Working Out What Makes Sense in Safety
Analytical philosophy is a branch of philosophy that uses logical analysis to understand the world. The school of thought is most associated with Bertrand Russell, Ludwig Wittgenstein and G. E. Moore. It is also connected to the work of the logical positivists W. V. O. Quine and Karl Popper. This school of thought has its focus on language and what became known as ‘the logic turn’. What these philosophers focused on was the ‘sense’ of language and what defined as ‘non-sense’. They thought of language like mathematics and brought to language mathematical assumptions seeking to control language in the name of ‘sense’. Like the development of many philosophies, it was shaped by the rejection of previous philosophies namely, British Idealism.
Why does this matter to safety?
When Safety declares that something ‘makes sense’ what does it mean? Sense-making is neither neutral or objective. How one ‘makes sense’ of an accident for example, depends on the bias of the observer, the bias of the method and the hidden assumptions of the methodology. You can identify bias easily by the use of language and silences (https://safetyrisk.net/silences-in-safety/ ). To think that iCAM (https://safetyrisk.net/deconstructing-icam-useful-or-useless/ ) or some other investigations method is objective is absurd. Similarly, any ‘safety in design’.
All design is shaped by the philosophy that underpins it. All design carries an ‘affordance’, a bias embedded in the design that ‘tells’ users how to use it. Each school of thought in safety carries its own bias (https://safetyrisk.net/a-great-comparison-of-risk-and-safety-schools-of-thought/ ). How amazing that Safety doesn’t discuss its own bias.
The fact that most investigations methods on the safety market never discuss the problem of subjectivity says a great deal about a lack of professionalism. It also reveals an unethical approach to education and learning.
So, when the analytic philosophers set out to control language and its logic where did they end up? You guessed it, Ethics.
One cannot detach ethics-morality from method.
Any ‘doing’ of a method carries an ethic, that ultimately reveals what it considers about persons. This is why an ethic of personhood is central to an ethic of risk. None of which is discussed in the AIHS BoK Chapter on Ethics (https://safetyrisk.net/the-aihs-bok-and-ethics-check-your-gut/).
By omitting any discussion of persons in a safety approach to ethics, one is then free to dehumanize others in the pursuit of safety. The end justifies the means. As long as the outcome is zero, you can do whatever you want to persons.
One of the tragic characteristics of the safety industry is its complete disdain for philosophy. This enables Safety to imagine that it doesn’t have a philosophy/methodology and so its methods carry no bias and this somehow makes its activities automatically ethical. Even when the word ‘philosophy’ is mentioned Safety turns off. Just have a look at any safety curriculum globally and show me where philosophy, ethics, politics and critical thinking receive any value? How professional.
So, if you want to know if your methods (usually a copied template) ‘make sense’ or if what you do actually ‘works’, you need to also know what methodology underpins its design and method.
If your safety method doesn’t humanise persons, it doesn’t ‘make sense’.
If your safety method doesn’t humanise persons, it doesn’t ‘work’. (https://www.humandymensions.com/product/it-works-a-new-approach-to-risk-and-safety/ )
If your safety leadership doesn’t humanise persons, then it’s not leadership. (https://www.humandymensions.com/product/humanising-leadership-in-risk-shifting-focus-from-objects-to-persons/ )
Dr Rob Long
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simon cassin says
Hi Rob,
I was lucky to read your post a few days ago, but until now, I have been unable to salute your article.
So, here goes, Bravo! Rob, Bravo!
As you know, I have been extolling the opportunities afforded by adopting a philosophical attitude/method for several years (I am currently in my 7th consecutive year of academic study). I don’t always agree with your arguments or the manner you make them (I’ve become indoctrinated into the adoption of the philosophical principle of charity).
But I believe your comments about the H&S industry’s active avoidance of vital disciplines such as philosophy, ethics, semiotics, etc, are spot on. It seems that there is a fear of the unknown.
The benefits of adopting a philosophical attitude/method are many because it helps us consider which concepts are valuable and recognise the most reasonable ways to address them. The H&S industry’s normative understanding of how to approach what we might call ‘the people safety problem’ is often nonsensical. I agree with you when you argue for approaches rooted in personhood and informed by practical wisdom.
It is safety show season in the UK, and as always, the headliners consist of the same people reeling out the same old thoughts and ideas (sometimes they put a cherry on top). But there is a slight change in the air; more and more of my clients are open to the idea of the importance of ethics and critical thinking.
I worry that the current wise and wonderful will suddenly become experts in philosophy and ethics. In my experience, your average Joe/Julie is passionate about their H&S role and works tirelessly in their efforts. They work every day to help people and organisations work safely and healthily. I believe the majority are open to new ideas and, if necessary, open to change. These people need help, and in my opinion, the best way to supplement their experience and expertise is through what you describe as a transdisciplinary approach, which of course places philosophy front and centre.
Keep banging your drum, Rob. you may be slowly nudging the industry in the right direction?
I do hope so.
Cheerio, Simon
Rob Long says
Hi Simon, thanks. One day we might chat about charity. Interestingly the centerpiece of the theology of Paul who spent all of his time in letters admonishing the ethics and politics of the churches, absorbed in the syncretisms of cults. There is no point in charity unless it is not blind (as most of safety is) also connected to ethics, politics and learning.
The blogs I write are intended to provoke discussion and learning in areas where safety is profoundly silent and it is in these silences that Safety justifies its brutalisms in the name of good. Yes, Julie and Jill do they best they can within the constraints of what is thrown upon them including the appalling curriculum, indoctrination and compulsory miseducation delivered by the sector in associations, teaching institutions, conferences and written material that all build such a momentum and profile of what has been normalised as the ‘culture of safety’. Archetypically, this is then made immovable through cultural forces that are nearly impossible to move, sacralised wonderfully in the language of professionalism. The noise of all this stuff is deafening and as you say delivered by the same people saying the same things over the past 20 years, usually in the same philosophies of behaviouridm, positivism and scientism, using a host of different brands to say the same things. All along discouraging critical thinking so that nothing changes.