

Averting Catastrophe
Decision Theory for COVID-19, Climate Change, and Potential Disasters of All Kinds
Author: Cass R. Sunstein
Narrator: David Marantz
Unabridged: 3 hr 48 min
Format: Digital Audiobook Download
Publisher: Tantor Media
Published: 06/15/2021
Synopsis
Averting Catastrophe explores how governments ought to make decisions in times of imminent disaster. Cass R. Sunstein argues that using the "maximin rule," which calls for choosing the approach that eliminates the worst of the worst-case scenarios, may be necessary when public officials lack important information, and when the worst-case scenario is too disastrous to contemplate. He underscores this argument by emphasizing the reality of "Knightian uncertainty," found in circumstances in which it is not possible to assign probabilities to various outcomes. At once an approachable introduction to decision-theory and a provocative argument for how governments ought to handle risk, Averting Catastrophe offers a definitive path forward in a world rife with uncertainty.