From risk to flourishing: Seeds for responding to a complex world

2026-07-21

AI Summary

Traditional risk science, constrained by reductionism and disciplinary fragmentation, struggles to incorporate “flourishing” as a normative goal for addressing the complexity of socio-ecological-technical systems. This study proposes a dialectical paradigm grounded in dialogue, pluralism, and pragmatism, reconfiguring risk science by integrating three core tensions: physical/social, determinism/uncertainty, and situatedness/universality. It innovatively positions “flourishing” as the guiding objective of risk governance and synthesizes complexity theory with a dialectical analytical framework to articulate key principles—including interdependence, responsiveness, participation, pluralism, openness, and sustainability. The research thus provides a theoretical foundation and novel pathway toward a more resilient, caring, and practice-oriented science of complex risk.

Abstract

Flourishing is the actualization of all beings toward their good -- not only individually but collectively, answering the question of `how do we live well with and for each other?'. In science as in society, the tendency to reduce, segregate, specialize, and settle has precluded embracing the concept of flourishing as a guiding principle. We aim to identify an approach to risk science research that promotes the flourishing of socio-ecological-technological systems (SETS). We discuss the normative role of an orientation toward flourishing for the field of risk science. We explore the possibility that (risk) science could be done in a way that is capable of pointing society toward a different future, one more resilient and more capable of flourishing. Our exploration mirrors the conversational nature of flourishing itself: examine ideologies traditionally believed to be rigidly in opposition and consider what emerges in the space(s) and conversation between them. We call this a dialectical approach. Within this paradigm grounded in conversation, pluralism, and pragmatism, we revisit three longstanding tensions in risk science: physical$|$social, determinism$|$uncertainty, contextuality$|$generality. Although these tensions are not new, revisiting them together through the lens of complexity science, and with explicit attention to the normative commitments that shape risk research, reveals underexplored possibilities for the field. Examining them in conversation with the other allows us to explore the provisional seeds for what might be termed complex risk science: interdependence, responsivity, participation, pluralism, openness, and ongoingness. Enacting the dialectical paradigm towards a risk science for a flourishing world will depend on creating collectives toward complex risk science, supporting them with skillfully governed commons, and centering care in our research.

Problem

• flourishing
• risk science
• socio-ecological-technological systems
• complexity
• normative commitments

Innovation

• flourishing
• dialectical approach
• complex risk science
• socio-ecological-technological systems
• normative commitments