investigation of adaptation to sea level rise
- 2023
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- This is a thesis on the ethics of adaptation to sea level rise, with a focus on proactive adaptation planning. The research, which has been conducted within a transdisciplinary research project, takes a bottom-up approach to applied ethics, and has been conducted in close collaboration withadaptation planners and other project partners. The thesis consists of an introductory chapter which includes broader methodological concerns, and an overview of scientific and theoretical issues that are considered as relevant background to the broader research topic, as well as five articles.Article 1: Departing from an interview study with planners working with adaptation to sea level rise in Sweden, a typology of ethical issuesis presented. It is shown that planners have to deal with input-oriented, process-oriented, and outcome-oriented ethical issues, and that knowledge of these can contribute to ethical adaptation policy.Article 2: Responsibility of adaptation to sea level rise is often assigned to local planners. But what does it mean to be responsible? Departing from the idea of professional virtues, three codes of ethics for planners are analysed to extract aspirational characteristics for planners. The identified virtues are put in relation to central challenges of adaptation, where five virtues stand out as central to the understanding of what it means to be responsible in adaptation to sea level rise.Article 3: A method building on Value Sensitive Design (VSD) and scenario planning is developed and applied to address the challenge of integrating ethics when planning for uncertainty over long time-horizons, in the context of adaptation to sea level rise. The method iscalled VSSP and consists of three steps for scenario development and three steps for value investigations. The application resulted in insights on aspects important for an ethical long-term adaptation to sea levelrise.Article 4: Climate change and adaptation to climate change tend to have disproportionately negative impacts on women. An analysis of what a gender-sensitive adaptation planning needs to address is conducted, and the potential of VSSP as an approach for promoting gender equality in long-term adaptation planning is investigated.Article 5: The concept of feasibility, as it is used in the climate change context, is discussed. It is found that common uses of the term fail to capture what is meant by feasibility, and that this can have significant consequences for practical deliberation on climate policy. The conditional probability account of feasibility, as discussed in political theory, is suggested as a preferable account for feasibility in the climate change discourse.In all, the thesis explores a range of ethical topics of relevance in the context of planning for a sustainable adaptation to sea level rise. It bridges practical experiences and concerns with insights from the fields of climate ethics, decision theory, philosophy of technology, and political philosophy, to mention a few. In doing this, the thesis contributes to thegrowing field of ethics of climate change adaptation, with results that can be of interest to both philosophers, planners, and others working with adaptation genrally and adaptation to sea level rise specifically.
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| 3. |
- Lundgren, Björn, 1984-
(author)
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Semantic Information and Information Security : Definitional Issues
- 2016
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Licentiate thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- This licentiate thesis consist of two separate research papers which concern two tangential topics – that of semantic information and that of information security. Both topics are approached by similar methods, i.e. with a concern about conceptual and definitional issues. In Paper I – concerning the concept of information, and a semantic conception thereof – the conceptual, and definitional, issues focus on one property, that of truthfulness. It is argued – against the veridicality thesis – that semantic information need not be truthful. In Paper II – concerning information security – it is argued that the current leading definitions (so-called ‘CIA’ definitions, which define information as secure if, and only if, the properties of confidentiality, integrity, and availability are retained) suffer from both actual and possible counter-examples, and lack an appropriate conceptual sense. On the basis of this criticism a new kind of definitions is proposed and argued for.
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| 4. |
- Möller, Niklas, 1970-
(author)
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Thick Concepts in Practice : Normative Aspects of Risk and Safety
- 2009
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- The thesis aims at analyzing the concepts of risk and safety as well as the class of concepts to which they belong, thick concepts, focusing in particular on the normative aspects involved. Essay I analyzes thick concepts, i.e. concepts such as cruelty and kindness that seem to combine descriptive and evaluative features. The traditional account, in which thick concepts are analyzed as the conjunction of a factual description and an evaluation, is criticized. Instead, it is argued that the descriptive and evaluative aspects must be understood as a whole. Furthermore, it is argued that the two main worries evoked against non-naturalism – that non-naturalism cannot account for disagreement and that it is not genuinely explanatory – can be met. Essay II investigates the utilization of the Kripke/Putnam causal theory of reference in relation to the Open Question Argument. It is argued that the Open Question Argument suitably interpreted provides prima facie evidence against the claim that moral kinds are natural kinds, and that the causal theory, as interpreted by leading naturalist defenders, actually underscores this conclusion. Essay III utilizes the interpretation of the Open Question Argument argued for in the previous essay in order to argue against naturalistic reduction of risk, i.e. reduction of risk into natural concepts such as probability and harm. Three different normative aspects of risk and safety are put forward – epistemic uncertainty, distributive normativity and border normativity – and it is argued that these normative aspects cannot be reduced to a natural measure. Essay IV provides a conceptual analysis of safety in the context of societal decision-making, and argues for a notion that explicitly includes epistemic uncertainty, the degree to which we are uncertain of our knowledge of the situation at hand. Some formal versions of a comparative safety concept are also proposed. Essay V puts forward a normative critique against a common argument, viz. the claim that the public should follow the experts’ advice in recommending an activity whenever the experts have the best knowledge of the risk involved. The importance of safety in risk acceptance together with considerations from epistemic uncertainty makes the claim incorrect even after including plausible limitations to exclude ‘external’ considerations. Furthermore, it is shown that the scope of the objection covers risk assessment as well as risk management. Essay VI provides a systematized account of safety engineering practices that clarifies their relation to the goal of safety engineering, namely to increase safety. A list of 24 principles referred to in the literature of safety engineering is provided, divided into four major categories. It is argued that important aspects of these methods can be better understood with the help of the distinction between risk and uncertainty, in addition to the common distinction between risk and probability.
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