13 th Lecture: Risk Acceptance and Life Safety in Decision Making
Aim of the present lecture
The present lecture deals with the prioritization of possible different societal investments for
the purpose of saving human lives. This problem complex touches fundamental societal moral
settings and its solution necessitates that fundamental values, forming the basis of society, are
duly taken into account. First the issue of fundamental societal values is addressed according
to the UN Charter on Human Rights. Thereafter, preferences are discussed with a view to the
possible differences of preferences of individuals and society. Based on this it is highlighted
that for engineering decision making a normative perspective for the treatment of preferences
and decision making is required. Subsequently typical formats for the presentation of results
of risk assessments and for the verification of risk acceptance are provided. It is explained
that the basis for such traditional formats is often based on experience and expert judgment
and generally lacks a generally applicable and consistent philosophy. Thereafter life risks as
experienced by persons and risks related to a variety of engineering business activities are
discussed. It is observed that the risks as experienced in the past may indeed not reflect a
targeted treatment of societal risks. With this stating point a new concept is introduced which
is called the Life Quality Index (LQI) and based on this, it is shown how life safety risk
acceptance criteria may be derived and also how compensation costs included in the
optimization of decision alternatives may be derived. Finally, some very recent considerations
on how to derive sustainable decisions in engineering are outlined and it is shown how utility
functions can be formulated and applied to support socio-economical sustainable decisions.
Based on the introduced material in this lecture it is aimed for that the students should acquire
knowledge and skills in regard to:
Which are the basic value settings of society concerning life saving prioritization?
What are the implications of the UN Charter of human rights for engineering decision
making?
How may personal and societal preferences differ and how to account for this in
engineering decision making?
Which are traditional formats for risk acceptability and which are their weaknesses?
What can be learned from statistical assessments of risks based on past experience?
What is the LQI and which demographical constants does it depend on?
How does the Societal Willingness To Pay (SWTP) criterion relate to the LQI?
How does the SWTP criterion relate to the assessment of acceptable structural failure
probabilities?
How may compensation costs be assessed and included in the decision optimization?