Social impact evaluation : Some implications of the specific decisional context approach for anticipatory project assessment with special reference to available alternatives and to techniques of evaluating the social impacts of the anticipated effects of such alternatives

The implications are explored of the specific decision context approach to anticipatory project assessment. More specifically, it is hypothesized that with respect to any given effect of a proposed project or action (mobility, job opportunities, air pollution, population distribution, etc.) such effect will likely differ in probability and/or magnitude from one decisional context to another; that the social desirability or undesirability of a given effect is a function (will differ with) each specific decisional context; that therefore the social impact of such effect will in all likelihood differ with each specific decisional context; and that the social significance of even the dame social impact of a given effect will vary from one decisional context to another when such social impact interacts with (competes with or reinforces) the social impacts of other effects. It also follows from this analysis that the respective roles of scientific method (demonstrable data) and adversarial system will not only differ with each specific decisional context but with each alternative course of action available to the decisional entity in each specific context.