ARIA Annual Meeting,

• Published date: 01 September 2001
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/1098-1616.00003
• Date: 01 September 2001
• Author: Robert E. Keeton

©Risk Management and Insurance Review, 2001, Vol. 4, No. 2, 25-27

ARIA ANNUAL MEETING

AUGUST 13, 2001

INDIANAPOLIS,IN

Remarks of Robert E. Keeton

THE PRESIDENT’S SEMINAR LUNCHEON

I have exactly a dozen points I want to make. I will try to make them in two minutes

each, so I will end these remarks 24 minutes from now.

FIRST:

THREE POINTS ABOUT RISK:

POINT ONE: The term risk, as ordinarily used and understood among nonspecialists

in our society, is a blend of what we think we know and what we know we do not

know. It is a blend of human perception as fact and human conception about uncertain-

ties of the future. Risk in this commonsense meaning is an extraordinarily useful tool

for planning and managing if we use it wisely with good judgment. If misunderstood

or misused, however,it can lead to consequences more disastrous than if we had never

intervened with our effort to think about risk.

POINT TWO: The risk of disastrous consequences from unwise interventions has ex-

isted from the dawn of any relationship among human beings on planet Earth that

might deserve the accolade of being called a “civilization,” by which I mean a struc-

ture for getting along with each other by means other than the exercise of, or credible

threat to exercise, raw power.

POINT THREE: The difficulties of working out social, cultural, political, and econom-

ic plans and practices for living together in at least moderate harmony seem to be

outrunning advances of science and social science toward producing enough more

services and goods, tangible and intangible, on planet Earth to enable everybody to

have a better life.

Robert E. Keeton is a United States District Judge for the District of Massachusetts. He is a graduate

of The University of Texas and Harvard University.

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