Moral Judgments Around Experiences of Health Risks

In dealing with risk, institutions and individuals elaborate different forms of social control. The distinction between proper and inadequate attitudes and actions toward risks generates moral judgments. Some individuals or groups are typically blamed for not acting according to the dominant definitions of risk. These social mechanisms reproduce or make explicit the power relationships between different categories entitled to define appropriate ways to deal with danger. Such blaming mechanisms are particularly common when new threats emerge, such as infectious diseases but also during times of social change, since they unsettle the established social order. Prevention campaigns providing information on different health risks contribute to setting boundaries between others who are dangerous—because they are infected or because they smoke, for example—and the virtuous self. Efforts to control risks thus generate stigmatization and discrimination. Considering that risk surveillance introduces suspicion in social relationships, this chapter shows how interpretations of risk and uncertainty exacerbate preexisting social and cultural divisions when making sense of emerging threats.