The Problem of Decision Making under Technological Risks in Today''s Global Society
At the late 20th century, the rise of societal risk awareness due to the most advanced products of scientific and technological progress became evident and perceived. Nuclear power facilities, chemical plants, genetic engineering, and other products of scientific technology are today at the center of the public debate on risk. Technological and scientific risks cannot be calculated only economically and mathematically. Not only mathematicians, engineers and economists, but also sociologists and philosophers are included today in the debate on the risk society. My article is brief survey an overview of some of the most conceptual Western studies of this subject (first of all, on understanding of concept of risk in the context of environment of human-technological), which I examine using social-philosophical and cross-disciplinary approaches. This review allowed me to identify the core of the concept of risk. First of all, this is indeterminacy, undependability of future decision making and attitudes toward the world. Future events regarded as ‘incidental’, as which able to be different. Uncertainty arises on the implications associated with a particular decision that can have both positive and negative consequences. Innovation and risk are forms of description of contemporary society that are relevant to the entire structure of society and reflect the changed circumstances that are typical for the particular time. Modern society has broken off continuity of past and future. From the perspective of the present, we are in a confrontation with the unknown future, on the one hand, and hopelessly historicized past, which henceforth cannot affect our activities and our decisions, on the other hand. By innovation we mean in this case decision-making process, in which we decide to do something different than expected. Thereby expectations themselves are changing. By the risk in this case we mean decision, in which it comes to possible damage, occurrence of which is uncertain today, but more or less probable or improbable. Both of these decisions operate with the future dimension. My conclusion is follows: in the current discussions about the need to modernize and accelerate progress along the path of innovative development as the principal means of survival in competitive global environment, the emphasis is on the positive aspects of this movement. Possible negative consequences fade into the background or are not considered at all. Meanwhile, one of these effects may be the loss of traditions. At the same time, it is very important to take into account our own experience in the development of innovative systems rather than only seek to transfer the experience of other countries: it is important to consider it, but not to be confined to them.