These two contexts would make more and more difficult to separate the issue of
responsibility from the other parts of discussion to learn lessons from accident.
Separation of prosecution and investigation might become much more practically
difficult even in the societies that adopt this principle and have long experience of
practice of it.
In our conventional idea, especially in engineering field, we use an analyticl
approach of accidents. We break down an accident as a whole into “factors” and
find causal relationships among them. Finally, we identify the root causes of each
accident. In this approach, “factors” caused by or relevant to individual or organization also need to be dealt as “human factors” or “organizational factors.”
Experts consider those “factors” as manipulable (operational) elements. Thus, many
researches have invented various ways to prevent undesirable human behaviors or
to encourage desirable ones (so-called human engineering).
But, this conventional approach of engineering effort has little impact on the
post-accident human-related issues—responsibility issue and its ethical consequences. As described above, the increasing weight of human factors in causes and
amplification of damages of future accident is inevitable. It should lead people’s
attention and even anger to responsibility issue. Without to invent and implement
the way to deal with this aspect appropriately, every society would experience the
similar social deadlock that has been observed in post-Fukushima Japan centering
on nuclear issue. This is no longer a local requirement but the universal condition to
realize more resilient governance on advanced technologies, including nuclear
technology, of course.
5 An Idea of Remedy: Revisit the Origin of “Resilience”
Concept
It is obvious that this aporia very badly spoils our post-disaster resilience. It prevents our recovery process from the damages caused by the accident, spoils
improvement of technology based on the lessons of it, delays advancement of
robustness of the society and obstracts any other proactive efforts responding to the
disaster. Public outrage can never have positive effect for society to exert its resilience thoroughly, if it is just neglected or poorly cared.
Some (engineering) experts may still argue that this problem is solvable by
“education” of public (that encourage them to accept experts’ notion): we should let
them know that we need to keep those two things separated to make our society
resilient and to prevent the next similar failure. If this is a discussion about just
“failure,” not “accident,” it might be possible to maintain this strategy. However, it
is an indisputable principle of modern democratic society that we must take care of
the issue of damage and responsibility with deliberate ethical considerations and
the deep sense of social justice. That is the nature of “disaster.” Therefore, it is
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K. Juraku
responsibility from the other parts of discussion to learn lessons from accident.
Separation of prosecution and investigation might become much more practically
difficult even in the societies that adopt this principle and have long experience of
practice of it.
In our conventional idea, especially in engineering field, we use an analyticl
approach of accidents. We break down an accident as a whole into “factors” and
find causal relationships among them. Finally, we identify the root causes of each
accident. In this approach, “factors” caused by or relevant to individual or organization also need to be dealt as “human factors” or “organizational factors.”
Experts consider those “factors” as manipulable (operational) elements. Thus, many
researches have invented various ways to prevent undesirable human behaviors or
to encourage desirable ones (so-called human engineering).
But, this conventional approach of engineering effort has little impact on the
post-accident human-related issues—responsibility issue and its ethical consequences. As described above, the increasing weight of human factors in causes and
amplification of damages of future accident is inevitable. It should lead people’s
attention and even anger to responsibility issue. Without to invent and implement
the way to deal with this aspect appropriately, every society would experience the
similar social deadlock that has been observed in post-Fukushima Japan centering
on nuclear issue. This is no longer a local requirement but the universal condition to
realize more resilient governance on advanced technologies, including nuclear
technology, of course.
5 An Idea of Remedy: Revisit the Origin of “Resilience”
Concept
It is obvious that this aporia very badly spoils our post-disaster resilience. It prevents our recovery process from the damages caused by the accident, spoils
improvement of technology based on the lessons of it, delays advancement of
robustness of the society and obstracts any other proactive efforts responding to the
disaster. Public outrage can never have positive effect for society to exert its resilience thoroughly, if it is just neglected or poorly cared.
Some (engineering) experts may still argue that this problem is solvable by
“education” of public (that encourage them to accept experts’ notion): we should let
them know that we need to keep those two things separated to make our society
resilient and to prevent the next similar failure. If this is a discussion about just
“failure,” not “accident,” it might be possible to maintain this strategy. However, it
is an indisputable principle of modern democratic society that we must take care of
the issue of damage and responsibility with deliberate ethical considerations and
the deep sense of social justice. That is the nature of “disaster.” Therefore, it is
164
K. Juraku