The Ethics of Nuclear Energy Risk, Justice and Democracy in the Post-Fukushima Era

About this book

Despite the nuclear accident at the Fukushima-Daiichi plant in Japan, a growing number of countries are interested in expanding or introducing nuclear energy. However, nuclear energy production and nuclear waste disposal give rise to pressing ethical questions that society needs to face. The Ethics of Nuclear Energy takes up this challenge with essays by an international team of scholars focusing on the key issues of risk, justice and democracy. The essays consider a range of ethical issues including radiological protection, the influence of gender in the acceptability of nuclear risk, and environmental, international and intergenerational justice in the context of nuclear energy. They also address the question of when and under which conditions nuclear energy should play a role in the world's future supply of electricity, looking at both developing and industrialized countries. The Ethics of Nuclear Energy will interest readers in ethics and political philosophy, social and political sciences, nuclear engineering and policy studies.

Contents

1. The ethics of nuclear energy: an introduction Behnam Taebi and Sabine Roeser

Part I. Risk:
2. Nuclear energy and the ethics of radiation protection Sven Ove Hansson
3. The unknowable ceilings of safety: three ways that nuclear accidents escape the calculus of risk assessments John Downer
4. Rights to know and the Fukushima, Chernobyl and Three Mile Island accidents Kristin Shrader-Frechette
5. Gender, ethical voices and UK nuclear energy policy in the post-Fukushima era Karen Henwood and Nick Pidgeon

Part II. Justice:
6. The need for a public 'explosion' in the ethics of radiological protection in nuclear power Stephen M. Gardiner
7. Distributive versus procedural justice in nuclear waste repository siting Pius Krütli, Kjell Törnblom, Ivo Wallimann-Helmer and Michael Stauffacher
8. Nuclear energy, justice, and energy: the case of the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station license renewal Bindu Panikkar and Ronald Sandler
9. Non-anthropocentric nuclear energy ethics John Nolt
Part III. Democracy:
10. Morally experimenting with nuclear energy Ibo van de Poel
11. Global nuclear energy and international security Thomas E. Doyle, II
12. Nuclear energy, the capability approach and the developing world Paolo Gardoni and Colleen Murphy
13. The role of nuclear energy in the future energy landscape: energy scenarios, nuclear energy and sustainability Rafaela Hillerbrand

Bibliography
Index

Customer Reviews

Biography

Behnam Taebi is Assistant Professor of Ethics of Technology at the Philosophy Department of Delft University of Technology and a Research Fellow at Harvard Kennedy School's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. He is the author of The Morally Desirable Option for Nuclear Power Production (2011) and the editor of several volumes, including The Socio-Technical Challenges of Nuclear Power Production and Waste Management (forthcoming, 2015).

Sabine Roeser is Professor of Ethics at the Philosophy Department of Delft University of Technology, the Netherlands. She is the author of Moral Emotions and Intuitions (2011) and the editor of numerous volumes, including The Ethics of Technological Risk (2009), Handbook of Risk Theory (2012) and Emotion and Value (2014).


Contributors:
- Behnam Taebi
- Sabine Roeser
- Sven Ove Hansson
- John Downer
- Kristin Shrader-Frechette
- Karen Henwood
- Nick Pidgeon
- Stephen M. Gardiner
- Pius Krütli
- Kjell Törnblom
- Ivo Wallimann-Helmer
- Michael Stauffacher
- Bindu Panikkar
- Ronald Sandler
- John Nolt
- Ibo van de Poel
- Thomas E. Doyle, II
- Paolo Gardoni
- Colleen Murphy
- Rafaela Hillerbrand