Speakers conference Moral Emotions
Paul Slovic
Paul Slovic is founder and director of Decision Research, Oregon (USA). Professor Slovic has done pioneering work concerning empirical decision theory, especially concerning risk perception of laypeople and experts. In more recent work, Prof. Slovic is studying the role of emotions in risk judgments of laypeople. His numerous publications include The Perception of Risk (Earthscan 2000) which is a collection of articles on this topic which he has published since the 1970s. He is co-editor of the ground-breaking D. Kahneman, P. Slovic, and A. Tversky (eds.) Judgment under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases (1982) Cambridge University Press, and co-author of Fischhoff, Baruch, Sarah Lichtenstein, Paul Slovic, Stephen L. Derby and Ralph Keeney (1981), Acceptable Risk, Cambridge University Press.
Title: Risk as Analysis and Risk as Feeling: An Examination of Emotion, Reason, Risk, and Rationality.
Abstract: Modern theories in psychology and neuroscience indicate that there are two fundamental ways in which human beings comprehend risk. The analytic system uses algorithms and normative rules, such as probability calculus, formal logic, and risk assessment. It is relatively slow, effortful, and requires conscious control. The experiential system is intuitive, fast, mostly automatic, and not very accessible to conscious awareness. The experiential system enabled human beings to survive during their long period of evolution and remains today the most natural and most common way to respond to risk. It relies on images and associations, linked by experience to emotion and affect (a feeling that something is good or bad). This system represents risk as a feeling that tells us whether it’s safe to walk down this dark street or drink this strange-smelling water. Proponents of formal risk analysis tend to view affective responses to risk as irrational. Current wisdom disputes this view. The rational and the experiential systems operate in parallel and each seems to depend on the other for guidance. Now that we are beginning to understand the complex interplay between emotion and reason that is essential to rational behavior, the challenge before us is to think creatively about what this means for managing risk. On the one hand, how do we apply reason to temper the strong emotions engendered by some risk events? On the other hand, how do we infuse needed “doses of feeling” into circumstances where lack of experience may otherwise leave us too “coldly rational”? My talk will begin to address these important questions within the context of the conference theme of moral acceptability or risks.
