This book gives decision-makers a logical overall philosophy of risk that will enable them to make sound and consistently defensible decisions about the acceptability of risk. The authors examine a variety of activities - as diverse as major industrial projects and medicine, finance and sport, transport and manufacturing - to identify the factors common to all determinations of risk acceptability, and develop a hypothesis about the aspects of risk that are universally acceptable.

This book develops a comprehensive approach, known as the Ranking Technique, for the assessment of decision options. It aims to provide a way of presenting a decision maker with a consistent method of making a thorough assessment of all the factors associated with complex decisions. The Ranking Technique is based on a detailed analysis of all the issues involved and presents the results in a simple manner which should be understandable by the lay public not versed in the complexities of the issues involved. Ranking Technique is illustrated by application to four major decisions that have caused controversy and one fuel resource evaluation, although it is stressed that the Technique is applicable to all decision-making situations. The study describes how technical, economic and socio-political factors can be evaluated and their significance integrated to give a comprehensive assessment of the decision options.