It is generally believed that while in some cases government should intervene to protect people from risk—by imposing air safety standards, for example—in other cases, such as mountain climbing, the onus should be on the individual to protect himself or herself. …
First, it is not easy to determine when a risk is voluntarily incurred. Although voluntariness may be entirely absent in the case of an unforeseeable collision with an asteroid, with most environmental, occupational, and other social risks, it is not an all-or-nothing matter, but rather one of degree. Risks incurred by airline passengers are typically thought to be involuntary, since passengers have no control over whether a plane is going to crash. But they can choose airlines on the basis of safety records or choose not to fly. In characterizing the risks as involuntary, people focus on a small part of a complex interaction, not the decision to fly, but the accident when it occurs.
Second, people often characterize risks as "voluntary" when they do not approve of the purpose for which people run the risks. It is unlikely that people would want to pour enormous taxpayer resources into lowering the risks associated with skydiving, even if the ratio of dollars spent to lives saved were quite good. By contrast, people would probably not object to spending enormous resources on improving the safety of firefighters, even though the decision to become a firefighter is voluntary. In short, there is
In general, the government should attempt to save as many lives as it can, subject to the limited public and private resources devoted to risk reduction. Departures from this principle should be justified not by invoking the allegedly voluntary or involuntary nature of a particular risk, but rather by identifying the more specific considerations for which notions of voluntariness serve as proxies.
The author's use of the phrase
do not exhaustively characterize the risks that people commonly face
The point the author makes in the line containing “no special magic” isn’t about “exhaustively” describing the risks people face. The point is that the distinction between voluntary and involuntary isn’t a helpful way to determine what kinds of risks should be protected against.
have been used to intentionally conceal the factors motivating government efforts to protect people from risks
The author never suggests that anyone has “intentionally” concealed anything.
have no meaning beyond their literal, dictionary definitions
The author doesn’t go so far as to say the words have “no meaning” beyond dictionary definitions. The author’s point is that they are inconsistently applied to risks, and so shouldn’t be a consideration when determining public policy. Whether the words ever have other meanings outside of dictionary definitions isn’t something the author has an opinion on.
are mistakenly believed to be characteristics that inform people's understanding of the consequences of risk
Actually, the author in P1 tells us that laypeople do consider voluntary vs. involuntary when thinking about risks. So it wouldn’t make sense for the author to say later that we “mistakenly” think laypeople understand risks in terms of voluntary vs. involuntary.
provide a flawed mechanism for making public policy decisions relating to risk reduction
This best captures the meaning of “no special magic,” for the reasons explained above (below the question stem).
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