One of the profound weaknesses with the way Safety understands error, failure and mistakes is its assumptions about human personhood. If one comes at the issue of mistakes/error from a materialist, behaviourist or brain-centric philosophy, one views human error as some kind of mis-computation made by the brain.

The idea common in Western and Safety philosophy is that the brain acts like a computer and directs the body what to do. We see this in the dominant text, semiotics and discourse of traditional safety. Here are some examples:

 

Think Differently IOSH Magazine – https://www.ioshmagazine.com/2022/10/21/thinking-differently

The Neuroscience of safety Decisions – https://www.thesafetymag.com/ca/news/opinion/the-neuroscience-of-safety-decisions/547024

These images, semiotics, text and language in safety dominate the industry. Then when someone has such a worldview, the solution can only mean more brain re-programming.

All of this is premised on a lack of an ethic of personhood and human agency.

No wonder safety doesn’t want to talk about ethics.

 Even when Safety does venture into the discipline of Ethics, it never discusses personhood or human agency. It’s simply assumed that mindfulness is brain-fulness.

No wonder the safety industry is seduced by the discourse of ‘no blame’, because its philosophy assumes that decision making is conscious and brain-centric. BTW, there is no research evidence for this belief (https://safetyrisk.net/essential-readings-neuroscience-and-the-whole-person/).

It is as if the safety industry has intentionally ignored all the research into personhood, human agency and ethics, and found a model that suits its quest to brutalise people.

 If you are reading anything in safety on ethics and it doesn’t tackle the nature of human agency/personhood, then whoever you are reading has no expertise in Ethics. The same applies if the source discusses culture without reference to Religion.

 The best way to learn about Culture and Ethics is NOT to consult a source in safety.

Moreso, when we see Safety now venture into the seductions of AI, it takes the same assumption of brain-centrism and its trajectory to brutalise persons. AI can never have human agency, fallibility or personhood.

Similarly, when Safety now tackles the challenges of psychosocial risk without a comprehensive understanding of Mindfulness and human agency, it has little alternative but to retreat to counting and examining ‘hazards’. This is where the Safety worldview takes you, not to subjects but to objects (https://safetyrisk.net/the-safety-world-view-and-the-worldview-of-safety/ ).

There are many outstanding scholars who tackle the body-mind problem, the notion of Mindfulness and human agency and, its implications for risk and ethical practice. You won’t find these scholars in safety.

One scholar who tackles the complexities of Mindfulness is Prof. Karl. E. Weick, who has clearly drawn together the Eastern and Western philosophy of being (https://safetyrisk.net/eastern-mindfulness-weick-and-transdisciplinarity/) in relation to Mindfulness. You can read one of Weick’s paper here: https://www.academia.edu/24611432/An_exploration_of_mindfulness_theories_in_Eastern_and_Western_philosophies

In Western philosophy the focus is on the head, in Eastern philosophy the focus is on the body with the head. Put them together and you end up with a holistic understanding of personhood that is: embodied, inter-affected, inter-corporated and inter-subjective (further read Fuchs). Weick also discusses this (https://safetyrisk.net/inter-connectivity-inter-affectivity-and-inter-corporeality-in-weick/).

When it comes to Mindfulness (or projecting decisions about mindlessness), Safety needs to answer the critical question: what is the human body for?

If you view the body as just a carrier for a computer, then you ignore 95% of how all human decisions are made. Any decision that is intuitive, habitual, heuristical, unconscious or instinctive is not driven by the brain. Indeed, the brain is informed of decisions the body makes well after the movement has been made. As Claxton states: ‘the brain doesn’t make decisions, it hosts conversations’. Further read more of Prof. Guy Claxton here:

When one begins studying in SPoR, one has to unlearn the myth of brain-centrism. If not, one’s ethic, sense of human personhood and agency will remain warped and computational.

This is why we are studying the work of Prof. Karl. E. Weick in June. These workshops will start by un-learning the common myths held by Safety that hold it back when thinking about everything to do with MIndfulness, especially the fixation safety has with blame and human error.

The current discourse in safety that fixates on human error and blame as a problem reverts back to a problematic worldview anchored to a distortion about human personhood and agency.

One can talk about ‘revolutions in safety’ (https://safetyrisk.net/the-non-revolution-in-safety/) as much as one wants. But, until Safety jettisons the myth of brain-centric mindfulness, it will never understand why people do what they do.