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.
Which one of the following most accurately describes the author's attitude in the passage?
chagrin at the rampant misunderstanding of the relative risks associated with various activities
The author never takes issue with people’s assessments of relative risks. What the author criticizes is their identification of some risks as voluntary or involuntary. But “relative risks associated with various activities” refers to the magnitude of risk — what’s more dangerous? It doesn’t refer to whether risks are voluntary or involuntary.
concern that policy guided mainly by laypeople's emphasis on the voluntariness of risk would lead to excessive government regulation
The author never expresses concern about too much government regulation.
skepticism about the reliability of laypeople's intuitions as a general guide to deciding government risk-management policy
This best captures the author’s attitude. She doesn’t think we should rely on laypeople’s intuitions about voluntariness when deciding risk-management policy.
conviction that the sole criterion that can justify government intervention to reduce risk is the saving of human lives
Too extreme. The author doesn’t claim that this should be the “sole” criterion. The author is open to “departures from this principle,” as long as we don’t focus on the voluntary or involuntary nature of a risk.
eagerness to persuade the reader that policy experts' analysis of risk is distorted by subtle biases
The author doesn’t criticize policy experts’ analysis of risks. The author criticizes laypeople’s analysis.
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