Mark Kingwell

Risk is inescapable. Everyone does some level of risk assessment and has some level of risk tolerance that enables them to go about their day-to-day lives. The COVID-19 pandemic has turned the spotlight on the risks inherent in our day-to-day lives and illustrates yet again that risk, far from being a neutral or indifferent concept, has political, social, and racial dimensions. How can we reduce risk in our society and make it a more just and equitable one?

As a philosopher, Kingwell has a lot of resources to draw on in his discussion of risk. Not just the ancients, though: the Simpsons get a couple of look-ins, as does Hollywood. Overall, I found his style fairly readable, but I am more used to academic writing. I liked that this book made his citations obvious with footnotes rather than burying them in endnotes (or even blind endnotes).

This has a similar feel to the Oxford University Press “Very Short Introductions” series, at least in terms of page count and maybe font size, so if you like that series you may be tempted to check out this or other books in the series.… (meer)

We live in a risk society. Nearly everything we do involves risk. Our ability to assess those risks and to make rational choices to either mitigate risk or act in the face of risk may largely determine our ultimate success, as individuals, as a polity, and as a species. So it makes sense, even for lay thinkers, to give a bit of effort over to understanding the nature of risk. Whether a breezy, sometimes glib, treatment by a serious philosopher who has written at length (and I assume less glibly) on such matters will be the ideal medium to foster such thinking remains to be seen. Certainly the innumerable recounting of film and television plots, and charming personal anecdotes will carry the reader some distance. But will it hold their interest when the going gets tough? Serious thinking, even philosophy, is rarely a light read. On the other hand, when a writer describes those he disagrees with as “wackadoodle” perhaps it’s clear that the mantle of serious thinking has been set aside.

This is a slight book that might just as persuasively have made all its useful points if it were a slim article in a journal. Despite those reservations, this book is still worth reading though for the good stuff it might be best to just read through the footnotes.… (meer)